Privacy
Toronto Through Time (torontothroughtime.com) is run by Andreas Duess in Toronto, Canada. This page says what the site learns about you and what it does with it. The short version: there are no accounts and no forms, and the site does not ask for your name or email.
What the site collects
Visit counts, through Google Analytics. The site uses a Google tag to count visits: which pages are opened, roughly where visitors are (country or city), what kind of device and browser they use, and which site sent them. Google sets cookies to do this. Google handles this information under its own privacy policy.
If you are in the European Union, the wider European Economic Area, the United Kingdom or Switzerland, the Google tag is loaded only if you press "Accept" on the cookie notice. If you press "No thanks", it is never loaded.
Server records. The site is hosted by Cloudflare. Like every web host, Cloudflare sees the internet address (IP address) of each request and keeps short-lived records to run the service and stop abuse. To decide whether to show the cookie notice, the site asks Cloudflare which country a visit comes from. That answer is not stored.
What is kept in your browser
The site saves a few settings in your own browser's storage so it works the way you left it: whether the layers panel is open, and your cookie choice. These stay on your device. They are not cookies and are not sent anywhere.
Other services your browser talks to
To draw the map and the live layers, your browser fetches data straight from these services. Each one sees your IP address, as any website you visit does. The site sends them nothing else about you.
| Service | What it provides | When |
|---|---|---|
| OpenFreeMap | Today's water and the lettering on the map | Always |
| Toronto Transit Commission (through Umo) | Where buses and streetcars are | In today's year, with that layer on |
| Bike Share Toronto | Stations and bike counts | In today's year, with that layer on |
| Environment and Climate Change Canada, Open-Meteo | Today's weather | In today's year |
| City of Toronto | Air photos | With the aerial layer on |
| Visit counts (see above) | Outside Europe, or after you accept |
The old photographs, the story's audio and the map data are served by this site itself.
What the site does not do
- It does not sell or share information about visitors.
- It does not show ads.
- It does not build profiles of visitors.
Your choices and rights
You can use the site with cookies blocked; everything works the same. You can change your cookie choice with the link above, or clear the site's data in your browser's settings.
Depending on where you live, you may have the right to ask what information is held about you, to have it corrected or deleted, and to object to its use. The site itself holds no information that names you. To ask anything about privacy, write to andreas@duess.com. If you are in Canada and are not satisfied with the answer, you can contact the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada. If you are in Europe, you can contact your local data protection authority.
Changes
If this page changes, the date at the top changes with it.