Cookie and tracker policy
Last updated: 27 July 2026
This page lists everything usa.opencongress.app writes to or reads from your device: its name, storage mechanism, purpose, retention, and processor.
No analytics tracker is initialized before you choose. Until you answer the banner, nothing is written to your device and no data is sent to a third party for these purposes.
Strictly necessary
Required to operate the service or to record your choice. Exempt from consent.
| Name | Storage | Purpose | Retention | Processor |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| oc_consent_v1 | localStorage | Remembers whether you accepted or refused analytics. | 6 months | OpenCongress (first party, never transferred) |
| authjs.session-token / __Secure-authjs.session-token | Cookie | Keeps you signed in to your account. | 30 days of inactivity, extended each time you use the site — or until you sign out | OpenCongress (first party) |
| theme | localStorage | Remembers your light/dark theme choice. | Until you clear it | OpenCongress (first party) |
Analytics and diagnostics (consent required)
Only run if you accept. Refused or unanswered, they are never initialized.
| Name | Storage | Purpose | Retention | Processor |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ph_<project key>_posthog | sessionStorage | Product analytics: pages viewed, features used, sign-up funnel. If you are signed in, your account id, email address and name are attached to that profile. It is therefore identifying, not anonymous. No advertising, never sold. | Cleared when the tab closes; events are then held by PostHog for the period set in our contract with them (see posthog.com/privacy) | PostHog Inc. — United States processor |
| sentry-* / sentryReplaySession | sessionStorage | Error diagnostics, including on-error session replay — a buffer of the page activity leading up to an error is uploaded so the bug can be reproduced. All text is masked and media is blocked before it leaves your browser; there is no continuous recording. | Cleared when the tab closes; errors and replays are then held by Sentry for the period set in our contract with them (see sentry.io/privacy) | Functional Software, Inc. (Sentry) — United States processor |
| /_vercel/insights (no storage) | None — cookieless beacon | Aggregate audience measurement (page views, referrers). | Aggregates retained by Vercel | Vercel Inc. — United States processor |
Legal basis
Analytics and error diagnostics run on your consent. No legitimate-interest basis is claimed for them. Nor do they qualify for any strictly-anonymous-statistics exemption: the data stays identifying once you are signed in, and it is transferred to processors established in the United States.
Strictly necessary items — your sign-in session, theme, language and the record of this choice — rest on providing the service you asked for and on honouring your own decision, and do not require consent.
What PostHog receives when you are signed in
While you are signed out, PostHog receives only a technical identifier generated on your device. As soon as you sign in we send it your account id, your email address and your name, so that usage can be tied to a real account.
That processing is therefore nominative rather than anonymous, and it is one of the reasons it is opt-in. After a withdrawal the identifier is reset and no further events are sent.
On-error session replay
There is no continuous recording of your browsing. Sentry keeps a buffer of page activity in memory, in your browser, and uploads it only if an error actually occurs.
Before anything is uploaded, all text is masked and images, video and other media are blocked. Replay only runs after you accept, and a withdrawal stops the recording and discards the buffer rather than sending it.
Withdrawing your consent
Withdrawal must be as easy as consent. The “Manage cookies” button below reopens the same choice, at any time, in one click.
After a withdrawal, capture stops immediately and the identifiers PostHog already set are cleared as far as its SDK allows. No reload is needed.
Global Privacy Control
If your browser sends the Global Privacy Control (GPC) signal, we treat it as a refusal: nothing is initialized and the banner is not shown.
The absence of a signal is never read as agreement — without an explicit choice the state stays “not set”, which blocks just as hard.
Transfers outside the European Union
PostHog, Sentry and Vercel are established in the United States. The analytics and diagnostics data you allow is therefore transferred outside the EU, on the basis of the European Commission's standard contractual clauses.
That is exactly why these are opt-in rather than on by default.
Manage your choice
Your choice is stored locally and re-asked after six months.
For everything else we process, see the privacy policy.