Who can see your data
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If you're putting a workshop's address into someone's software, you're entitled to know exactly what happens to it. This page is that answer.
Two controls do the work: visibility, which decides whether a record leaves this instance and to whom, and a disclosure profile, which decides how much of it goes.
Visibility: whether, and to whom
Every record has one of three settings.
| Setting | What happens |
|---|---|
| Private | The record stays on this instance. Nothing is exported to anyone. |
| Followers | Shared with peer instances that this one has chosen to connect to. |
| Public | Available to anyone who asks this instance for its catalogue. |
New records are private. Nothing is shared because you created it — sharing is a decision you make afterwards.
Disclosure profiles: how much
This is the part that matters most, and the part most systems get wrong. Being findable and being exposed are different things, and OHM treats them separately.
A record is split into groups, and you choose which travel, per audience:
| Group | Contains |
|---|---|
| Identity | Name and status — always included |
| Location | Address, access details, loading dock |
| Equipment | Machines and tools |
| Operations | Hours, contact, capacity |
| Supply | Materials and products |
You set these separately for followers and for public. So a workshop can be publicly discoverable — visible on the map, matchable by capability, showing its equipment and processes — while its address is shared only with peers you trust, or with nobody.
The default is deliberately conservative: identity only, unless you say otherwise.
Seeing what others see
The sharing panel shows a preview of what a given audience will actually receive, built from your current settings. Use it before publishing, rather than reasoning about what should happen.
Where visibility is private, the preview says so plainly: nothing is exported.
What this doesn't cover
Anyone who has already received a record has it. Federation is copy-based — if a peer synced your record while it was public, tightening the setting later stops future sharing but doesn't reach back. This is true of anything published anywhere; it's worth being conscious of before publishing an address, not after.
Other instances make their own choices. This instance honours your settings. An instance run by someone else holds their own copy under their own operator's control. That's the trade federation makes: no central authority means no central enforcement either. It's why who you choose to federate with is a real decision — see federation and sovereignty.
Records you didn't create. If a workshop's details came from a directory where the space published them itself, that publication is theirs and continues regardless of anything set here.
If you need more control than this
Run your own instance. Then the records never leave your infrastructure at all unless you export them, and jurisdiction is whatever you decide it is. See run your own node.