US Privacy Policy

1. Controller and contact

Phāros is provided by Duncan Fullarton.
Duncan Fullarton
c/o POSTFLEX PFX-983-571
Emsdettener Straße 10
48268 Greven
Deutschland
Email: hallo@pharos.guide

This Privacy Policy explains how we process personal information for the English website, US checkout, Route Check flow, digital delivery and related communication.

2. Information we process

• Contact details such as name and email address
• Structured Route Check inputs such as islands, travel dates, travel length, group, budget feel, travel pace, preferences, existing bookings, and functional mobility preferences
• Order and payment references such as Stripe Checkout Session ID, payment status, amount, currency, order number, and invoice references
• Scheduling and online-consultation information such as Calendly booking details, selected time slot, time zone, meeting link, attendance status, and limited notes needed to prepare or document the consultation
• Technical information such as device, browser, referrer, page path, consent state, GPC signal, and security logs
• Communication records such as support emails, delivery status, refund requests, and privacy requests

The public Route Check flow does not contain an open narrative free-text field for travel or health information. Phāros does not request diagnoses, medical conditions, disability details, or other consumer health data and does not need that information to provide the service.

Please do not send health information, passport or identity-document data, full payment-card details, or other unnecessary sensitive information by email or through the scheduling tool.

3. Purposes

We process personal information to operate the website, provide the Route Check, prepare checkout, process payment, create and deliver the report, schedule and conduct the included optional online consultation, communicate with you, document legal and payment records, prevent misuse, improve quality, and comply with legal obligations.

We may derive internal, cleaned learning or quality scenarios from Route Check cases. Names, email addresses, payment references, unnecessary free-text details, and other direct identifiers are removed or abstracted. Public references, marketing examples, sample reports, or testimonials are used only anonymously or with additional consent.

4. Service providers and third parties

• Vercel for hosting and infrastructure
• Neon/Postgres for database storage
• Stripe for payment processing
• Resend for transactional email
• Calendly or similar scheduling tools for included online-consultation scheduling
• OpenAI and Anthropic/Claude for supportive structuring, drafting and quality workflows
• PostHog or similar tools for product analytics
• Meta for advertising measurement and marketing cookies, where enabled

These providers process information for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy and according to their own terms and privacy documentation.

Some third parties, including advertising or analytics providers, may collect information about your online activities over time and across different websites or services when their technologies are active on our website.

5. Cookies, analytics and advertising

Cookies, analytics and advertising: we use necessary cookies and similar technologies for website functionality, checkout, security, fraud prevention and preference storage.

We also use analytics and marketing technologies to understand how visitors use Phāros, measure advertising performance and improve the Route Check flow.

Where enabled, marketing technologies may include Meta Pixel, Meta Conversions API or similar advertising measurement tools. These tools may allow Meta or other advertising providers to collect information about your visit, such as page views, events, browser or device information, referrer information and interactions with our website. These providers may use this information to measure ads, attribute conversions or support advertising on their services.

We do not intentionally send full payment card numbers, free-text Route Check notes, report contents, passport information, health information or other sensitive information to Meta Pixel or similar marketing tools.

You can manage non-essential analytics and marketing measurement through our Privacy Choices link.

If your browser sends a Global Privacy Control signal, we treat it as an opt-out of marketing cookies where technically feasible. We currently do not respond to all Do Not Track signals because no uniform industry standard has been adopted.

For the US market, product analytics, privacy-masked session replay and marketing measurement may be active by default under an opt-out setup. Session replay masks page text, inputs and element attributes and blocks marked sensitive areas before replay data is sent. You can turn optional analytics and marketing off at any time through Privacy Choices. A supported Global Privacy Control signal disables marketing measurement and session replay.

6. Your privacy choices

Privacy Choices lets you manage analytics and marketing measurement.

Essential cookies are required for website functionality, checkout, security and preference storage and cannot be disabled through our Privacy Choices page.

You can turn off analytics and marketing measurement at any time. If you turn off marketing measurement, we will not intentionally use Meta Pixel or similar marketing cookies for your browser after your preference has been saved.

If your browser sends a Global Privacy Control signal, we treat it as an opt-out of marketing cookies where technically feasible.

7. International processing

Phāros is operated from Germany and uses providers that may process information in the European Union, the United States and other countries. Data protection laws may differ from those in your jurisdiction.

Where required, we rely on appropriate transfer mechanisms, provider commitments, contractual safeguards or other legally recognized mechanisms.

8. Retention

We keep an operational Route Check case with personal information for up to 90 days after report delivery or the last activity for an unpaid case. After that period, we remove contact details, free text, case and payment references, exact timestamps, network data and the final report text from the product-learning copy.

We may keep a separate de-identified detailed learning record with structured travel-profile parameters, decision evidence, scores, rules and quality-engine snapshots for up to 24 months from that original retention anchor. We conservatively continue to treat this record as personal information, keep it access-restricted and do not retain a key that links it back to the original case.

After the detailed record expires, we keep only anonymous aggregate statistics. We suppress or combine buckets based on fewer than five cases. Contract, payment, consent, legal, withdrawal and refund evidence is stored separately for the periods required or permitted by applicable law.

9. U.S. state privacy laws

Some U.S. state privacy laws provide residents with specific rights regarding personal information. Phāros is currently a small service and may not meet statutory thresholds for many of these laws.

Even where a specific state privacy law does not apply to Phāros because of statutory thresholds, you can contact us at hallo@pharos.guide with privacy questions or requests.

We maintain an internal log for requests involving access, deletion, correction or advertising opt-out, including receipt, proportionate identity verification, due date, status and completion.

10. Children

The paid Route Check service is for adults who are at least 18 and legally able to enter into a contract. The website is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from a child under 13 through the order process.

11. Changes to this Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. If we make material changes, we will update the effective date and post the revised version on this page.

For significant changes affecting paid customers, we may also notify you by email where appropriate.

12. Contact

For privacy questions, contact hallo@pharos.guide.