Mei ID Desk · Policy
Privacy notice for Mei ID Desk submissions
What we store when you send a mei or an owner report, why, for how long, and how to have it deleted. This adds to our general privacy page.
1. Who is responsible
The Mei ID Desk is run by The JKI Editors (JKI編集部), Tokyo, who are responsible for (the “controller” of) the personal data described here. Contact: hello@japaneseknifeindex.com. See also our general privacy page.
2. What we store
| Data | Why | Public? |
|---|---|---|
| Email address | To send your reading, ask follow-up questions and handle removal requests | Never |
| Handle (optional) | To credit your photos and report | Yes, if you chose to publish |
| Photos of the knife | To read the mei; to publish if you agreed | Only if you chose “publish” |
| Ownership photo (owner reports) | To check that you have the knife | Never |
| What you tell us about the knife, your ratings and report text | To read the mei and publish your report | Report and knife details: yes, if published. “What you already know”: only as summarised by us |
| Disclosure answers (trade connection, gifted/discounted) | To label reports correctly | As a label |
| A keyed hash of your IP address and of your browser's user-agent string; time of submission | To limit abuse and spot coordinated fake reports. We do not store your IP address itself | Never |
| Spam-check result | Cloudflare Turnstile checks that a person, not a bot, sent the form | Never |
Photos are resized in your browser before upload, which normally strips camera metadata such as GPS location. We remove any remaining metadata before publishing, and blur faces, addresses or other personal details that appear in the background.
3. Legal bases (UK and EU readers)
- To answer your request and publish what you asked us to publish: performance of our agreement with you under the submission terms, and your consent to publication, which you can withdraw at any time.
- To prevent spam, fraud and fake reviews, and to keep moderation records: our legitimate interest, and our obligations under consumer-protection law, in keeping reviews on this site genuine.
4. Who can see it
Only The JKI Editors can see unpublished submissions. Our service provider Cloudflare hosts the site and stores submissions (Cloudflare Pages, D1 database, KV storage) and runs Turnstile, acting on our instructions. Cloudflare may process data in countries other than yours, including the United States, under its data-processing terms and standard contractual safeguards. We do not sell or rent your data, do not use it for advertising, and do not add you to The Index Letter or any other mailing list. Published content is public and can be seen, and indexed by search engines, by anyone.
5. How long we keep it
| Data | Kept for |
|---|---|
| Declined submissions, and requests answered privately (all photos and text) | Deleted 30 days after our decision or reply |
| Ownership photo | Deleted 30 days after our decision; we keep only a note that it was checked and on what date |
| Full-size original photos of published cases | Deleted 30 days after publication; the resized published copies stay until you ask for removal |
| Published case, photos and report | Until you ask us to remove them, or we withdraw the case |
| Email address | Deleted 90 days after our final decision, unless we are still corresponding with you about the case |
| Email conversations with us | Deleted 12 months after the matter is closed |
| IP and user-agent hashes | 90 days |
| Rate-limit counters | 2 days |
| Moderation log (reference number, decision, reason code, dates — no email, no photos) | 3 years |
6. Your choices and rights
You can ask us at any time to see the data we hold about you, correct it, delete it, or take down a published case or report. Email hello@japaneseknifeindex.com from the address you used, or quote your submission reference. We act on removal requests normally within 7 days and answer other requests within 30 days. To protect you, we may ask you to confirm that the request comes from you.
Depending on where you live, you may also have the right to object to processing, to restrict it, or to data portability, and to complain to a data-protection authority — for example the UK Information Commissioner's Office, the authority in your EU country, or Japan's Personal Information Protection Commission. We would appreciate the chance to sort out any concern first.
7. Children
The Mei ID Desk is for adults. Please do not submit if you are under 18. If we learn that a submission came from a child, we delete it.
8. Changes
We will date any change to this notice and, if it affects how we use data you have already sent, tell you by email first.
Version 2026-10-17. See also: Content & review policy · Submission terms & photo licence · Submission privacy notice · Not an authentication · Corrections · Affiliate disclosure.