How We Use Your Data

📋 Introduction

At Aevum News, we believe that trust is earned through transparency. This document provides a clear, plain-language explanation of how we handle your personal data. We're not a data brokerage — we're a news organization committed to delivering authoritative journalism while respecting your privacy.

Our approach is guided by the principles of data minimization, purpose limitation, and accountability. We only collect what we need, for specific legitimate purposes, and we take meaningful steps to protect it.

📦 What Data We Collect

We distinguish between data you provide directly and data we collect automatically through your use of our platform. Here's a comprehensive breakdown:

Information You Provide Directly

Information Collected Automatically

• Device Information — Browser type, operating system, device type, and unique device identifiers used for technical compatibility and security.
• Log Data — IP address, access timestamps, pages viewed, referring URLs, and error messages for site administration and abuse prevention.
• Usage Analytics — Time spent on pages, click patterns, and feature usage to understand reader engagement and improve content delivery.
• Location Data — General geographic location derived from IP address (not GPS) used for localized content and legal compliance.
• Cookies & Local Storage — Small files stored on your device for session management, preferences, and analytics (see Cookies section below).

⚙️ How We Use Your Data

Every piece of data we process serves a specific, legitimate purpose. Here's how we put your information to work:

Core Purposes

• Delivering Content — Providing you with news articles, multimedia content, and personalized editorial recommendations based on your stated preferences.
• Account Management — Creating and maintaining your subscriber account, processing premium subscription payments, and managing your reading lists and saved articles.
• Communication — Sending your newsletter subscription, account notifications, service updates, and responding to your inquiries or feedback.
• Platform Improvement — Analyzing usage patterns to optimize site performance, content layout, and user experience through A/B testing and analytics.

Enhancement Purposes

• Personalization — Tailoring content suggestions and topic feeds based on your reading history and explicitly chosen interests (you can disable this anytime).
• Security — Detecting and preventing fraud, abuse, spam, and unauthorized access through automated monitoring systems.
• Legal Compliance — Meeting our legal obligations including tax reporting, regulatory requirements, and responding to valid legal requests.
• Journalistic Research — Aggregating and anonymizing reader interest data to understand what topics resonate most with our audience, informing our editorial strategy.

🔗 How We Share Your Data

We are not a data broker. Your personal information is not sold, rented, or licensed to third parties. We only share data in the following circumstances:

• Service Providers — Trusted partners who help us operate our platform, including cloud hosting (AWS), payment processing (Stripe), email delivery (SendGrid), and analytics (Google Analytics). These partners are contractually bound to use your data only for the specific services they provide to us and are prohibited from using it for their own purposes.
• Legal Requirements — When required by law, regulation, legal process, or government request, we may disclose your data. We always seek to limit disclosure to the minimum required and notify you when legally permitted to do so.
• Business Transfers — In the event of a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets, your data may be transferred as part of that transaction. We would notify you and offer opt-out options where applicable.
• With Your Consent — If you explicitly consent to a specific data sharing activity (e.g., participating in a joint research study), we may share data for that stated purpose.

Third-Party Service Providers

🔒 Data Storage & Security

Protecting your data is not an afterthought — it's built into our infrastructure from the ground up.

Storage Location

Your data is stored on secure servers operated by Amazon Web Services (AWS) with primary data centers located in the European Union (Frankfurt) and the United States (Virginia). We implement data residency controls to ensure EU residents' data remains in compliance with GDPR requirements.

Security Measures

• Encryption in Transit — All data transmitted between your browser and our servers is encrypted using TLS 1.3 with strong cipher suites.
• Encryption at Rest — All databases and file storage are encrypted using AES-256 encryption. Encryption keys are managed through AWS KMS with strict access controls.
• Access Controls — Role-based access control (RBAC) limits employee access to personal data on a need-to-know basis. All access is logged and auditable.
• Regular Audits — We conduct annual third-party security assessments and penetration testing. Our last audit was completed on June 2025 by Cure53.
• Breach Response — We maintain an incident response plan and will notify affected users and relevant authorities within 72 hours of discovering any confirmed data breach.
• Employee Training — All team members receive mandatory data protection and security training annually.

🍪 Cookies & Tracking Technologies

We use cookies and similar technologies to operate our website, remember your preferences, and understand how you interact with our content. We categorize them as follows:

You can manage your cookie preferences at any time through our Cookie Preference Center or through your browser settings. Blocking certain cookies may affect site functionality.

Do Not Track

We respect Do Not Track (DNT) signals from your browser. When DNT is enabled, we will not set analytics or personalization cookies on your device.

🛡️ Your Rights

Depending on your location, data protection laws may grant you specific rights regarding your personal data. At Aevum News, we respect and facilitate these rights globally, regardless of jurisdiction.

⏱️ Data Retention

We retain your personal data only for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes for which it was collected. Here's our retention schedule:

Data retained beyond its active use period is either anonymized for statistical and journalistic research purposes or securely deleted using industry-standard data destruction methods.

👶 Children's Data

Aevum News is not directed at children under the age of 16. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children. If we discover that we have inadvertently collected data from a child, we will take immediate steps to delete it.

If you are a parent or guardian and believe your child has provided us with personal data, please contact us immediately at privacy@aevumnews.com.

🔄 Policy Changes

We may update this data usage policy periodically to reflect changes in our practices, technology, legal requirements, or other factors. When we make meaningful changes:

• Notification: We'll notify you via email (if you have an account) and post a prominent notice on our website at least 30 days before the changes take effect.
• Material Changes: If changes are significant, we may require your renewed consent before implementing them.
• Version History: We maintain an archive of previous policy versions and will publish a summary of changes.

The "Last updated" date at the top of this page will always reflect the most current version.