Privacy Policy

1. Who we are and how to reach us

This policy explains how we handle personal information collected through the aetherconsultation.com website, its contact form and emails sent to our addresses. It does not cover our clients' websites, which have their own policies, or information handled during an engagement, which is governed by that engagement's agreement.

The website is operated by Émile Théroux, under the name AEE Consultation ("AEE", "we" or "us").

Person in charge of the protection of personal information: Émile Théroux, founder. For a question, a request about your information or a complaint, write to privacy@aetherconsultation.com.

2. What we collect and why

We collect only the information needed for the purposes described below.

When you complete the contact form

• Required: your name, email address and a description of your needs.
• Optional: your business name, current website and enquiry type.
• With the enquiry, we record the date it was received, the form's language and a reference number that prevents duplicates.
• We use this information to understand your enquiry, reply, assess and prepare a possible engagement, and keep track of our exchanges.

When you email us directly

We receive your email address, the content of your message and its attachments. We use them for the same purposes.

When you visit the website

To display pages, protect the website and its form from abuse and fix errors, our providers handle technical data: IP address, browser and device type, date and time, requested page and security signals. Visit statistics are collected only with your permission (section 4).

What we ask you not to send

Do not enter passwords, access tokens, identity documents, financial information or health information in the form or in an email. If an engagement requires access to your tools, we will agree on an appropriate method together.

Your choices

Providing your information is optional. Without a name, email address and description of your needs, we cannot process an enquiry sent through the form. You can also write to us at contact@aetherconsultation.com. Refusing analytics has no effect on your enquiry.

The website is intended for businesses and their representatives. It is not intended for people under 14, and we do not ask them for any information.

3. What happens after you send the form

1. A Cloudflare Turnstile security check confirms the submission does not come from a bot. It analyses technical data, such as your IP address and browser, not the content of your message.
2. Your enquiry is recorded in our database, hosted by Cloudflare. The page confirms receipt only once it is recorded.
3. A notice containing your enquiry is sent through the Resend service to our address contact@aetherconsultation.com, which is forwarded to the Gmail inbox where we read it.
4. If an acknowledgement is emailed to you, it is also sent through Resend and contains no advertising.
5. Émile Théroux reads your enquiry and replies to you personally. No decision is made by automated processing. Your enquiry is not sent to an artificial intelligence tool merely because it was received.

We do not add your address to a mailing list and will not send you newsletters or promotional messages without your consent. Analytics tools never receive the content of form fields. If you have accepted analytics, only the receipt of an enquiry and the type chosen from the list are measured.

4. Cookies and analytics

By default, no analytics or advertising tool is loaded. A preferences window lets you accept, refuse or choose the categories you allow. Refusing is as easy as accepting.

• Necessary: the website stores your choice in your browser's local storage ("aee_consent") for 180 days. This choice is not transmitted and does not follow you to other websites.
• Analytics, only with your permission: we use Google Analytics 4, loaded by Google Tag Manager and provided by Google. These tools measure pages viewed, where visits come from, clicks to the Contact page, the receipt of an enquiry (with its type only), browser, device and approximate region. They set the "_ga" and "_ga_*" cookies, valid for up to 2 years. Google keeps this data for 14 months in our property and processes it in several countries, including the United States. We have turned off Google signals, ad personalisation and automatic form measurement.
• Advertising: no advertising cookie or pixel is active. Before activating one, we will update this policy and ask for your separate permission.

You can change your mind at any time through the preferences link at the bottom of every page. If you withdraw your permission, analytics stop and their cookies are deleted. Data already sent remains with Google until the end of its retention period; write to us with any request about it. Your browser settings can also block or delete cookies.

5. Who can access your information

At AEE, Émile Théroux, founder, reads and handles enquiries. If your enquiry leads to an engagement, the people working on it for AEE access the information needed for that engagement, and only that information.

Our providers handle information for the functions we entrust to them, under their processing commitments:

• Cloudflare: website hosting and security, the enquiry database, Turnstile checks and forwarding of our email addresses. Cloudflare also states that it uses Turnstile signals to improve its bot detection.
• Resend: sending the internal notice and the acknowledgement.
• Google: the Gmail inbox where we read enquiries and your emails; Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager, only with your permission.
• Sanity: management of the website's content. Some blog images are displayed from its network, which then receives your browser's technical data.

We do not sell or rent your information. We disclose it to another person without your consent only where the law allows it, for example to meet a legal obligation.

6. Processing outside Québec

Our providers are located, or process information, outside Québec, including in the United States. Our database is hosted in the eastern North America region, with no guarantee of country. Resend sends emails from the United States. Google and Cloudflare operate data centres in several countries. We therefore cannot guarantee that your information stays in Québec or Canada.

Before entrusting your information to these providers, we assessed the privacy factors: sensitivity of the information, purpose, protection measures and contractual commitments, and the applicable legal framework. In those countries, information may be accessible to courts and authorities under local laws.

7. How long we keep it

• Enquiries and exchanges that do not lead to an engagement: 24 months after the last exchange, after which they are deleted from our database and our inbox.
• Enquiries that lead to an engagement: they join the client's file and are kept according to the engagement agreement and our legal obligations.
• Technical copies: after a deletion, our database's restore copies are automatically erased within 30 days at most. Resend keeps a record of sent emails for about 30 days.
• Website technical logs: 7 days at most. They do not contain the content of form fields.
• Analytics: 14 months in Google Analytics; cookies expire after 2 years at most, or as soon as you withdraw your permission.
• Your cookie choice: 180 days in your browser.
• Turnstile check: under Cloudflare's Turnstile privacy policy.

You can ask us to delete your enquiry before these periods end. We will do so unless a legal obligation requires us to keep it.

8. How we protect your information

• Access to enquiries is limited to people who need it. Our provider accounts are protected by strong authentication.
• Exchanges with the website are encrypted (HTTPS). The bot check is verified by our server.
• Technical logs and analytics tools never contain the content of form fields, and no information you enter is placed in page addresses.
• If a confidentiality incident occurs, we take measures to reduce the risk. If the incident presents a risk of serious injury, we notify the Commission d'accès à l'information and the people concerned. We keep a register of incidents.

No system offers absolute security. We review these measures whenever we add or change a tool.

9. Your rights and how to exercise them

You can:

• find out whether we hold information about you and obtain a copy;
• have inaccurate, incomplete or equivocal information corrected;
• receive the information you provided to us in a structured, commonly used technological format;
• withdraw your consent and ask us to delete your enquiry, in which case we will no longer be able to follow up on it;
• find out what information we collected, who can access it at AEE and how long we keep it;
• ask us, under the conditions set by law, to stop disseminating information about you or to de-index a link.

Write to privacy@aetherconsultation.com. We may ask for reasonable information to confirm your identity, and we will help you clarify your request if needed. We reply in writing within 30 days of receiving it. Access is free. If reasonable reproduction or transmission fees applied, we would tell you the approximate amount before proceeding. Any refusal is explained and states your remedies.

10. Complaints and how we govern our practices

The person in charge of the protection of personal information approves our internal rules: roles, retention periods, destruction or anonymisation, and handling of incidents and complaints. Before adding a tool that handles personal information or entrusting processing outside Québec, we assess the privacy factors.

To make a complaint, write to the person in charge at privacy@aetherconsultation.com and describe the situation. We acknowledge your complaint and reply in writing within 30 days.

If you are not satisfied with our reply, or have not received one within that period, you may contact Québec's Commission d'accès à l'information. If you live outside Québec, you may also contact the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.

11. Changes to this policy

We update this policy when our practices change, for example when we add a tool. The effective date of the current version appears at the top of this page. We flag any significant change at the top of this page. If it affects your cookie choices, the preferences window asks you to choose again. A change to this text never replaces the consent required for a new use.