Privacy policy

Who is responsible for your data

For the website and the studio services (web design, web development and maintenance), that is Kattenberg 118, the sole proprietorship of Jonas Smets, Kattenberg 118, 2140 Borgerhout (Antwerp), Belgium. Company and VAT number: BE1040391415.

For renting the workspace, it is Jonas Smets as a private individual, at the same address. The workspace is rented out privately, not by the business.

Questions about your data can go to [email protected] or +32 456 56 80 05.

What data we process and why

• Booking a call or a workspace. In the booking planner you give your name and email address, and if you like your phone number and a message. For a call on location, also the address. We use this to schedule the appointment, send you a confirmation and let you reschedule or cancel yourself via the link in that email.
• Address suggestions. When you type an address for a call on location, we ask the address service of the Flemish government (geo.api.vlaanderen.be) for suggestions. This goes through our own server: only the text you typed is passed on, not who you are.
• Paying for the workspace. You pay for a workspace in advance online via Stripe. Your card or account details never reach us; we only see whether and how much was paid (or refunded).
• The newsletter. Your first name, last name (if you fill it in), your email address and the list(s) you choose. Subscribing uses double confirmation: you are only added after clicking the link in the confirmation email. You can unsubscribe at the bottom of every newsletter.
• Contact. Whatever you send us by email or phone, we use to reply and to prepare a quote or project if there is one.
• The chat assistant. Questions you type in the chat on the site are sent to Anthropic's Claude language model to create an answer. We keep the question and answer to improve the assistant. If you share your name and email address in the chat because you want to be contacted, we note that so we can follow up. Please don't share sensitive information in the chat.
• Studio clients. For quotes, invoices and carrying out a project, we use your contact and billing details, and the information you provide for the project.

Statistics, cookies and what stays in your browser

We use no tracking or advertising cookies and no Google Analytics. We count visits with Umami, which we host ourselves, and with our own counter in the studio. Both work without cookies.

What we see: which pages are viewed, which site you came from, the country, the type of device and browser, and how long a page was open. We don't store your IP address; it is only used to calculate an anonymous visitor code that changes regularly.

The site remembers in your browser (localStorage and sessionStorage) whether you already saw, dismissed or subscribed through the newsletter pop-up, so you don't keep getting it. That information stays on your device and is not sent to us.

Fonts are served from our own server. We don't embed external videos, maps or social media buttons; the link to Google Maps only opens Google when you click it. Only whoever manages the site gets a necessary login cookie.

Why we are allowed to

• To perform or prepare a contract: bookings, payments, renting the workspace, quotes and projects.
• With your consent: the newsletter. You can withdraw that consent at any time by unsubscribing.
• Because the law requires it: keeping invoices and payments for the accounts.
• Based on a legitimate interest: answering your questions, cookieless statistics to improve the site, improving the chat assistant and stopping abuse or spam.

Who we share data with

We never sell your data and don't share it for marketing. We do work with a few service providers that process data on our behalf:

• Hetzner (Germany) — hosting of the website, the studio and the statistics.
• Cloudflare — network, security and fast delivery of the site; traffic passes through their network.
• Resend — sending emails, such as confirmations and the newsletter.
• Stripe — online payments for the workspace.
• Apple (iCloud) — the calendar that holds appointments.
• Anthropic — the language model behind the chat assistant.

Data outside the European Union

Some of these providers are (also) based outside the EU, including in the United States. Data only goes there with the safeguards required by European privacy law (GDPR), such as the EU-US Data Privacy Framework or the European Commission's standard contractual clauses.

How long we keep data

• Bookings: as long as needed for the appointment and its follow-up, and at most two years after that.
• Payments, invoices and anything that ends up in the accounts: for as long as the legal retention period for accounting runs (currently ten years).
• Studio client data: for as long as we work together, and after that for as long as the law requires us to keep it.
• Newsletter: until you unsubscribe.
• Emails and contact requests: as long as needed to handle your question, and at most two years after that.
• Chat conversations: at most twelve months.
• Statistics: these contain no data we could use to identify you.

Your rights

You can always ask which data we hold about you, and have it corrected or deleted. You can also object to a processing activity, ask us to restrict it, request your data in a common format to use elsewhere, and withdraw consent you gave.

Send your request to [email protected]. We reply within one month. Data we are legally required to keep, such as invoices, can only be deleted once that period has passed.

If you are unhappy with how we handle your data, you can file a complaint with the Belgian Data Protection Authority (gegevensbeschermingsautoriteit.be). We would of course like to hear it from you first.

Security

The site and the studio run on servers in Germany and can only be reached over an encrypted connection. Only Jonas has access to manage the data.

Changes

If anything changes in what we do with your data, we update this policy. The date at the top shows when that last happened.