Privacy Policy

Mehgan is an invite-only expert network for the Iranian diaspora analyst community, focused on circles including internet freedom, human rights, women's rights, and environmental policy. This policy explains what data we collect, how we use it, and your rights regarding that data.

We collect only the information you provide during signup and onboarding:

• Your authentication identity (email address or OAuth account with Google)
• The name or pseudonym you choose to display
• Professional role and circle of expertise, as selected during onboarding
• Organization and location, if you choose to provide them
• Your responses to surveys on the platform
• Quotes you submit for publication

We do not require your real name. You may sign up with any email address and use a pseudonym throughout the platform.

Your data is used solely to operate the Mehgan platform:

• To authenticate you and maintain your session
• To route surveys to members in your circle of expertise
• To compile aggregated research findings from survey responses
• To display your public profile to other members (name, role, circle)

We do not sell your data, share it with advertisers, or use it for any purpose outside operating Mehgan.

Survey responses are the core of what Mehgan produces. When you submit a survey response, that response becomes part of Mehgan's research record.

If you delete your account or leave the platform, your survey responses are retained in our database without personal attribution. We keep this data because it forms part of a collective research record that others have relied upon. The data will remain but will no longer be linked to your name, email, or profile.

This means: you will not be identified as the source of any retained survey response after account deletion, but the response data itself — your substantive answers — will remain in our system.

Mehgan invites members to submit expert quotes for potential publication on the platform and in external research outputs (reports, policy briefs, media summaries).

Once a quote is approved and published, it cannot be retracted. Published quotes become part of the public research record. If you submitted the quote under your real name, that attribution is permanent. If you submitted anonymously, no name is attached — but the quote text itself remains.

Before submitting a quote, consider carefully whether you are comfortable with it being permanently attributed to you (or permanently published without attribution, if submitted anonymously). You will be asked to confirm this at the time of submission.

Mehgan is designed with the security of its members in mind. Many members are activists, journalists, or researchers operating in contexts where public identification poses real risks.

• You may sign up with any email address — your real email is never displayed to other members
• You may use a pseudonym as your display name throughout the platform
• Survey responses can be submitted anonymously (your name is not attached to your answers in aggregated outputs)
• Quotes can be submitted anonymously, in which case they are published without any attribution

We do retain the internal link between your account and your responses for as long as your account exists, but this is never disclosed to other members or external parties.

All Mehgan data is stored on servers located outside Iran. We use Supabase (hosted on AWS infrastructure in the United States and EU) for data storage and authentication.

Access to raw member data is restricted to Mehgan administrators. We use row-level security controls to enforce this.

We recommend accessing Mehgan through Tor Browser or a VPN if you are located in or near Iran, or in any environment where your internet traffic may be monitored.

You may request account deletion at any time by contacting us. When your account is deleted:

• Your name, email, profile, and login credentials are removed
• Your survey responses are retained without attribution (see above)
• Any quotes you submitted that were published remain published (see above)
• Any quotes pending review at the time of deletion are discarded

For privacy questions, data requests, or account deletion, contact us at privacy@mehgan.net.