By entering The Record, you are choosing to leave a permanent
testimony about your life for future generations.
Write honestly. You are not writing to impress today's world.
You are writing to be understood by tomorrow's. Write so that
someone living 300 years from now could understand what it meant
to be you.
Please read the following carefully before continuing.
What you should know
Participation is completely voluntary.
You own your words. Your testimony always belongs to you.
The Human Record is only the steward responsible for preserving it.
You may answer as many or as few questions as you wish. Every
question is optional.
We encourage you to use the name by which you are genuinely
known (your real name or at least your real first name).
Authenticity is more important than anonymity.
Any other person mentioned in your testimony should be
identified by first name only. Never include
another person's full name. Tell your story without exposing
someone else's identity.
Permanence
Once a testimony is published, it can never be edited.
Each person may publish a maximum of three
testimonies during their lifetime.
There must be a minimum of one year between
each testimony.
Every testimony is permanent once published.
Your number
Every human receives one permanent number.
Numbers are assigned sequentially by the system and can
never be chosen, changed, or reused.
Duplicate registrations are not permitted. To keep one light per
human, the contact points you enroll with are kept privately, only
as one-way keyed fingerprints, never published, never in the archive,
and checked before any number is ever assigned. If you already
have a record, your continuity key is the way back to it; a second
number will be refused.
Your number belongs to you for life, even if your
testimony is later withdrawn.
Withdrawal
You may request to withdraw any testimony.
If withdrawn: the testimony will no longer be publicly
displayed; your number will never be reused; a permanent
record will show that a testimony once existed and was
withdrawn.
Please understand that copies created before your withdrawal
may continue to exist outside The Record itself. The Human Record can
update the canonical archive and cooperating preservation partners,
but cannot erase privately held copies.
Privacy
You choose how much you reveal.
Your location may be as specific or as general as you wish.
Certain answers may be sealed according to The Human Record policy.
The Record does not include a public search
by name.
Your number is yours to keep private or share with anyone
you choose.
Another person can only find your testimony if you share your
number with them, or if their cursor lands on your light by
accident.
The Record
The Record is not social media. There are:
no likes, no comments, no followers, no rankings, no
advertisements, no recommendation algorithm.
Every human is equal within The Record.
Our promise
The Human Record exists to preserve authentic human testimony for as
long as possible. We cannot honestly promise "forever." We can
promise that every reasonable technical, legal and institutional
effort will be made to preserve The Record for future
generations.
Trust is built through transparency, cryptographic verification,
independent preservation, and open governance, not through
promises alone.
Your email: where The Record answers you
Your email is how The Record reaches you: it is where the
outcome of your submission's review and your number will
be sent. It never appears in the public record.
An email alone never grants a number. Before a number is assigned,
your submission is read by a person and verified to the standard of
this era.
Already among the lights? Your record grows at the
return page. It never needs a second
number.
Before you continue
By entering The Record, you confirm that:
When you continue, your acceptance of these
principles (your email, your confirmations, and the time) is
recorded as the agreement between you and The Human Record.