Manage privacy and data handling

Quackback is self-hosted, so your feedback data stays on your infrastructure. You control storage, encryption, and what (if anything) leaves your network.

Data ownership

You own all data in your Quackback instance. Nothing is sent to external servers by default. Your database, your rules.

Self-hosting means you are both the data controller and data processor. This simplifies compliance because no third party touches your data.

The only exception is AI features. When enabled, specific data is sent to OpenAI for processing. See AI data handling below.

What Quackback stores

Category	Data stored
Users	Email address, display name, avatar URL
Posts	Title, content, board, status, tags
Votes	User ID, post ID, timestamp
Comments	Author, content, parent post
Sessions	Session token, user ID, expiry
Integrations	OAuth tokens, webhook URLs, channel mappings

Encryption

Tokens and secrets

Integration OAuth tokens (Slack, Discord, GitHub, Linear) are encrypted with AES-256-GCM using your ENCRYPTION_KEY environment variable.

Set a strong, unique ENCRYPTION_KEY before connecting any integrations. Changing this key later invalidates all stored tokens.

Passwords

Team member passwords are hashed with bcrypt. Plain-text passwords are never stored or logged.

Sessions

Session tokens are cryptographically random. Sessions expire after 7 days of inactivity.

AI data handling

When you enable AI features, Quackback sends data to OpenAI for processing.

What is sent

Feature	Data sent to OpenAI
Post summaries	Post title and content
Comment summaries	Comment text for the target post
Semantic search	Post content for embedding generation
Auto-tagging	Post title and content

What is not sent

User emails, passwords, session data, and integration tokens are never sent to OpenAI.

Disable AI features

Set the following environment variable to disable all AI functionality:

DISABLE_AI=true

Disabling AI removes summary generation, semantic search, and auto-tagging. Existing embeddings remain in your database but are no longer used.

Telemetry

Quackback collects minimal anonymous telemetry to improve the product: instance ID, version number, and feature usage counts. No user data or feedback content is included.

Disable telemetry with:

DISABLE_TELEMETRY=true

User data deletion

Delete a user and their associated data. Go to Admin → Settings → Users → select the user → Delete User.

Data	Behavior
User record	Permanently deleted
Posts	Attributed to "Deleted User"
Votes	Removed and counts recalculated
Comments	Attributed to "Deleted User"
Sessions	Immediately invalidated

Posts and comments are preserved but anonymized. This maintains thread continuity and accurate vote history for your team.

Data retention

Data	Retention
Active posts	Kept until manually deleted
Soft-deleted posts	Permanently removed after 30 days
Sessions	Expire after 7 days of inactivity
Webhook failure logs	Cleared after 7 days
Audit logs	Kept indefinitely

As a self-hosted deployment, you are the data controller. Quackback is the software, not a data processor.

Your responsibilities include:

Maintain a record of processing activities
Respond to data subject access requests within 30 days
Notify authorities of breaches within 72 hours
Provide a lawful basis for processing feedback data

Use the user deletion flow to fulfill right-to-erasure requests. For data portability, export feedback via CSV from Admin → Settings → Boards → Export Data. See Import and export data for details.

For GDPR subject access requests, export board data as CSV and filter by the user's email address.

Security best practices

Protect your instance and your users' data:

Use TLS — Run Quackback behind a reverse proxy (Nginx, Caddy) with HTTPS enabled
Rotate secrets — Change your ENCRYPTION_KEY and SESSION_SECRET periodically
Back up regularly — Schedule automated database backups
Restrict access — Limit dashboard access to trusted team members
Keep updated — Pull the latest Docker image for security patches

See Configure team security for authentication and sign-in settings.

Next steps

Configure team security — Set up team authentication and sign-in methods
Deploy with Docker — Run Quackback on your own infrastructure
Import and export data — Back up or migrate your feedback data