Privacy Notice

Virtual Fly Brain Privacy Notice

Last updated: May 2026

The Virtual Fly Brain (VFB) project is committed to protecting your privacy and keeping you informed about how your personal information is used. This privacy notice explains how we collect, use, and protect your personal data when you visit our website.

What information do we collect?

Website analytics (Google Analytics 4). We use Google Analytics 4 to understand how the site is used. When you visit a page, your IP address is sent to Google for the purpose of deriving an approximate geographic location, and is then discarded; the raw IP is not stored against your analytics record. The data we receive is aggregated and includes:

• Approximate geographic location (city/country level)
• Browser type and version
• Operating system
• Referring website
• Pages visited and time spent on each page

Web-server logs. Our front-end load balancers and application containers produce request logs that include your IP address. These logs are short-lived and operational only — they are not persisted beyond the lifetime of the running container and are lost on restart.

We do not collect personally identifiable information such as names, email addresses or contact details unless you voluntarily provide them through our contact forms, feedback links or community channels.

How do we use this information?

The information collected helps us:

• Understand how our website is used
• Improve the user experience and content
• Identify technical issues
• Analyze website traffic patterns
• Support our research by understanding user interests in neuroanatomical data

Cookies

Google Analytics 4 sets cookies on your browser to distinguish your visits. The Geppetto 3D web client sets a session cookie to maintain application state during a visit. A full list of cookies set by Virtual Fly Brain, with their purposes and expiry, is on the Cookies page, which also explains how to opt out of Google Analytics.

For Google’s processing details see Google’s Privacy & Terms.

Legal Basis for Processing

Our processing of your personal data is based on:

• Legitimate interests: To improve our website and research services
• Consent: Where you have provided it for specific purposes

Data Sharing and Disclosure

We do not sell, rent or trade your personal information.

Analytics data collected by Google Analytics may be processed by Google on servers located in the United States. International transfers are covered by the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework (Commission Implementing Decision (EU) 2023/1795); Google is certified under the framework. The UK extension to the framework applies for UK-origin data.

Data Retention

Analytics data is retained for up to 26 months, after which it is automatically deleted.

Your Rights

Under data protection law, you have rights including:

• Access: Request a copy of your personal data
• Rectification: Correct inaccurate data
• Erasure: Request deletion of your data
• Restriction: Limit how we process your data
• Objection: Object to processing based on legitimate interests
• Portability: Receive your data in a structured format

Contact Us

If you have questions about this privacy notice or wish to exercise your rights, please contact:

Data Protection Officer
University of Edinburgh
Old College
South Bridge
Edinburgh EH8 9YL
Email: dpo@ed.ac.uk

VFB Project Team
Email: data@virtualflybrain.org

Changes to this Privacy Notice

We may update this privacy notice from time to time. Any changes will be posted on this page with an updated revision date.

This privacy notice is supported by the University of Edinburgh’s wider privacy policies. For more information, visit the University Data Protection webpages.