Privacy Notice

Information we handle

• Basic site analytics, such as page views, device/browser information, referring pages, and approximate location signals provided by analytics tools.
• Affiliate and outbound click events, such as which vendor button was clicked and the page it was clicked from. These events help us understand which recommendations readers find useful.
• Information you choose to send by email, including your email address, use case, budget, compliance framework, timeline, and any other details you include.

How we use it

• To improve content, navigation, template coverage, and buying guides.
• To respond to direct requests for shortlist help, compliance template help, or security reports.
• To measure affiliate link performance while keeping rankings editorially independent.
• To protect and maintain the site.

Email newsletter (subscriptions)

• What we collect: only your email address, plus the consent record (the date, time, and IP address captured when you request and when you confirm), which is needed to prove your subscription was lawful.
• Lawful basis: your consent (GDPR Art. 6(1)(a)). For Australian readers, this is a clear opt-in under the Australian Privacy Principles and the Spam Act 2003. We do not add anyone who has not explicitly subscribed.
• Double opt-in: after you submit the form you receive a confirmation email and are only added once you click the link in it. The confirmation link is valid for 7 days, and an unconfirmed request is deleted automatically after 14. We never pre-tick the consent box.
• Where it lives (APP 8 / APP 11): your address is stored on our own Australian-hosted server, in a directory outside the web root, protected by access controls. No third-party email platform holds the list. There is no overseas disclosure of your address.
• Unsubscribe: every email includes a one-click unsubscribe link (no login, no questions), and you can ask us to remove you at any time via hello@aestech.com.au. Unsubscribing stops all newsletter email.
• Retention: we keep your subscription until you unsubscribe or ask for deletion. On unsubscribe your address is deleted; we retain only a one-way hash and the opt-out date, so we can prove when you unsubscribed without keeping your address.
• No selling: we never sell, rent, or share your email address with third parties for their own marketing.

Comments

• What we collect: the name you type (published beside your comment), the comment text (published), an optional email address (never published, never sold, used only to contact you about the comment itself), a one-way salted hash of your IP address, and the time you posted.
• We do not store your IP address. Only an irreversible hash of it, which lets us rate limit and deal with abuse without holding an identifier that can be traced back to you.
• Lawful basis: your consent, given by choosing to submit the comment. You control what you put in it, so please do not include anything you would not want published.
• Moderation and AI: comments are screened by fixed automated rules on our own server, then classified by a language model that runs on our own hardware. Your comment is never sent to an external AI service, and the model can only hide or flag a comment, never publish one. The full detail is on the comment policy page.
• Where it lives (APP 8 / APP 11): on our own server, in a database on a private volume. No third-party comment platform is involved, so there is no overseas disclosure and no advertising network receives it.
• Removal: email hello@aestech.com.au from the address you used, or quote the comment, and we will delete it. We do not require you to justify the request.
• Retention: published comments stay until you ask us to remove them or we remove them under the comment policy. Comments refused by the spam filter are not stored.

Third-party services

The site uses Google Analytics 4 for traffic measurement (only after you accept analytics in the cookie banner), and affiliate networks for some outbound vendor links, which may be handled by vendor or affiliate-network systems after you leave the site. The email newsletter and the comment system involve no third party: both run on our own server. When the newsletter starts sending, a transactional email provider will deliver the messages and will be named here before that happens. Each remaining provider acts under its own privacy terms.

Cookies and consent choices

• What we set: Google Analytics 4 cookies (_ga and related) are the only analytics cookies on this site, and they are not set until you choose "Allow analytics" in the cookie banner. Decline, and no analytics code loads at all.
• Your choice is remembered in your browser's local storage (a strictly functional record, not a tracking cookie), so the banner does not nag you on every visit.
• Change your mind any time: use the Cookie preferences link in the footer to reopen the banner, or clear the site's data in your browser.
• Strictly necessary storage: the site also uses session storage for anonymous, on-device measurements (for example scroll depth per page) that are only transmitted if analytics is enabled.
• The site is fully readable with analytics declined or blocked.

Retention

Analytics and affiliate reporting are retained in the relevant third-party tools according to their settings. Direct emails are kept only as long as needed to respond, maintain a practical business record, or handle follow-up requests.

Your rights and choices

You can exercise the following rights over your personal information, subject to practical and legal limits:

• Access a copy of the personal data we hold about you.
• Correct inaccurate or out-of-date information.
• Erase your data ("right to be forgotten"), including removal from our newsletter list and deletion of any comment you posted.
• Withdraw consent at any time, which is as easy as giving it, by unsubscribing or contacting us. Withdrawing consent does not affect processing already carried out.
• Restrict or object to certain processing, and request portability of data you provided, where those rights apply.

To exercise any of these, email hello@aestech.com.au (our privacy contact). We aim to respond within 30 days. We will verify your identity before acting on a request.

Complaints: if you are in Australia and believe we have mishandled your information, you can complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) at oaic.gov.au. If you are in the EU/EEA or UK, you may lodge a complaint with your local data protection supervisory authority.

Related pages

See the affiliate disclosure for how commercial links work and the security policy for vulnerability reporting.