Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy explains what information AetherGuard Technologies ("we," "us") collects through the client portal at client.aetherguard.xyz (the "Portal"), why we collect it, and the choices and rights you have. It covers the Portal specifically; our public marketing site at aetherguard.xyz may collect information differently and is covered by its own notices.

1. Information we collect

Account and contact information

• Your name, work email address, job title, and the company you're associated with, provided when your account is created or when you update your profile.
• An optional profile photo, if you choose to add one.

Authentication and security data

• Sign-in is passwordless: we generate a single-use, time-limited link and email it to your work address. We log when links are requested and used, the requesting IP address, and basic device/browser information, to detect abuse and secure your account.
• Session cookies (see Section 5) and CSRF tokens needed to keep you signed in and to protect actions you take in the Portal from being forged by another site.
• An audit trail of security-relevant account actions (sign-ins, billing changes, profile changes) for fraud detection and accountability.

Support and engagement content

• The content of support tickets, chat messages, and any files or images you attach to them.
• Records related to engagements we perform for your organization: reports, notes, and status updates we or your account team create.

Billing information

• Card numbers and other sensitive payment details are collected and stored directly by Stripe, Inc., our payment processor, which is certified PCI DSS Level 1 compliant. Card data is entered directly into Stripe's hosted form and never passes through or is stored on AetherGuard's own servers.
• We retain a Stripe customer reference ID and non-sensitive billing metadata (invoice amounts, dates, order descriptions, and the last four digits/brand of a card as reported back by Stripe) needed for bookkeeping and customer support.

2. How we use this information

• To provide, operate, and secure the Portal and the Services you've purchased.
• To respond to support requests and communicate about your account, orders, and engagements.
• To process payments and maintain accurate financial and tax records.
• To detect, investigate, and prevent fraud, abuse, and security incidents affecting you, other clients, or AetherGuard.
• To comply with legal obligations, including recordkeeping requirements tied to billing and, where applicable, security engagements.

We do not sell personal information, and we do not use ticket or engagement content to serve advertising.

3. Who we share it with

• Stripe, Inc.: payment processing, as described above.
• Infrastructure and hosting providers who host the Portal and its database, under contractual confidentiality obligations.
• Law enforcement or regulators, only where required by a valid legal process, or to protect the rights, property, or safety of AetherGuard, our clients, or others.
• A successor entity, in the event of a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets, subject to the same or materially equivalent privacy commitments.

We do not share ticket content, attachments, or engagement data with any other client. Access within AetherGuard is limited to employees who need it to do their job, and is logged.

4. Data retention

We keep account and ticket data for as long as your account is active, and for a reasonable period afterward to answer follow-up questions, resolve disputes, and meet legal and accounting obligations. Billing records in particular are generally retained for the period required by applicable tax law (commonly several years) even after an account closes. You can request deletion of data we are not otherwise required to keep, as described in Section 6.

5. Cookies and local storage

The Portal uses a small number of strictly necessary cookies and one local-storage value, and nothing else:

• Session cookie: keeps you signed in. Marked HttpOnly, Secure, and SameSite=Strict, meaning it cannot be read by page scripts and is never sent to any other site.
• CSRF token: a per-session value that protects form submissions from being forged by another website; not used for tracking.
• Theme preference: whether you're using light or dark mode, saved in your browser's local storage, never transmitted to us.

These are all functionally required for the Portal to work and are not used for advertising, cross-site tracking, or analytics profiling, so no cookie consent banner is presented.

6. Your rights and choices

Depending on where you're located, you may have rights to access, correct, export, or delete your personal information, or to object to or restrict certain processing (for example, under the EU/UK GDPR or the California Consumer Privacy Act). To exercise any of these rights, open a support ticket in the Portal or email us at the address in Section 8. We'll verify your identity before acting on a request and respond within the time required by applicable law. Some information, such as billing records tied to legal retention requirements, may not be eligible for deletion until that period has passed.

7. Data security

We use encryption in transit (TLS) for all Portal traffic, role-based access controls, and security logging across the systems that store your data, and we treat our own infrastructure with the same rigor we recommend to clients. No method of transmission or storage is perfectly secure; if we become aware of a breach affecting your data, we will notify you as required by applicable law.

8. Contact

Questions about this policy, or requests to exercise your privacy rights, can be sent through a support ticket in the Portal, or to support@aetherguard.xyz.

9. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. Material changes will be reflected by updating the date at the top of this page.