Legal

PRIVACY POLICY

How we handle your data in the ring.

Last updated: April 2026

The Vocalist Producer Challenge (VPC) is a community music competition. This policy explains what data we collect, how we use it, and your rights as a participant. We collect only what is necessary to run the competition and never sell your data.

01

WHAT WE COLLECT

  • Discord account information — When you register a team through our Discord bot, we store your Discord user ID, display name, and team details (team name, partner info, role). This is necessary to run the competition.
  • Song submissions — MP3 files, album art, lyrics, and challenge notes you submit during competition rounds. These are stored securely and used solely for competition purposes.
  • Voting data — Vote records tied to Discord user IDs, used to calculate competition standings.
  • YouTube upload metadata — When we publish competition entries to YouTube, we use the YouTube API to upload videos to our official channel. We do not access your personal YouTube account or Google data.
02

HOW WE USE IT

  • Running the Vocalist Producer Challenge competition — managing teams, processing submissions, tracking votes, and publishing results.
  • Generating and uploading competition videos to the official VPC YouTube channel for public listening and community voting.
  • Displaying team profiles, leaderboards, and round results on this website.
  • Sending competition-related notifications through our Discord server (round openings, submission reminders, results).
03

THIRD-PARTY SERVICES

  • Discord — Our bot operates within Discord's platform. Your use of Discord is governed by Discord's Privacy Policy.
  • YouTube API Services — We use the YouTube API to upload competition videos to our official channel. We do not access participants' YouTube accounts. Our use of the YouTube API is subject to YouTube's Terms of Service and Google's Privacy Policy.
  • Amazon Web Services (AWS) — Submission files and team logos are stored in AWS S3. Database records are stored in AWS RDS. Both are encrypted and access-restricted.
  • We do not sell, share, or transfer your personal data to any third party for advertising or marketing purposes.
04

DATA RETENTION

  • Competition data (teams, submissions, votes) is retained for the duration of VPC 8 and a reasonable period afterward for archival purposes.
  • You may request deletion of your team and associated data at any time by contacting a competition administrator or using the /leave-team command in Discord.
  • When a team is deleted, associated submissions, votes, and pipeline data are automatically removed from our systems.
  • YouTube videos of competition entries remain on the official VPC channel as part of the public competition archive. Contact an administrator if you need a video removed.
05

YOUR RIGHTS

  • Access — View your team profile and submission status at any time through our Discord bot.
  • Correction — Update your team information using the /edit-team command.
  • Deletion — Request removal of your data by leaving your team or contacting an administrator.
  • Google API data — You can revoke our application's access to Google services at any time via your Google Account permissions.
06

SECURITY

  • All database queries use parameterized statements to prevent injection attacks.
  • File uploads are validated for type, size, and content before processing.
  • API credentials are stored as environment variables, never in source code.
  • Administrative actions are logged to an audit trail.
  • AWS infrastructure uses encryption at rest and in transit, with access restricted by IAM policies.
07

CONTACT

  • For privacy questions, data requests, or concerns, reach out to a competition administrator in our Discord server.