Privacy policy

We’re privacy people, so this policy is written to be read. It covers this website, octachainlabs.com, and the work we do for our clients. Both are run by Octachain Inc. in Los Angeles, California.

The short version

• This website sets no cookies, shows no ads and loads nothing from other companies (no outside fonts, scripts or images).
• We don’t sell, rent or trade your information, and we don’t share it for anyone’s advertising or marketing.
• What our clients trust us with (equipment lists, work notes, logins) stays on hardware we own and run ourselves, not in someone else’s cloud.
• An AI assistant (Claude, by Anthropic) helps us sort our email and draft replies. A person reads and sends every reply.
• You can ask what we have about you, get a copy, have it corrected or have it deleted.
• If information we hold about you is ever exposed, we’ll tell you as soon as we find out.

On this website

Loading a page. Like every website, ours receives a few technical details from your browser so it can send you the page: your IP address, the page you asked for, and your browser and device type. We don’t keep a log of visits. The forms remember IP addresses for up to 15 minutes, only to stop floods of spam, and then forget them.

Counting visits. We count visits with Umami, which runs on our own server, only for statistics: how many people visit and which pages they read. It uses no cookies, doesn’t follow you to other websites and keeps no names, no IP addresses and nothing else that tells us who you are. It records which page was read (its address only, without anything after a “?” or “#”), which website sent you, your browser, system and device type, screen size, language, and roughly where the visit comes from (country, region and city, worked out from your IP address). To count each visitor once without cookies, it turns your IP address and browser details into a random code that changes every day and can’t be turned back into your address, so your visits can’t be linked from one day to the next. We keep these records for 13 months, then delete them.

Our business cards. The QR code on our business cards and stickers (and the tap tag in some of the cards) opens a page of this site at an address with a short code at the end, such as octachainlabs.com/c/K7Q2. The cards and stickers we leave with clients all share one code, and the cards we hand out ourselves share another, so a code tells us only which kind of card was used, never whose. A code never contains a name. Our visit counter records the page address with its code, like any other page. It doesn’t tell us who you are, and the page stores nothing else.

Your light or dark choice. If you switch the theme, your browser remembers it on your own device (in its local storage). It’s never sent to us.

“Do Not Track” and “Global Privacy Control.” If your browser sends either signal, our visit counter skips your visit. This site doesn’t track you across other websites, and it doesn’t let anyone else do that.

When you get in touch

The forms (the contact form and the part picker) ask for your name, an email address or phone number, and your business name if you want to add it, plus whatever you write or pick. Your message reaches us as an email in our mailbox. We use it only to answer you and to do the work you ask for.

“Email us the list” on the hardware page opens your own email app with the message written out. It travels like any email you send.

Email, phone and video calls: we keep what you send us and the notes we need for the work. We don’t record phone or video calls. For video calls we send you a link to Jitsi Meet (meet.jit.si), a public video meeting service. Nothing from it loads on this website; it’s used only if you join a call.

Our AI assistant reads the email that reaches our business mailbox, form messages included, to sort it and draft replies. A person reads and sends every reply. More under “AI tools” below.

Please don’t send passwords or private records, such as patient or client details, through the forms or by email. If a job needs a password, we’ll give you a safe way to share it.

If you’re our client

To do the work, we keep:

• Equipment and work records: a list of your computers, network gear and accounts, and notes on each job, in our own ticket system.
• Logins, only when you ask us to keep them: in our own password manager. They’re end-to-end encrypted and kept separately for each client. Ask any time and we’ll give you a copy (as a password-protected file) or delete them.
• Invoices and payment records: in our own invoicing system. When we email you an invoice, its link opens that invoice and its payment page, so you can see it and pay online.

All three run on hardware we own and run ourselves (more under “Keeping it safe” below). We use what you trust us with only to do the work you ask for.

Remote help. To work on your computer from afar, we use RustDesk, a free, open-source remote desktop program, connected through our own RustDesk server. If you don’t have it yet, we’ll ask you during a call to download it from octachainlabs.com/help: the regular program, set up to use our server. We can connect only when you read us the one-time password it shows. If you’d like us to reach a computer without that step, we set it up only with your OK, with its own strong password. Everything you see, type and share in a session is encrypted from end to end between your computer and ours: our server passes it along but can’t read it. The server keeps a record of which computers connect, when, and from which IP address.

When the work ends, we’ll hand your records and logins back to you if you want them, and delete them when you ask. The only exception is the invoices and payment records that tax rules require us to keep.

AI tools

We use an AI assistant, currently Claude, made by Anthropic, for two jobs.

Sorting email and drafting replies. When an email reaches our business mailbox, including a message from this website’s forms, the assistant reads it to sort it and, if it needs an answer, to draft a reply. A person reads every draft, changes what needs changing and sends it. The assistant doesn’t send, move or delete anything. Our own filters keep sign-in codes, login links, mail from our banks, mail from our medical clients and mail sent only to our personal address away from it. If you’d rather your email never reaches it, tell us and we’ll add your address to those filters.

Technical work. For work such as reading error logs during a security check, we give it technical details only, never private records such as health, financial or personal files. We’ve switched off the setting that lets Anthropic train its models on what we give it.

What Anthropic keeps. Our email reaches the assistant through Anthropic’s service for businesses, whose terms don’t allow Anthropic to train its models on it. Anthropic deletes each email and draft within 30 days, unless its safety systems flag one as breaking its usage rules (then it may keep it for up to 2 years) or the law requires it to keep it longer.

Paying us

You can pay by bank transfer, Zelle, check, cash, card or cryptocurrency. Card payments on our invoices go through Stripe, and card taps in person go through our bank’s card reader. Either way, your card details go to them, not to us: we never see or keep your full card number. Cryptocurrency payments are recorded on that currency’s public ledger, which anyone can read. That’s how those currencies work.

Who else handles your information

Only these companies, and each only for its own part:

• Proton (Proton AG, Switzerland) provides our email. Form messages and emails are stored encrypted in our Proton mailbox. Messages from the website’s forms travel to it over an encrypted connection, but they aren’t end-to-end encrypted on the way. See Proton’s privacy policy.
• Cloudflare (Cloudflare, Inc., USA) connects this website to the internet. Your connection to the site, including anything you send through its forms, passes through Cloudflare’s network, which sees technical details such as your IP address. It sets no cookies on this site. See Cloudflare’s privacy policy.
• Jitsi Meet (meet.jit.si, run by 8x8, Inc., USA) handles video calls, only if you join one. See the meet.jit.si privacy notice.
• Stripe (Stripe, Inc., USA) handles card payments on our invoices. See Stripe’s privacy policy.
• Our bank handles bank transfers, Zelle, checks and card taps.
• Amazon Web Services (Amazon Web Services, Inc., USA) rents us the cloud server that runs our remote desktop server, in its Northern California region. Sessions pass through it encrypted from end to end, so it could see only which computers connect, when, and their IP addresses. See AWS’s privacy notice.
• RustDesk (Purslane Tech Pte. Ltd., Singapore) makes the remote desktop program. When the program starts, it may contact RustDesk’s own servers, for example to check for a newer version; they see your computer’s IP address and basic facts about it, such as its system type. Nothing from your screen goes to them. See RustDesk’s privacy policy.
• Anthropic (Anthropic, PBC, USA) makes the AI assistant we use to sort our email, draft replies and help with technical work, as described under “AI tools”. See Anthropic’s privacy policy and how long it keeps business data.

We don’t share your information with anyone else, except when the law requires it.

If the police or a court asks

We hand over information only when the law requires it, and only as much as it requires. Before we do, we tell the person it’s about, unless the law forbids that.

If something goes wrong

If information we hold about you is ever exposed or stolen, we’ll tell you as soon as we find out: what happened, what it affects and what we’re doing about it.

If it’s information we hold for one of our clients, such as details about their staff, customers or patients, we tell that client as soon as we find out, so they can tell the people it’s about.

How long we keep it

• Messages from the website, emails and call notes: as long as we need them to answer you and do the work.
• Client records and logins: while we work together, and afterwards until you ask us to hand them back or delete them.
• Invoices and payment records: as long as tax rules require.
• Remote help records (which computers connected, when, from which IP address): up to 30 days, apart from each computer’s RustDesk ID, which we keep while we work together.
• Visit counts: 13 months, then deleted. They hold no names and no IP addresses.

Ask us and we’ll delete your messages and records, unless the law says we have to keep them. If it does, we’ll tell you what we’re keeping and why.

Your rights

These are yours wherever you live, whether or not a law requires us to offer them:

• See what we have about you, and get a copy.
• Have it corrected.
• Have it deleted.
• Ask us to stop using it for something.

To ask, email info@octachainlabs.com from the address we know you by, or tell us how we can confirm it’s you. It’s free, and asking won’t change how we treat you.

Keeping it safe

No system is perfectly safe, but this is how we keep yours as safe as we can:

• Pages and forms travel encrypted (HTTPS).
• The website runs on its own, walled off from everything else we run, and it keeps nothing you send: form messages go straight to our mailbox.
• Client records stay on hardware we own. Nobody but us has an account, every sign-in needs a second step, and none of it can be reached from the open internet. The one exception is the invoice page: the link in an invoice email opens that invoice and its payment page, and nothing else.
• Remote help sessions are encrypted from end to end. Our remote desktop server runs on its own rented server, apart from everything else we run, so no door into our own network is opened for it.
• Logins in our password manager are end-to-end encrypted.
• Backups are encrypted and stored on encrypted drives.

Children

This site isn’t meant for children under 13, and we don’t knowingly collect information from them.

If Octachain is sold or closes

If Octachain is ever sold, merged with another company or closed, we’ll tell our clients first. Before any records move to anyone else, you can have yours handed back or deleted.

Changes

If this policy changes, we’ll post the new version here and change the date at the top. If a change affects what we do with our clients’ records, we’ll email our clients before it takes effect.

Questions

Email info@octachainlabs.com.