Safety and privacy

Speaking out can have consequences — for you, your family, your work or your legal situation. Protecting the people who trust us comes before publishing anything.

If you share your story

You choose how you appear. Real name, pseudonym or fully anonymous. With or without your face. With or without your voice. You can change your mind at any point before publication, and ask us to withdraw your testimony at any point after it.

We remove what could identify you. If you choose a pseudonym or anonymity, we change or remove names, places, dates, units and other details that could point to you or your family. We will show you the result before publishing.

We alter images and voices when needed. For anonymous video or audio we can hide your face, film you in silhouette, and alter your voice. We strip hidden metadata (such as location and device) from every photo, audio and video file we publish.

Your messages stay private. The form travels encrypted over HTTPS and goes straight to an encrypted mailbox. Our website does not keep a copy of your message. Only the editor who handles your case reads it, and we never share your contact details with anyone.

We keep as little as possible. We do not keep copies of identity documents. Interview recordings and raw notes are stored encrypted and deleted after publication, unless you ask us to keep them.

Practical advice before you write to us

  • Use a personal device and network, not a work or shared one.
  • A Proton address, or a new email address that does not include your name, is a good choice.
  • If you are at higher risk, consider using the Tor Browser.
  • If your story involves refusing military service or other legal matters, seek independent legal advice before publishing.

No system is perfectly safe. If you are unsure, write to us first without details, and we can talk about the safest way to proceed.

If you read this website

  • No cookies and no tracking. We do not use advertising, analytics trackers or social media plugins.
  • No third-party fonts or scripts. Fonts are served from our own site. The only third-party script is Cloudflare Turnstile, on the form page, which protects it from spam.
  • Our host. The site runs on Cloudflare, which processes technical data such as IP addresses to deliver pages and defend against attacks.
  • Videos. Embedded videos come from Cloudflare Stream or YouTube’s privacy-enhanced mode, and only load when you scroll to them.

Report a problem

If you find a security issue, or something on this site puts someone at risk, write to contact@unsettledvoices.org. We will act on it as a priority.