Privacy Policy

1. Who this policy applies to

This Privacy Policy explains how Romanos Boraine collects, uses, stores, shares, and protects personal information through this website, project enquiries, newsletter signups, calculators, client discussions, and consulting work.

In this policy, Romanos Boraine, I, me, we, us, or our refers to Romanos Boraine and any trading name, consultancy structure, or legal entity used to provide the services. You or your refers to website visitors, newsletter subscribers, prospective clients, clients, suppliers, collaborators, referral partners, and anyone whose personal information is shared with Romanos Boraine.

For website enquiries, newsletter records, calculator leads, and normal business administration, Romanos Boraine is usually the responsible party. For some client project material, the client may be the responsible party and Romanos Boraine may act as an operator or as an independent responsible party, depending on the agreed project rules.

2. What this policy covers

This policy covers personal information processed through:

• the Romanos Boraine website;
• contact and project brief forms;
• newsletter signup forms;
• workflow calculators and calculator report forms;
• discovery call requests and email enquiries;
• proposal, quote, invoice, and client onboarding processes;
• consulting projects and related handover work;
• website analytics, performance data, and server logs;
• reasonable business administration and record keeping.

This policy does not replace a separate proposal, service agreement, data processing agreement, non-disclosure agreement, or statement of work. Where a project involves sensitive, confidential, public-sector, donor, research, HR, health, child-related, or beneficiary information, project-specific rules may be agreed in writing.

3. Information collected through the website

When you use this website, we may collect information needed to run the site, respond to enquiries, manage newsletter signups, provide calculator reports, improve content, and understand site performance.

This may include:

• name, email address, organisation, role, and website address;
• project type, deadline, budget range, and preferred next step;
• details about the material involved, output needed, current tools, source traceability needs, and sensitive material;
• newsletter signup details, such as first name and email address;
• calculator inputs, calculator results, lead capture details, and consent choices;
• page URL, referrer, UTM campaign fields, and source calculator fields where available;
• browser type, device type, pages visited, interaction events, approximate location, date and time of visit, and analytics data;
• any other information you choose to submit through the website.

You should not submit confidential, sensitive, personal, child-related, health-related, beneficiary, HR, legal, or security-sensitive material through a public website form unless it is necessary and you have authority to share it.

4. Contact and project brief forms

The contact form asks for information needed to understand a possible project. This includes your name, email address, organisation, website, role, project type, timing, budget range, current tools, source traceability requirements, whether material may be sensitive, whether you used a calculator, the material involved, the output needed, and any extra context you provide.

Contact form submissions are stored in Google Sheets or a connected Google Apps Script workflow. A notification email may also be sent through Brevo to the site contact address so the enquiry can be reviewed and answered.

5. Newsletter signups

Newsletter forms collect your email address and, where provided, your first name. The form also records the signup source, such as the newsletter page, footer, blog, case study, or homepage signup.

Newsletter records are managed through Brevo or another email service provider if the site is later changed. You can unsubscribe through the unsubscribe link in an email or by using the contact route on this website.

Marketing emails are sent only where there is consent or another lawful basis. Transactional or project-related emails may still be sent where needed to respond to an enquiry, manage a project, issue an invoice, provide a handover, or meet a legal or contractual obligation.

6. Workflow calculators and report forms

The website includes calculators for workflow, reporting, retrieval, source traceability, submission analysis, knowledge base ROI, and related evidence-system problems. On-page calculator results are estimates only.

When you request a full calculator report by email, the site may collect your first name, last name, email address, organisation, role, country, industry, team size, current tools, free-text workflow pain point, consent choice, follow-up preference, calculator inputs, calculated result, page URL, referrer, and UTM fields.

Calculator lead records are stored in Google Sheets or a connected Google Apps Script workflow. Your contact details and calculator attributes may be added to a Brevo sales or follow-up list. The calculator report email is sent through Brevo.

The calculator endpoint also uses basic rate limiting and duplicate checks to reduce spam and repeated submissions. This may use request information such as an IP-derived request key for a short period.

7. Analytics, cookies, and website tracking

The website uses Google Analytics through a Google tag and Vercel Analytics. These tools help measure page visits, referrers, device and browser information, approximate location, and site interactions. Calculator interactions and some contact-form events may also be tracked as analytics events.

Analytics and hosting tools may use cookies, scripts, server logs, or similar technologies. You can control cookies through your browser settings. Blocking cookies may affect some website features or measurement.

The website also has an authorised GitHub OAuth route for content management or admin use. If you use that route, a short-lived OAuth state cookie may be used and GitHub may process information under its own terms.

8. Information collected during enquiries and projects

During enquiries, discovery calls, scoping, proposals, and project work, Romanos Boraine may process information needed to understand, quote, deliver, review, and hand over the work.

This may include:

• contact details, organisation details, and billing details;
• project background, stakeholders, deadlines, and decision-makers;
• source documents, reports, spreadsheets, submissions, notes, and transcripts;
• forms, databases, folders, internal records, and reporting templates;
• evidence tables, coded data, AI knowledge base material, and workflow records;
• meeting notes, review comments, handover notes, and support records.

Client project information is processed for the agreed project, unless another use is agreed in writing or required by law. You are responsible for ensuring that you have the right to share any client, stakeholder, respondent, employee, beneficiary, participant, donor, public-sector, or third-party information provided for a project.

9. How personal information is used

Personal information may be used to:

• respond to enquiries and manage discovery calls;
• prepare proposals, quotes, invoices, and project documents;
• assess whether a project is a good fit;
• deliver agreed services and handover material;
• structure evidence, source material, databases, workflows, and reports;
• send newsletters, calculator reports, or requested follow-ups;
• improve website content, calculators, forms, and user experience;
• maintain business, tax, accounting, and contractual records;
• protect legal rights, business interests, systems, and security.

Personal information is not sold.

10. Lawful grounds for processing

Personal information is processed only where there is a lawful basis to do so. Depending on the situation, the basis may include consent, steps before entering into a contract, performance of a contract, a legitimate business purpose, compliance with legal or regulatory duties, protection of rights and security, or processing needed for an agreed project where the client has authority to provide the material.

Where consent is required, you may withdraw consent. Withdrawal of consent does not affect processing that took place lawfully before withdrawal.

11. AI-assisted processing

Romanos Boraine may use AI-assisted tools to support appropriate parts of the work, depending on the project, client approval, data sensitivity, tool restrictions, and agreed scope.

AI tools may be used for classification, retrieval, summarisation, first-pass coding, comparison, drafting support, prompt testing, workflow design, or review support. AI tools are not treated as the final authority in evidence-heavy, sensitive, policy, HR, research, donor, legal, public-sector, or confidential work.

If there is uncertainty about whether sensitive material can be uploaded to an AI tool, the default approach is not to upload it unless approval and safeguards are clear. Human review, source checking, and client approval remain part of the workflow.

12. Third-party service providers

Romanos Boraine uses third-party tools and service providers to run the website, manage enquiries, store records, send emails, analyse site performance, process project material, and deliver client work.

These may include, depending on the context:

• Vercel for website hosting and analytics;
• Google Analytics and the Google tag for website measurement;
• Google Workspace, Google Sheets, and Google Apps Script for records and workflows;
• Brevo for newsletter, contact, and transactional email handling;
• GitHub for authorised content management or admin authentication;
• email, calendar, cloud storage, accounting, payment, and automation tools;
• AI tools, where approved and appropriate for the project;
• contractors or collaborators involved in an agreed project, where permitted.

Only information reasonably needed for the relevant purpose is shared. Third-party providers process information according to their own privacy and security terms.

13. International transfers

Some website, email, cloud, analytics, AI, and hosting providers may store or process information outside South Africa. Where information is transferred or processed internationally, reasonable steps are taken to use appropriate providers and limit processing to what is needed for the relevant purpose.

For client projects involving sensitive or regulated material, international storage, AI use, tool approval, and access rules should be discussed and agreed before work starts.

14. Confidentiality and security

Client information is used only for the agreed project or related business administration. Romanos Boraine will not share client files, unpublished reports, internal data, sensitive findings, personal information, confidential workflows, or restricted project material outside the agreed project without permission, unless required by law.

Reasonable technical and organisational measures may include:

• limiting access to relevant project material;
• using client-approved storage where possible;
• keeping raw source material unchanged;
• avoiding unnecessary downloads of sensitive material;
• using working copies rather than overwriting originals;
• using secure sharing methods where available;
• removing access after completion where no support arrangement exists;
• applying human review before final outputs are used.

No digital system, email account, cloud platform, AI tool, automation tool, or third-party service can be guaranteed to be completely secure. If a security compromise affects personal information, it will be handled according to applicable legal requirements.

15. Access and passwords

Where project work requires access to client tools, folders, databases, websites, forms, or systems, Romanos Boraine will request only the access reasonably needed for the work.

Where possible, access should be provided through client-owned accounts, role-based access should be used instead of shared passwords, passwords should not be sent through ordinary email or chat, and access should be removed after project completion unless ongoing support is agreed.

16. How long information is kept

Personal information and project material are kept only for as long as reasonably needed for the purpose for which they were collected, unless a longer retention period is required or allowed by law, contract, tax rules, accounting rules, dispute resolution, legitimate business record keeping, or agreed client requirements.

Newsletter records may be kept until you unsubscribe or request deletion, unless another lawful reason applies. Enquiry records may be kept for reasonable business follow-up and record keeping. Proposal, invoice, and payment records may be kept for tax and accounting purposes. Project files may be kept for delivery, handover, support, audit trail, and reasonable reference purposes.

17. Your rights

Depending on the applicable law and context, you may have the right to ask whether Romanos Boraine holds personal information about you, request access to that information, request correction of inaccurate or outdated information, request deletion or destruction where retention is no longer authorised, object to certain processing, withdraw consent, unsubscribe from marketing communication, or lodge a complaint with the Information Regulator in South Africa.

Some requests may be refused or limited where the law allows or requires it, including where information must be kept for legal, tax, accounting, contractual, dispute resolution, confidentiality, or legitimate business reasons.

18. Children's information

This website and the services are intended for organisations, professional teams, consultants, public-sector projects, donor-funded projects, research teams, and business users. They are not directed at children, and Romanos Boraine does not knowingly collect personal information from children through the website.

Some client projects may involve child-related information, beneficiary records, school or youth programme data, or other sensitive material. Where this occurs, it must be handled under project-specific rules, appropriate authority, and suitable safeguards.

19. Links to other websites

This website may link to external websites, tools, articles, client sites, booking tools, newsletter services, social media profiles, or third-party resources. Romanos Boraine is not responsible for the privacy practices, content, security, terms, or data handling of external websites or third-party platforms.

20. Changes to this policy

This Privacy Policy may be updated from time to time as the website, services, tools, or legal requirements change. The updated version will be published on this page with a revised date.

21. Contact

Questions, requests, corrections, unsubscribe requests, or privacy-related enquiries can be sent through the Contact page or by emailing hello@romanosboraine.com.

Website: romanosboraine.com
Contact page: romanosboraine.com/contact