Privacy Policy

We collect only what we need to run the publication. When you subscribe to the newsletter, we collect your email address. If you create an account to comment, we collect the account details provided through our authentication provider, such as your email and display name. We don't ask for sensitive personal information.

As you browse, we collect limited technical and usage data (such as pages viewed and aggregate, non-identifying statistics) to understand what readers find useful.

Our product site carries an enquiry form. If you use it, we collect what you put in it: your name, your company, your e-mail address and the message you write, which we need in order to answer you. Two fields are optional and are collected only if you choose to fill them in: a phone or WhatsApp number, and the size of your team.

That is all it does. It does not subscribe you to the newsletter, it does not create an account for you, and we do not use it to build an advertising profile.

We store the enquiry so that it cannot be lost, and we send ourselves a copy by e-mail so that somebody sees it. Replying to that copy replies to you.

We also count how many times the form is submitted from one network address in a minute, so that automated abuse cannot flood it. That count is a defence against bots, it is not stored alongside your enquiry, and it is not used to identify you.

To deliver the newsletter you asked for; to operate features like comments; to understand readership in aggregate and improve the site; and to keep the service secure (for example, rate-limiting abuse).

If you sent us an enquiry about our software, we use what you told us to answer it and to carry on that conversation with you. Nothing else.

We do not sell your personal information.

Essential cookies keep the site working: your theme choice and your sign-in session, for example. Non-essential cookies, for analytics and advertising, load only after you accept them via the consent banner; you can decline and the site still works.

When display advertising is enabled, our advertising partner (Google AdSense) may use cookies to serve and measure ads; you can manage ad personalization through Google's settings. Some articles contain affiliate links, and if you buy through them we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you, and the link may pass a referral identifier to the retailer. Affiliate and sponsored content is always disclosed (see our Ethics Policy).

We rely on reputable processors to run the site, including Google Firebase (hosting, authentication, and database), our email-delivery provider (for the newsletter), Cloudflare (content delivery and security), and, when enabled, Google AdSense (advertising). These providers process data on our behalf under their own privacy terms.

We keep newsletter and account data while your subscription or account is active, and only as long as needed for the purposes above or to meet legal obligations. Unsubscribing removes you from future mailings; you can also ask us to delete your data entirely.

We keep an enquiry while we are answering it and while we are still in contact with you about it. Once a conversation is over we delete the record. You can ask us to delete it at any time, before that, by writing to admin@bitbytecore.com, and we will.

You can unsubscribe from the newsletter at any time via the link in every email. You can ask us to access, correct, or delete your personal data, or withdraw consent for non-essential cookies. Email admin@bitbytecore.com and we'll respond within a reasonable time.

We operate from Pakistan and use service providers that may process data in other countries. By using the site, you understand your information may be processed outside your country of residence, with the safeguards those providers offer.

BitByteCore is intended for a general, adult audience and is not directed at children. We don't knowingly collect personal information from children; if you believe a child has provided us data, contact us and we'll remove it.

BitByteCore is an AI-assisted newsroom. To keep the publication running if a contributor leaves or is unavailable, each contributor may be paired with an internal AI "understudy" that learns general working patterns from the work they produce for us: the beats they cover, typical article structure, topics, and publishing cadence. This applies to people who write or edit for BitByteCore, not to readers.

The understudy learns HOW the work is done so the newsroom can continue it; it does not impersonate a contributor's identity, and any content it later helps produce is published under the publication or a clearly-labelled continuity byline, never falsely attributed to a person. It only ever produces drafts for human review, and it never publishes on its own.

Learning and drafting are governed by CONSENT: enabled for a contributor only with their agreement, recorded in our systems, and withdrawable at any time, after which the understudy stops learning from new work. The patterns are derived from work already created for BitByteCore in the course of the contributor's role. Contributors with questions, or who wish to change their consent, can email admin@bitbytecore.com.

Everything above is about you as a visitor to our sites. This part is about something else: the customer-messaging software we build and run for business clients. It applies to you if you have messaged a business that uses our software.

The roles matter here. The business decides what happens to your conversation. It is their record and their customer relationship. We hold and handle that data for them, on their instructions, as their service provider. In data protection language, the business is the controller and we are the processor.

The same rules cover a WhatsApp Business Account, a Facebook Page and an Instagram account that a client has connected to our software.

We sell that software as BitByteCore Connect, on its own site at connect.bitbytecore.com. Both sites are run by this same company and this one policy covers both of them.

When a client connects its WhatsApp Business Account, Meta's WhatsApp Business Platform passes us the messages people send to that business and the messages the business sends back; the phone numbers those messages come from; the WhatsApp profile names shown with them; message status events, meaning whether a message was sent, delivered, read or failed; message template data, meaning the approved wordings a business uses for things like order updates; and the business account details of the client itself.

When a client connects a Facebook Page or an Instagram account, we receive that account's details together with the messages, comments and posts the client asks us to handle.

For a Page or an Instagram account, these are the permissions our app asks Meta for: pages_show_list, pages_read_engagement, pages_manage_posts, instagram_basic, instagram_content_publish, business_management. They let us list the Pages a client can choose from, read how a post performed, publish what the client tells us to publish, and confirm which business the account belongs to.

Those are the permissions we ask for. Meta decides what to grant, it may grant fewer, and what it grants is the limit of what the software can actually do.

For three things. To show the client's own staff the conversations they are responsible for. To send the replies and order updates those staff write. To keep the client's record of what was said and when.

That is the whole purpose. None of it is used to build a profile of you, to target advertising at you, or to train a model.

We never use a client's platform data for our own purposes. We do not sell it. We do not share it with anyone outside the arrangement. We do not use one client's data for another client, and none of it goes anywhere near the publication.

The data sits in the Google Cloud and Firebase regions used by the client's own system, behind that system's access controls. Which region applies depends on the client's setup.

The client's own staff, through their system. Our own staff, only where it is needed to run the service or fix a fault, and only as far as the task requires. Nobody else.

While we run a client's system we keep their platform data, because it is their working record of their own customers.

After an agreement with a client ends, we keep it for 12 months and then delete it. That window exists so a client can export their records, or come back, without their customer history having been thrown away. It is not a reason for us to hold the data any longer than that.

A person can ask for their data to be deleted sooner than that, and we act on those requests with the client.

Write to admin@bitbytecore.com with "Data deletion request" in the subject line. The deletion page says exactly what to include and what happens next.

You can also ask the business you were messaging directly. That is usually faster, because the record is theirs.

If your question is about what a business does with your conversation, ask that business, because they are the ones who decide.

If your question is about how we hold it, or you would simply rather come to us, write to admin@bitbytecore.com. We will answer, and we will bring the business in where their decision is the one that counts.

We may update this policy as the site evolves or the law requires. Material changes are reflected here with a refreshed last-updated date.

Questions about privacy or a data request? Email admin@bitbytecore.com, or use the Contact page. Our registered company details are on the company details page.