Privacy Policy

The short version

• We collect your information when you take part in the conference — for example when you join our email list, buy a ticket, request a visa invitation letter, apply to speak or for an Opportunity Grant, join our Slack workspace, or email us.
• We use it only to run the conference and do the thing you asked for, and to send you email you signed up for or that's about your order or the event.
• We don't sell your personal information or share it for advertising, and we run no advertising pixels or trackers on this site.
• A few things involve sensitive details — like passport information for visa letters, or Code of Conduct reports — and we handle those with extra care.
• The rest of this page explains each of these in plain language.

Who we are

DjangoCon US is run by the Django Events Foundation North America (DEFNA), a non-profit that organizes the conference. DEFNA is responsible for the information described here — the "data controller," in GDPR terms. If you have any questions about your privacy or want to exercise the rights described below, email us at hello@defna.org.

What we collect and why

We collect information you give us when you take part in the conference. We ask only for what a particular activity needs, and we use it only for that activity. Here's the full picture.

When you sign up for our email list, we collect your email address (and your name, if you give it), and use it to send you conference news and updates you asked for. The legal basis is your consent, which you can withdraw at any time — every email we send includes an unsubscribe link. Our email provider stores and sends these messages on our behalf.

When you buy a ticket, we collect the information needed to complete and register your order — typically your name, email address, and billing details, plus anything you choose to add, such as dietary or accessibility needs. Payment is handled by our ticketing provider; we don't store your card details. We use this to fulfill your order, register you, and contact you about your ticket and the event. The legal basis is our contract with you to provide the ticket. We also keep limited records to meet our legal and accounting obligations, and we use your information to run the event smoothly (our legitimate interest in operating the conference).

When you request a visa invitation letter on our invitation page, we collect the details a consulate needs to see on the letter: your full name, home address, date of birth, and passport number. We use these only to prepare and issue your letter — the information goes to a volunteer-run service that generates the letter, and our organizers review it before emailing it to you. This is sensitive information, so we limit who can see it and keep it only as long as we need to issue your letter. The legal basis is your consent, given when you submit the request.

When you email us — at hello@djangocon.us or one of our other published addresses (for the program, sponsorship, grants, visas, or sprints) — we receive whatever you include in your message and use it to respond and handle your request. The legal basis is our legitimate interest in answering you.

When you report a Code of Conduct concern, in person or by email, the Code of Conduct team receives what you share and uses it only to respond to and address the report. We treat these reports as confidential and limit access to the people handling them. This can be sensitive information, and we handle it with care, on the basis of our legitimate interest in running a safe event and, where they apply, our legal obligations.

We also use a few third-party platforms to run parts of the conference, each with its own privacy policy: pretalx for talk proposals, Google Forms for Opportunity Grant applications, Slack for our community chat, Tito for ticketing, and Threadless for merchandise. When you use one of these, you provide your information to that platform, and we receive and use only what we need to run that part of the event. (Threadless handles merchandise sales and payment directly; we never receive your card details.)

From time to time we run other conference sign-ups — things like volunteer shifts, lightning talk sign-ups, travel or safety check-ins, and sponsor inquiries. Whenever we do, we ask only for the information that activity needs and use it only for that purpose.

Who we share it with

We share your information only with the service providers and platforms that help us run the conference, and only what they need to do their job:

• our ticketing provider (to process your order and registration) and our email provider (to send the emails you signed up for);
• the third-party platforms named above — pretalx, Google Forms, Slack, and Threadless — when you choose to use them, each under its own privacy policy;
• a volunteer-run service that generates visa invitation letters from the details you submit on our invitation page.

We may also disclose information if we're required to by law.

We do not sell your information, and we do not share it with advertisers — see Advertising and tracking below.

Advertising and tracking

We advertise DjangoCon US on platforms such as Reddit, LinkedIn, and Google. Unlike most websites, we install no advertising pixels, conversion tags, or interest-based tracking tools on this site. Clicking one of our ads simply brings you here — those platforms don't get a tracker running on our pages, and they don't learn what you do once you arrive.

Cookies

We use a single, first-party cookie, and only to see which ad brought you here. When you arrive from one of our ads, a small script reads the campaign tag from the link's address and stores it in a cookie set by this site — not by a third party. If you go on to buy a ticket, we pass that campaign tag to our ticketing provider so we can tell which ad led to the purchase. That's the whole purpose: it holds only the campaign identifier, nothing about who you are, and it's never shared with the advertising platforms.

You're in control of it. You can block or delete it in your browser's cookie settings, and it's only ever set if you arrive by clicking one of our ads — come to the site directly and it's never set at all.

We'll be straight with you about consent banners: we don't use one. We don't think the pop-ups that greet you on nearly every site do much for anyone's privacy, and this single cookie stores only which campaign referred you — no profile, no personal details. We'd rather explain plainly what we do here than ask you to dismiss a banner.

International data transfers

Our service providers are based in the United States, so if you're in the EU or UK, your information is processed in the US. We work with providers that handle personal data under appropriate safeguards.

How long we keep it

We keep your information only as long as we need it for the purposes described above. If you're on our email list, we keep your details until you unsubscribe. We keep ticket and order records for as long as we need them to run the event and to meet our legal and accounting obligations, after which we delete or anonymize them. We keep the sensitive details you give us — passport information for a visa letter, or a Code of Conduct report — only as long as we need them for that specific purpose, and then we delete them.

Your rights

You can ask us to access the information we hold about you, correct it, or delete it; ask for a copy; restrict or object to certain uses; and unsubscribe from our emails at any time. If you're in the EU or UK, these are your rights under the GDPR — including the right to withdraw consent and to lodge a complaint with your local data protection authority. If you're in California, you have comparable rights under the CCPA. We honor these requests regardless of where you live.

We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share it for advertising.

To exercise any of these rights, email us at hello@defna.org.

Children's privacy

DjangoCon US is a professional event for adults. This site and our services aren't directed to children (under 13, or under 16 in the EU), and we don't knowingly collect their personal information.

Changes to this policy

If our practices change, we'll update this page and revise the "Last updated" date below.

Contact

If you have any questions about this policy or the information we hold about you, email us at hello@djangocon.us.

Last updated: July 27, 2026.