How the record is kept
The rules behind every entry on the privacy timeline.
What gets included
Events that change what happens to people’s private data, with a focus on AI and personal data. Every entry has one category:
- Breaches and leaks: exposed chats, prompts, health and personal data.
- Policy changes: privacy policy and terms changes, training on user content, longer retention, removed opt-outs.
- Overreach: court orders to keep or hand over logs, law enforcement access, scanning of private content.
- Regulation: new laws, regulator actions, fines and rulings.
Any company can appear.
Primary sources only
Each entry links to one primary source: the company’s own policy page or post, a regulator, a court record, an official breach notice or a government publication. News reports can point us to an event, but they are never the cited source. A figure that appears only in news coverage is left out.
Neutral wording
Each entry is one factual sentence: what changed, and the number or rule behind it. No adjectives, no judgment and no guessing about motives. Company names are written the way the source writes them. When a company limits a statement to a type of model or a purpose, we quote its exact words. When the source states an opt-out path, the entry records it in 15 words or fewer.
How entries are dated
The date is the one the source gives for the event: a policy’s effective date, the date of a court order or ruling, or the date a notice or decision was published. When a source gives only its own publication date, that date is used. The day Maple added an entry is never used. Each entry also records the day it was last checked against its source.
Review
A person checks every entry against its source before it publishes. Nothing is added automatically.
Corrections
If an entry is wrong or its source has changed, email [email protected] with a link to the entry. The entry is corrected in place, keeps its permanent link and gets a new checked date.
Reusing the data
The entries are licensed CC BY 4.0. Download them as data.json or data.csv, and credit them like this: Source: Maple, AI privacy timeline (maple.ai/privacy-timeline), data through 2026-09-21.
Maple cannot see your chats. That is enforced by code, not by a policy that can change. How it works
Every entry cites one primary source and is reviewed by a person before it publishes.
Suggest an entry or a correction · Methodology