Guardrails
Supporter missions you can defend in public.
Any mission you send could end up in a newspaper. These guardrails make sure that's fine. They apply to every workspace, every plan, and our own team.
01
Real people, in their own words
The strength of a member organization is the number of real people behind it. Ostracon is built to use that strength and never to fake it. Every mission goes to a real supporter who chose to join, acts from their own account, and decides for themselves whether to take part.
Missions ask supporters to write in their own words. Ostracon gives them an angle, a content guide, and draft variations to choose from. When a coordinator writes one fixed text for everyone, the composer warns that platforms treat identical posts as spam, and your workspace admin decides whether fixed texts are allowed at all.
02
Who can use Ostracon
Ostracon is closed software, available only to vetted progressive organizations: unions, parties, NGOs and coalitions, and the trainers who work with them. We sell software and training. Your own staff write and send every mission.
Before a workspace opens, we check:
- Who you are. The organization's legal identity, its leadership, and the people who will hold coordinator accounts.
- What it is for. The campaigns and members the workspace will serve.
- That you accept these guardrails. They are part of the contract.
- A named decision. A named person at Ostracon approves each workspace, and we record it.
We may decline any application, and we close a workspace that breaks these guardrails.
03
What Ostracon will not do
These limits are built into the product, so no setting, plan, or request can switch them on.
No fake voices
Ostracon has no bots, fake accounts, AI personas, or bought engagement, and does not connect to any. Inauthentic behavior breaks platform rules and the law, and one exposure would hand opponents their best story.
No mass reporting
There is no report-this-post mission type. Coordinated reporting abuses platform tools. If a supporter reports something, they do it on their own.
No rewards or points
Supporters are never paid, ranked, or rewarded for completing missions. Rewards can turn a personal post into political advertising under EU rules, and supporters who act because they agree are more convincing.
No posting on anyone's behalf
Ostracon never posts, replies, or messages from a supporter's account. Supporters keep their own logins and their own voice.
No deleted missions
A sent mission can't be deleted or edited, by you or by us. See the mission archive.
04
The mission archive
Every mission is stored exactly as it went out, with its approver, send time, target groups, and number of recipients. Decisions to ignore a trend are logged too. The archive is read only and can be exported to PDF or CSV at any time.
If a mission leaks, or a journalist asks what your organization asked its members to do, you can show them the full record in minutes. Organizations that delete their instructions end up explaining why. Ostracon makes sure you never have to.
05
Supporter consent and data
A supporter list can reveal someone's political opinion or union membership, which the GDPR treats as special category data. Ostracon handles it that way everywhere, not only in the EU.
- Explicit consent. Every supporter consents when they join. Ostracon stores the consent text version and the time.
- Stop at any time. Supporters can stop missions with one tap, and their profile is removed.
- Your data, our processing. Your organization controls the supporter data. Ostracon processes it only to run your workspace, under a processing agreement.
- No sharing. Supporters, missions, and results never cross between workspaces, and we never sell or reuse them.
06
AI with a person in charge
AI in Ostracon drafts briefings, missions, variations, and translations. A coordinator edits and approves everything before it reaches a supporter. Every AI-generated image carries a visible label that can't be removed in the composer, in line with the EU AI Act's transparency rules.
EU hosting by default. Other hosting regions and AI providers, including an EU-only model, are available on request for larger organizations.
07
Data retention
We keep data only as long as the work needs it. Each workspace's data stays in its hosting region, the EU unless you chose another.
| Data | Kept for |
|---|---|
| Supporter profiles and consent records | Until the supporter stops, or 30 days after the contract ends |
| Mission archive | The life of the workspace. Handed over in full when the contract ends |
| Completions and submitted post links | 24 months |
| Member feed reports | 90 days |
| Demo requests from this website | 12 months |
These periods are a draft for the pilot and will be confirmed with legal review before launch. A workspace can ask us to delete its data at any time, and we confirm deletion in writing.
08
Changes to these guardrails
Each version is dated. We tell every workspace about material changes at least 30 days before they take effect, and earlier versions stay available on request.