Privacy Policy
Effective date: 17 October 2026
This policy explains what personal data PassiveSolarArchitecture.com (“the website”, “we”, “us”) processes when you visit it, contact us, sign up for our emails or buy the Toolkit, why, how long we keep it, and what rights you have. It describes the website as it works today.
1. Who is responsible
The data controller for the processing described in this policy is:
Biljana Gligoric
monda sbutege bb, prcanj 250, 85335 KOTOR, MONTENEGRO
Email: info@passivesolararchitecture.com
The website’s content is published under the name Passive Solar Architecture by the Passive Solar Architecture Editorial Team. Privacy questions and requests: info@passivesolararchitecture.com, or the Contact page with “privacy” in your message.
This policy is provided under Montenegro’s Law on Personal Data Protection and, for visitors in the European Union / European Economic Area and the United Kingdom, under the GDPR and UK GDPR where they apply.
2. Summary
| What | Data | Why | Legal basis | How long |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Visiting the website | IP address, date and time, page requested, referring page, browser and device details | Delivering the website, keeping it secure, fixing errors | Legitimate interests (GDPR Art. 6(1)(f)) | Server logs are deleted automatically after about 8 days, unless needed to investigate a specific security incident |
| Your cookie choice | Whether you accepted or rejected analytics, the policy version and the date | Remembering your choice | Legitimate interests; our obligation to record consent | 180 days in your browser |
| Google Analytics, only if you accept | Pseudonymous usage data: pages viewed, approximate location (country, region, city), device and browser type, referring page, and events such as scrolling, clicks on links to other websites, submitting the contact form, signing up for the Project Brief (which form and the optional project stage, never your email address), or opening the checkout and completing a purchase (order reference and amount, never your name, email or payment details) | Understanding which pages and tools are useful so we can improve them | Consent (GDPR Art. 6(1)(a)); you can withdraw it at any time | No longer than 14 months in Google Analytics; analytics cookies up to 2 years in your browser unless you reject or delete them |
| Contact form, or email to info@passivesolararchitecture.com | Your name, email address, subject and message | Replying to you | Legitimate interests in answering enquiries (GDPR Art. 6(1)(f)); steps taken at your request (Art. 6(1)(b)) | Up to 24 months after the conversation ends, then deleted |
| Free Project Brief and email updates, only if you sign up | Email address; first name and project stage if you give them; which form you used; the time you signed up and confirmed and the technical details MailerLite records when you confirm (such as IP address); which emails we sent and which links you clicked; unsubscribe status | Confirming your address, sending the Project Brief PDF and occasional emails about passive solar house design | Consent (GDPR Art. 6(1)(a)); you can withdraw it at any time with the unsubscribe link in every email | Until you unsubscribe or ask us to delete your data. If you never confirm your address, we delete it within 30 days. After you unsubscribe we keep only your email address and unsubscribe date, so that we do not email you again |
| Early access to the Site Analysis Board Generator, only if you sign up | Email address; your answers in the form (role, the plan you are interested in, location); the campaign source of the link you came from; the technical details MailerLite records (such as IP address and signup time); unsubscribe status | Telling you when early access opens, the founding price and news about this tool | Consent (GDPR Art. 6(1)(a)); you can withdraw it at any time with the unsubscribe link in every email | Until you unsubscribe or ask us to delete your data, or until we close the early-access list |
| Buying the Toolkit, only if you buy | Your name, email address, country and the other details you enter at checkout; the order reference, product, price, tax and payment status; refund and support correspondence. Your card or other payment details are collected by Lemon Squeezy and its payment processors and never reach us | Selling and delivering the Toolkit, support, refunds, and meeting tax and accounting obligations | Performance of the contract (GDPR Art. 6(1)(b)); legal obligation (Art. 6(1)(c)) for tax and accounting records | For as long as needed for support and refunds, and for the periods required by tax and accounting law |
We do not sell personal data, do not use it for advertising and do not make automated decisions about you.
3. Cookies and similar technologies
| Name | Purpose | Set when | Expires |
|---|---|---|---|
psa_consent |
Stores your analytics choice (strictly necessary) | When you click “Accept analytics” or “Reject analytics” | 180 days |
_ga |
Google Analytics: distinguishes visitors | Only after you accept analytics | 2 years |
_ga_KH1H6PEHNT |
Google Analytics: keeps the session state | Only after you accept analytics | 2 years |
- Before you choose, and if you reject, Google Analytics is not loaded at all. Your browser does not contact Google’s analytics servers and no analytics cookies are set.
- If you later reject, we delete the analytics cookies the website set.
- The website uses no advertising cookies.
- If you click to buy the Toolkit, Lemon Squeezy’s checkout window opens and Lemon Squeezy and its payment processors may use their own cookies inside that window, as described in Lemon Squeezy’s Privacy Policy (see section 7).
- You can change your choice at any time with “Cookie settings” at the bottom of every page, or here: Cookie settings. Your browser settings also let you delete cookies.
- The website’s fonts are served from our own server, not from Google Fonts.
- Site administrators who log in receive WordPress’s own login cookies; visitors do not.
4. Google Analytics
If you accept analytics, we use Google Analytics 4. For visitors in the EEA, the UK and Switzerland it is provided by Google Ireland Limited (Gordon House, Barrow Street, Dublin 4, Ireland), and elsewhere by Google LLC (USA).
- What Google receives: your browser sends Google the usage data listed in section 2. Google Analytics 4 does not log or store IP addresses; Google uses them only to derive an approximate location and then discards them.
- No advertising use: the website always tells Google that advertising storage, the use of data for advertising and ad personalisation are not permitted, also after you accept analytics. Google signals is switched off.
- No Google Ads or AdSense: the website has no Google Ads advertising, remarketing or conversion tags, shows no AdSense ads, and does not collect user-provided data (such as email addresses entered in forms) for Google.
- Transfers: data may be processed in the USA. Google LLC is certified under the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework (and its UK and Swiss extensions), and Google also uses the European Commission’s Standard Contractual Clauses.
- More information: How Google uses information from sites that use its services.
5. Contact form and email
When you use the contact form, the website sends your name, email address, subject and message to our email inbox, which is hosted by Google (Gmail). Email you send to info@passivesolararchitecture.com is received by DreamHost, which hosts our domain’s email. The form submission is not stored in the website’s database. If you have accepted analytics, Google Analytics records only that a form was submitted, never what you wrote. We use your details only to reply to you and delete the correspondence 24 months after the conversation ends.
6. Project Brief, early access and email updates
If you ask for the free Passive Solar Design Checklist & Project Brief, you give us your email address and, if you wish, your first name and the stage of your project. The consent checkbox is not ticked in advance, and nothing is sent until you tick it and submit the form.
Our website’s server, not your browser, sends these details and the name of the form you used to MailerLite, the email service we use. MailerLite then emails you a link to confirm your address. Only after you confirm do we send the Project Brief download link, followed by occasional emails about passive solar house design. If your address is already on our list, signing up again does not change your subscription. If you have unsubscribed before, we do not add you again.
MailerLite keeps the records needed to prove and manage your subscription: when you signed up and confirmed, the technical details of your confirmation (such as IP address), which emails we sent and which links you clicked. Our emails do not track whether you open them.
To protect the form against abuse, our server keeps a scrambled (keyed hash) form of your IP address for one hour and of your email address for 24 hours. It cannot be read back as the original address and is deleted automatically.
You can unsubscribe at any time with the link at the bottom of every email, or by writing to info@passivesolararchitecture.com. People who use the contact form are not added to the email list.
Early access to the Site Analysis Board Generator. On the Site Analysis Board Generator page you can join a separate early-access list. This form works differently from the Project Brief form: when you tick the consent box and submit, your browser sends your email address, your answers (role, the plan you are interested in and location) and the campaign source of the link you came from directly to MailerLite, into an early-access group. We use these details only to send you emails about the tool, such as when early access opens and the founding price, and to understand who it is for. You can unsubscribe at any time with the link in every email. Joining the early-access list does not sign you up for the Project Brief emails.
7. Buying the Toolkit
The Passive Solar Home Design Toolkit is sold by our authorised reseller Lemon Squeezy, which acts as the Merchant of Record: it runs the checkout, takes the payment, calculates and collects taxes, issues the receipt, delivers the download link and processes refunds. Lemon Squeezy’s checkout window opens only when you click the button to buy on the Toolkit page; until then the website does not load anything from Lemon Squeezy.
What you enter in the checkout (for example your name, email address, country and payment details) goes to Lemon Squeezy. Lemon Squeezy is responsible for the personal data it collects to process the transaction and handles it under its own Privacy Policy and Buyer Terms. Card payments in the checkout are processed by Stripe for Lemon Squeezy; if you choose PayPal, or choose to save your details with Stripe’s Link, those services’ own terms and privacy policies also apply. We receive from Lemon Squeezy the details we need to provide the product and support: your name, email address, country, the order number and the order details. We never see your card or other payment details.
We use these details to deliver the Toolkit and corrections to it, answer your questions, handle refunds (see the Refund Policy) and keep the records required by tax and accounting law. Buying the Toolkit does not add you to our email list; that only happens if you sign up separately (section 6).
8. Calculators and content
- The calculators run entirely in your browser. The values you type are not sent to us or stored by us.
- The website has no user accounts, no comments, and no embedded videos or third-party widgets. The email signup is described in section 6, and the Lemon Squeezy checkout, which loads only when you click to buy, in section 7.
- The free sun-path search on the Site Analysis Board Generator page and the place search in the Solar Angle Calculator and the Passive Solar Overhang Calculator send the place name or postcode you type to the geocoding service of Open-Meteo (OpenMeteo GmbH, Switzerland) to look up its coordinates. Your browser makes this request only when you search, so Open-Meteo also receives your IP address; according to its terms, it keeps server logs for up to 90 days. We do not receive or store your search.
- Links to other websites (for example government energy websites) take you to sites with their own privacy policies.
- WordPress checks whether your browser can display emoji. Only if it cannot does your browser load emoji images from WordPress.org’s image server.
9. Who receives data
| Recipient | Role | Data |
|---|---|---|
| DreamHost (DreamHost, LLC, USA) | Hosting provider (processor): stores the website, its server logs and backups, sends the contact-form email and receives email sent to our domain | Server logs; contact-form messages in transit; email sent to info@passivesolararchitecture.com |
| Google Analytics (only with your consent); email inbox for contact-form messages | See sections 4 and 5 | |
| MailerLite (MailerLite, Inc., USA) | Email service provider (processor): stores the email list, sends the confirmation, Project Brief and early-access emails, records unsubscribes | The signup and email data listed in section 6 |
| Open-Meteo (OpenMeteo GmbH, Switzerland) | Geocoding service for the place search on the Site Analysis Board Generator page, only when you search | The place name you type and your IP address (section 8) |
| Lemon Squeezy (Sold through Link, LLC, formerly Lemon Squeezy LLC, USA), with its payment processors (Stripe; PayPal if you pay with PayPal) | Reseller and Merchant of Record for Toolkit purchases; responsible for the checkout and payment data it collects (see section 7) | Checkout, payment, tax, receipt, delivery and refund data |
DreamHost processes data under its Customer Data Processing Addendum, which includes the European Commission’s Standard Contractual Clauses for transfers to the USA. MailerLite processes data under its Data Processing Addendum. It stores data with Google Cloud in the EU, but because we are based outside the EEA, the UK and Switzerland, our account is served by MailerLite, Inc. in the USA and the email list is transferred to the USA. MailerLite, Inc. is certified under the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework (including the UK Extension and the Swiss-U.S. Data Privacy Framework) and also uses the European Commission’s Standard Contractual Clauses. See MailerLite’s legal information. Lemon Squeezy stores and processes personal data in the USA and uses the European Commission’s Standard Contractual Clauses for transfers from the EEA, as described in its Privacy Policy. We do not share personal data with anyone else unless the law requires us to.
10. Security and backups
The website is served only over HTTPS. Backups of the website are kept on the hosting provider’s servers and are protected like the website itself. They contain no contact-form messages, because the website does not store them.
11. Your rights
You have the right to access your personal data, to have it corrected or deleted, to restrict or object to its processing, to data portability, and to withdraw your consent at any time without affecting processing that took place before (use “Cookie settings” for analytics, and the unsubscribe link in any email for the email list). To use these rights, contact us as described in section 1. For data held by Lemon Squeezy about a purchase, you can also contact Lemon Squeezy as described in its Privacy Policy. We answer within one month.
You can also complain to a data protection supervisory authority: in Montenegro, the Agency for Personal Data Protection and Free Access to Information (Agencija za zaštitu ličnih podataka i slobodan pristup informacijama, azlp.me), or the authority in the EU/EEA or UK country where you live or work.
12. Children
The website is intended for adults planning or designing buildings. It is not directed at children.
13. Changes to this policy
We will update this policy and its effective date before we change how we process personal data.