Legal

Privacy Policy

Effective date: July 7, 2026

CemeteryLedger ("CemeteryLedger," "we," "us") operates cemeteryledger.com, a public grave locator built by community contributors and an operations platform for cemetery organizations. This policy explains what information we collect, how we use it, and — most importantly — the two very different categories of data that live on this platform.

The two kinds of data on CemeteryLedger

Understanding this distinction is the key to understanding how CemeteryLedger works.

1. Public contribution data — public, and part of the CemeteryLedger record

When a visitor, family member, or genealogist submits a headstone photo, location, transcription, memorial note, or similar material through our public contribution tools, that material is submitted for the purpose of publication. Once accepted into the ledger, it becomes part of the permanent public record and is the property of CemeteryLedger. It is visible to anyone, indexed by search engines, and intended to remain available indefinitely so that families and researchers can always find it.

You do not need an account to contribute, and contributions are anonymous by default. If you choose to give us your email address after a submission (to receive updates about a cemetery), we use it only for those updates and never publish it alongside your contribution.

2. Cemetery operations data — private, and the property of the cemetery

Cemetery organizations that claim their grounds and use our operations platform enter business records: official burial and interment registers, plot and niche inventory, interment rights and ownership records, work orders, grave file documents, staff accounts, and billing information. This data is private and remains the property of the cemetery organization that entered it. CemeteryLedger acts as its custodian. We do not sell it, share it with other cemeteries, or publish it — except for the specific fields a cemetery deliberately publishes to its public profile (for example, confirming an interment record so it appears in the public grave locator).

Cemetery organizations may export their operations data at any time and may request a complete copy of their records if they leave the platform.

Permanent record keeping for cemetery managers

Cemetery records are not ordinary business data. Burial registers and interment rights are, in most jurisdictions, records that must be kept in perpetuity. CemeteryLedger is built around that obligation:

• Official records are stored durably in redundant, professionally managed cloud infrastructure with continuous backups.
• Changes to official records are captured in an append-only audit log — who changed what, and when — so the history of the record is itself part of the record.
• We do not silently delete cemetery records. If a subscription lapses, the cemetery's official records are retained and remain available for export; they are not purged for non-payment.
• Records confirmed to the public ledger remain findable by families and researchers regardless of the cemetery's subscription status, preserving continuity of the public record.

Information we collect

• Public contributions — photos, approximate GPS location of the photographed grave, transcribed names and dates, and optional notes. Location data attached to a submission describes the grave, not you, and is published with the record.
• Contributor contact details (optional) — an email address if you opt in to updates about a cemetery you documented.
• Account information — name, email, and password (stored hashed) for cemetery staff and registered users.
• Cemetery operations data — the private business records described above, entered by cemetery organizations.
• Billing information — handled by Stripe, our payment processor. We do not store card numbers.
• Technical data — IP addresses and basic request logs used for security, rate limiting, and abuse prevention.

How we use information

• To publish and maintain the public grave record.
• To operate the private cemetery management platform for each organization.
• To review public submissions with automated (AI-assisted) and human moderation before or shortly after publication. Submitted photos may be processed by an AI service to detect inappropriate content and to read names and dates from headstones.
• To send transactional email: account access, staff invitations, moderation notices, billing notices, and cemetery updates you opted into.
• To secure the platform, prevent abuse, and comply with legal obligations.

Service providers

We rely on a small set of infrastructure providers to run the service: Vercel (hosting and file storage), Neon (database), Stripe (payments), Resend (email), and OpenAI (automated content review of public submissions). Each receives only the data needed to perform its function.

Cookies and sessions

We use cookies solely to keep signed-in users signed in. We do not use advertising cookies or sell data to advertisers.

Removal requests and privacy flags

Although the public ledger is intended to be permanent, we recognize legitimate privacy concerns. Family members may request a privacy flag on a specific record (for example, for a recent death), and we will review takedown requests for content that is inaccurate, unlawful, or harmful. Contact us at support@cemeteryledger.com.

Children

CemeteryLedger is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from them.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. Material changes will be reflected by a new effective date on this page, and, for cemetery organizations, notice by email.

Contact

Questions about this policy or your data: support@cemeteryledger.com.