How personal data is collected, used, and protected on this website, for paid chapters, and in Sancho
This privacy policy describes how personal data is collected, used, and protected, in accordance with the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR – Regulation 2016/679) and Italian Legislative Decree no. 196/2003 as amended by Legislative Decree no. 101/2018. It covers:
- this website, and in particular the contact form;
- paid chapters bought on this website through Stripe;
- Sancho, my iOS app for planning and recording road journeys.
The sections that follow apply to the contact form. Paid chapters and Sancho have their own sections below; the data controller, your rights, and the complaints procedure apply to all of them.
Data Controller
The data controller is Mariano Viola, reachable at ciao@marianoviola.com.
Data Collected
The contact form collects the following personal data:
| Field | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Name | To address you in the reply |
| Email address | To send a response to your message |
| Subject | To understand the topic of your message |
| Message | The content of your enquiry |
No other data is collected through the form. No cookies are set as a result of submitting it.
Legal Basis
Processing is based on your freely given, specific, and informed consent (Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR), expressed by ticking the checkbox before submission. You may withdraw your consent at any time by contacting the data controller at the address above.
Purpose of Processing
Your data is used exclusively to read and respond to your message. It is not used for profiling, marketing, or any purpose beyond the direct reply to your enquiry.
Data Processors
Your message is transmitted via Resend (Resend Inc., USA), an email delivery service acting as a data processor under a Data Processing Agreement compliant with GDPR. The site is hosted on Cloudflare (Cloudflare Inc., USA), which processes network traffic under Standard Contractual Clauses approved by the European Commission.
No data is sold, rented, or shared with any third party for independent purposes.
Retention
Your personal data is retained only for as long as necessary to handle your enquiry and any follow-up exchange, and in any case for no longer than 12 months from the date of receipt. After that period, data is deleted.
Paid Chapters
Some chapters of my serial publications can be bought individually. Payments are handled by Stripe.
Data collected
| Data | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Payment details (card number and similar) | Entered on Stripe’s checkout page and processed only by Stripe; they never reach this website |
| Email address you give Stripe at checkout | To associate your purchase with you, answer support requests, and help you restore access |
| Purchase record: the chapter bought, the purchase date, Stripe’s checkout session and payment identifiers, and any refund or dispute | To grant access, prevent duplicate charges, and revoke access after a refund or dispute |
| Access token: a random identifier stored in a cookie in your browser | To recognise that your browser has bought the chapter |
The purchase record and email address are stored in Cloudflare’s key-value storage, together with the access token. I do not receive your payment details.
Legal basis
Processing is necessary to perform the contract of sale and give you access to what you bought (Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR), and to comply with legal obligations such as accounting and tax requirements (Art. 6(1)(c) GDPR).
Recipients
Stripe (Stripe Payments Europe, Limited, Ireland, and its affiliates, including Stripe, Inc., USA) processes payments and keeps transaction records as described in the Stripe Privacy Policy. Cloudflare hosts the purchase records, as described under Data Processors.
Retention
Purchase records are kept for as long as you have access to the chapters you bought, because access is permanent unless you are refunded. You can ask me to delete your email address at any time; the chapters remain accessible in the browser that holds the access cookie. Records needed for accounting and tax purposes are kept for the period required by law.
Your Rights
Under GDPR (Art. 15–22), you have the right to:
- Access — obtain confirmation of whether your data is being processed and receive a copy
- Rectification — request correction of inaccurate data
- Erasure — request deletion of your data (“right to be forgotten”)
- Restriction — request that processing be limited in certain circumstances
- Portability — receive your data in a structured, machine-readable format
- Objection — object to processing based on legitimate interests
- Withdraw consent — at any time, without affecting the lawfulness of prior processing
To exercise any of these rights, write to ciao@marianoviola.com.
Cookies
This site does not use analytics, advertising, profiling, or any third-party tracking cookies. No cookie banner is displayed because no consent is required.
Cloudflare, the infrastructure provider, may set strictly necessary technical cookies (such as __cflb for load balancing and cf_clearance for bot protection) as part of its standard network operation. These cookies serve no tracking purpose, contain no personal data, and are explicitly exempt from consent requirements under the ePrivacy Directive (2002/58/EC) and the Garante’s 2022 guidelines on cookies.
This site sets one cookie of its own, and only if you buy a chapter: chapter_access, an HttpOnly cookie that holds the random access token for your purchases and expires after five years. It is strictly necessary to provide the service you requested and is used for nothing else, so it does not require consent.
Stripe’s checkout page, which is hosted by Stripe, sets its own cookies to process payments and prevent fraud, as described in the Stripe Cookie Policy.
Complaints
If you believe your data is being processed unlawfully, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Italian data protection authority:
Garante per la protezione dei dati personali Piazza Venezia 11, 00187 Roma www.garanteprivacy.it
Sancho
Sancho is an iOS app, with an Apple Watch companion, for planning road journeys and keeping a private logbook of journeys and vehicles. It is designed to keep your data on your own devices.
What Sancho does not do
- It has no account and no sign-in.
- It has no Sancho server: the data you enter is not sent to me or to any server I operate.
- It contains no analytics, advertising, or tracking, and no third-party SDKs.
- It does not sell or share your data.
Data stored on your device
The following data is created by you and stored only on your iPhone (and, for the journey status, on your paired Apple Watch):
| Data | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Journeys — origin and destination names, departure and arrival times, duration, distance, the vehicle used, and events you record | To build your logbook |
| Vehicles and vehicle events — names, characteristics, maintenance and other events you record | To keep your garage and vehicle history |
| Driven routes — the path recorded while a journey is running, unless you turn off Save journey maps | To show each journey on a map in your logbook |
| Attachments — photos, documents, and audio notes you add to events | To document an event |
| Driver profile — the name you choose to be greeted with and any licence categories and dates you enter | To personalise the app and keep your driver wallet |
| Preferences and recent places | To prefill planning |
Planned routes and weather forecasts are not stored in your logbook. A driven route is recorded only while a journey is running, not while it is paused, and you can remove the map of any journey or turn off Save journey maps in your profile. Comparisons you check but never start are deleted automatically after 7 days.
Location, microphone, and other permissions
- Location is used while a journey is running, including when your iPhone is locked or another app is open, to record the route you drive; iOS shows that location is in use. It is also used when you choose Current Location or add your position to an event. Sancho does not use your location when no journey is running, and never in the background without an active journey.
- Microphone is used only while you record an audio note.
- Photos and files are accessed only for the items you pick.
- Notifications are used for break reminders and are scheduled on your device.
You can change these permissions at any time in the iOS Settings app.
Apple services
To work, Sancho uses services provided by Apple, which receive the minimum data needed for each request:
- Apple Maps (MapKit) receives the places and coordinates needed to search for places, calculate routes, and name places along a route.
- Apple Weather (WeatherKit) receives the coordinates and times along your route to return forecasts.
- Siri and Shortcuts, Live Activities, CarPlay, and Apple Watch handle the journey information you choose to use with them.
- Apple Intelligence, where available, answers questions about your history using on-device processing.
These requests are handled by Apple under the Apple Privacy Policy. Apple may also share crash reports and usage statistics with developers if you opt in to sharing analytics with app developers in iOS Settings; this data is aggregated and does not identify you.
Sharing and export
Nothing leaves your device unless you decide to share it. When you prepare a history package, for example for a workshop, you choose exactly which records and attachments it contains, and you send it yourself through the iOS share sheet. Driven routes and precise coordinates are never included in history packages.
Retention and deletion
Your data remains on your device until you delete it. You can delete individual journeys, vehicles, and events, or clear your whole journey history, from within the app. Deleting Sancho removes all of its data from your device. Because I do not hold a copy of your Sancho data, I cannot access, correct, or restore it for you.
Children
Sancho is not directed at children under 16.
Contact
For questions about Sancho and your privacy, write to ciao@marianoviola.com or use the contact page.
Changes
This policy may be updated to reflect changes in the law or in the data processing practices described above. The current version is always available at this address.
Last updated: October 2026