Privacy Policy
This Privacy Policy explains how aquariumtools ("we", "us", "the service") collects, uses, and protects your personal data when you use the website and the calculators, accounts, and tank journal we provide.
We take your privacy seriously. The calculators work entirely in your browser and need no account. We only collect personal data when you choose to create an account or contact us.
Who is responsible for your data
The data controller is:
- Salvatore Marco Consulente Informatico, sole proprietor (ditta individuale)
- Based in: Salerno, Italy
- VAT number (P.IVA): IT05438150657
- Email: hello@aquarium.tools
You can contact us at any time at the email above for any question about this policy or your data.
What data we collect
Data you give us when you create an account. When you register, we store your email address and a securely hashed version of your password. If you sign in with Google, Facebook, or Apple, we receive your name and email address from that provider so we can create or match your account; we never receive your social-network password.
Data you create while using the service. If you keep a tank journal, we store the tanks, log entries, measurements, and any photos you upload. This content belongs to you and is only used to provide the service to you.
Support chat. If you write to us in the chat at the bottom right of the page, we store your messages, the page you wrote from, the language of the site and, if you leave it, your email address; if you are signed in, the conversation is linked to your account. You can rate the assistant's answers, and we store that rating too. The first answers come from an automatic assistant that runs entirely on our own servers: it compares your message with our own FAQ and articles, using search tools and a language model that we host ourselves. Your messages are never sent to external artificial-intelligence services. Members of our team can read the conversations to answer you and to improve the assistant.
Technical data. Like most websites, our servers keep short-lived logs that may include your IP address, browser type, and the pages you request. We also use an error-monitoring tool to record technical details when something breaks, so we can fix it.
Analytics. We use Umami, a privacy-friendly analytics tool, to understand which pages are visited and how the site performs. Umami collects aggregated, non-identifying usage data and does not use tracking cookies or build advertising profiles.
We do not sell your personal data, and we do not use it for advertising.
Why we use your data and our legal basis
Under the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), we process your data on the following legal bases:
- To provide the service (creating and managing your account, storing your tanks and journal): performance of a contract (Art. 6(1)(b)).
- To keep the service secure and working (server logs, error monitoring, spam and abuse prevention, including a self-hosted ALTCHA anti-bot check on our sign-in, registration, contact, and newsletter forms and on the first message of the support chat): our legitimate interest in a safe, reliable service (Art. 6(1)(f)).
- To send you service emails (account confirmation, password resets, sign-in links): performance of a contract (Art. 6(1)(b)).
- To measure and improve the site (privacy-friendly analytics): our legitimate interest in understanding and improving the product (Art. 6(1)(f)).
- To answer your support requests (the chat, the assistant's answers, our replies, and the email or push notification telling you we replied): our legitimate interest in answering the people who contact us (Art. 6(1)(f)); if you have an account, also performance of a contract (Art. 6(1)(b)). Leaving your email in the chat is optional.
- Cookies: we set no analytics or advertising cookies, so the site runs without a cookie consent banner. Our anti-bot protection (ALTCHA), used on the sign-in, registration, contact, and newsletter forms and in the support chat, is self-hosted and sets no cookies. If we ever add non-essential cookies, we will ask for your consent first (Art. 6(1)(a)), which you could withdraw at any time.
Cookies
We keep cookies to a minimum. Essential cookies are needed to sign you in and to protect forms; some third-party tools we rely on (such as social sign-in) may set their own strictly-necessary cookies when you use them. If you write in the support chat, a technical cookie keeps your conversation available on that browser. Our anti-bot protection (ALTCHA) is self-hosted and sets no cookies. For full details, see our Cookie Policy.
Who we share your data with
We share data only with the service providers (processors) we need to run aquariumtools, and only to the extent necessary:
- Our hosting provider stores the website, database, and uploaded images. Servers and data are located in the European Union.
- Brevo delivers our transactional emails (confirmation, password reset, sign-in links, replies to the support chat).
- Your browser's push service (for example Google, Mozilla or Apple), only if you turned on push notifications: it delivers a short notice that we replied to your support chat, as it does for the other notifications you enabled.
- Sentry receives technical error reports so we can diagnose problems. We have configured it not to send personal user data by default.
- Google, Meta (Facebook), and Apple provide social sign-in, if you choose to use them.
Each of these providers acts under a data-processing agreement or equivalent terms and may only use the data to provide their service to us.
International data transfers
Your account data and uploaded content are stored within the European Union. Some of the providers above (for example Sentry, Google, Meta, and Apple) may process limited data outside the European Economic Area, in particular in the United States. Where that happens, the transfer is protected by appropriate safeguards such as the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses and/or the providers' certification under the EU-US Data Privacy Framework.
How long we keep your data
- Account and journal data: for as long as your account exists. If you delete your account, we delete your personal data, except where we must keep limited records to comply with the law.
- Support chat conversations: up to 24 months after the last message, then deleted; sooner if you ask us. The wording of a question may be kept, without any personal data, to improve the assistant's answers.
- Server logs: for a short period, then deleted or anonymised.
- Analytics data: in aggregated, non-identifying form.
You can ask us to delete your account and data at any time.
Your rights
Under the GDPR you have the right to:
- access the personal data we hold about you;
- correct inaccurate or incomplete data;
- delete your data ("right to be forgotten");
- restrict or object to certain processing;
- receive your data in a portable format;
- withdraw consent at any time, where processing is based on consent.
To exercise any of these rights, email us at hello@aquarium.tools. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Italian Data Protection Authority (Garante per la protezione dei dati personali, www.garanteprivacy.it) or your local supervisory authority.
How we protect your data
We use appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect your data, including encrypted connections (HTTPS), hashed passwords, and access controls. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, but we work to keep your data safe.
Children
The service is not directed at children under 16. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children. If you believe a child has given us personal data, please contact us and we will delete it.
Changes to this policy
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. When we make material changes, we will update the "last updated" date at the top of this page and, where appropriate, notify you.
Contact
For any question about this policy or your personal data, contact us at hello@aquarium.tools.