Privacy Policy

Who we are

This website, bvwatchtower.com, and BlackVault Watchtower are operated by Image Depot LLC (“we”, “us”). This policy covers the website and the email you send us. Questions go to support@bvwatchtower.com.

The short version

• This website has no accounts, no forms, no scripts, no advertising and no third-party analytics or trackers. It sets no cookies of its own.
• To protect the site, Watchtower records details of requests it refuses, slows down or blocks. Ordinary visits are only counted.
• If you email us, we use your message to reply and to run early access.
• We don’t sell your personal information, and we don’t share it for advertising.

What is recorded when you visit

Every request to this website is checked by Watchtower, our own security service, before the page is served.

Ordinary visits. To check a request, Watchtower briefly uses your IP address, for example to see whether it is blocked or is sending too many requests. For an ordinary visit it keeps only a count, without your IP address, your browser details or the page you asked for, and the count can’t identify you.

Requests that are refused, slowed down or blocked. For example: a request from outside the United States, too many requests too quickly, or a request that looks like an attack. For these, Watchtower records the IP address, the page or path requested, the browser’s user-agent string, an approximate location worked out from the IP address (country, region, city and postal code), the network the request came from, the data center that handled it, and the reason for the decision. We keep these records for up to 90 days.

Requests that look like attacks. Probing for weaknesses or using hacking tools also creates a security record for the IP address. That record can hold the details above and its history of such requests. An address that is blocked stays on our block list for as long as the block lasts, which can be permanent, and the block can apply on every site Watchtower protects. Security records for addresses that are not blocked are deleted after a period of inactivity. A short record of past offenses may be kept longer, so repeat attacks are recognized.

Watchtower doesn’t store passwords or anything else sent to the website in a request. We use these records only to protect this website and the other sites Watchtower protects, and to investigate abuse.

Cookies

This website sets no cookies. Cloudflare, which hosts the website and provides network security, may set strictly necessary security cookies to tell people apart from automated traffic.

Email you send us

If you write to sales@bvwatchtower.com or support@bvwatchtower.com, we receive your email address, your name if you include it, and whatever you choose to write. Your message is stored in our own email system. We use it to reply, to run early access and to keep a record of our conversation. We keep messages for as long as we need them for those purposes, and we delete them when you ask, unless the law requires us to keep them.

Please don’t send passwords or other secrets by email.

Companies that help us

• Cloudflare, Inc. hosts this website and provides network security and email routing. It processes the technical details of each request to deliver and protect the site, and keeps short-term operational logs.
• Amazon Web Services, Inc. delivers the email we send when we reply to you.

They handle information only to provide these services to us.

Selling and sharing

We don’t sell your personal information, and we don’t share it for cross-context behavioral advertising. We disclose it only to the companies listed above, to the extent they need it to provide their services, when the law requires it, or when we need to protect our rights or the security of our sites.

Where the service is offered

This website and BlackVault Watchtower are offered only in the United States. Requests from outside the United States are refused, and the refusal is recorded as described above.

Children

This website is not directed to children under 13, and we don’t knowingly collect personal information from them. If you believe a child has sent us personal information, contact support@bvwatchtower.com and we will delete it.

Your privacy rights

Depending on the state you live in, you may have the right to know what personal information we hold about you, to get a copy of it, to correct it and to ask us to delete it. We honor these requests from any US resident.

To make a request, email support@bvwatchtower.com. We may need to confirm the request is yours, for example by asking for the email address or IP address it concerns. We won’t treat you differently for making a request. We may keep information we need for security or legal reasons where the law allows, and we will tell you if we do. If we turn down a request, you can ask us to reconsider by replying to our answer.

Security

We protect the information we hold with technical and organizational safeguards suited to it. No system is perfectly secure, so we can’t promise that information will never be accessed without permission.

Changes to this policy

When we change this policy, we post the new version on this page with a new effective date. If a change materially affects how we use information we already hold, we will say so clearly at the top of this page.

Contact

Image Depot LLC: support@bvwatchtower.com.