Privacy notice

1. Who is responsible

The data controller is Florian Findeis, operating under the Project Kant brand.

Adalbertstraße 56
80799 München, Germany
Email: florian@projectkant.com
Telephone: +49 151 70865843

Contact Florian Findeis directly with privacy questions or to exercise your rights. Further operator details are in our Imprint.

2. Website and hosting

Your browser sends your IP address, the requested page and technical request headers so we can deliver the website. We process this information to operate the site and protect it from abuse, based on our legitimate interest in a secure, reliable service (Article 6(1)(f) GDPR).

We host the website and the app (section 6) with Render Services, Inc., San Francisco, United States, using its Frankfurt service region. Render processes website requests and submitted information for us under its Data Processing Addendum. Render also processes service usage and security information under its own responsibilities, as described in its privacy policy.

Render and its providers may process information outside the European Economic Area, including in the United States. Its data processing terms provide for the EU–US Data Privacy Framework where applicable and the European Commission’s standard contractual clauses where that framework does not apply. You can contact us for information about these safeguards.

The website uses temporary IP-based counters to limit repeated requests. It does not maintain a visitor access log. Render retains the website’s application logs for seven days (for the app, see section 6); its separate infrastructure and security processing follows its privacy policy.

This website uses no analytics or advertising pixels and sets no cookies. Fonts and images are served from this website. We do not save your form details in browser storage; your browser may independently remember or restore fields.

3. Optional LinkedIn lookup

Use only your own LinkedIn profile. When you choose the lookup and agree to it, our server sends that profile URL to People Data Labs, Inc. (PDL), 455 Market St Ste 1940, PMB 25778, San Francisco, CA 94105, United States. We do not send PDL the delivery details you later enter or correct.

We request professional details to help fill in the form: your name, employer and the employer’s headquarters address. PDL obtains its data from public sources and third-party providers. We do not request email addresses, home-address fields, phone numbers or sensitive personal information. The returned details may be incomplete or outdated. A company headquarters address is not evidence of your office location.

The lookup is optional and based on your consent (Article 6(1)(a) GDPR). You can enter the details manually instead, with the same sample offer. We show available details only after the returned LinkedIn profile matches the one you supplied. You must check or correct them and confirm an address in Germany where you can receive the sample. A lookup alone does not request a letter.

PDL processes the submitted query for us under its Data Processing Agreement; it is independently responsible for its own professional-data database. PDL processes information in the United States. Its agreement provides the European Commission’s standard contractual clauses for restricted transfers. You can contact us for information about those safeguards. See PDL’s privacy policy for its sources, retention and rights process, including opting out of its data products.

You can withdraw lookup consent by contacting us. Withdrawal does not undo a completed query or affect processing before withdrawal. It does not prevent you from requesting a sample manually.

Conditions for using the lookup

The lookup is offered solely to fill in your own free-sample request. By choosing it, you agree to that limited use and to PDL’s Acceptable Data Use Policy. You must not look up other people, resell or redistribute results, automate or extract data, or use the results to build a service that resembles or competes with PDL. You must not provide programmatic access to a substantial set of its data or features. These conditions apply to the optional lookup, not to requesting a sample through manual entry.

4. Your free sample

When you send your request, we save your confirmed name, company, work email and delivery address, together with a request reference, time, status, entry method and record of your confirmation. If you used the lookup, we also save the LinkedIn profile URL, the lookup-consent record and a private PDL record reference so we can apply privacy requests. The reference follows the same retention period as your sample record. We also save a campaign source label if present in the page URL, to understand where sample requests came from. This does not track you across websites. We also save whether you used the English or the German page, so that we write your sample letter in that language.

We use these details to prepare and post your sample, prevent duplicate requests and answer questions about it. Where you request the service personally, the basis is Article 6(1)(b) GDPR. Where you act for a company, we rely on our legitimate interest in fulfilling that company’s request (Article 6(1)(f)). Preventing duplicate requests also relies on Article 6(1)(f). We use the provider reference to apply privacy and deletion requests, based on our legitimate interest in respecting privacy choices and avoiding continued use of opted-out provider data (Article 6(1)(f)).

Only people handling your request and the providers needed to fulfil it receive the relevant information. Sample records are held in a private database hosted by Supabase Pte. Ltd., 65 Chulia Street #38-02/03, OCBC Centre, Singapore 049513, using the Frankfurt region. Supabase processes the records on our instructions under its Data Processing Addendum. Support and infrastructure processing can involve other countries; its terms provide standard contractual clauses for restricted transfers. The database is not publicly accessible through this website. You can contact us for information about these safeguards.

When a request is saved, our server sends us a short email through Brevo (see “Service providers” in section 6) so that we know to look at it. It contains none of your details: only that a request, or an estimate request, arrived and when.

Deutsche Post AG, Charles-de-Gaulle-Straße 20, 53113 Bonn, Germany, receives the name and postal address needed to deliver your letter. Deutsche Post processes postal-service data under its own responsibilities, described in its privacy information.

Providing your details is voluntary, but we need your contact and delivery details to fulfil the request. The sample is free. Requesting it creates no paid order, subscription or permission for general promotional emails.

5. Enquiries and email

If you contact us or ask about a campaign, we use your message and contact details to respond. The basis is Article 6(1)(b) GDPR for steps towards a personal contract, or Article 6(1)(f) for our legitimate interest in responding to business enquiries. Contact about a sample is limited to that request. We send no automatic newsletter.

Our florian@projectkant.com mailbox uses Google Workspace. Google Cloud EMEA Limited, 70 Sir John Rogerson’s Quay, Dublin 2, Ireland, provides Workspace for customers in Germany. Google processes email content, attachments and contact details for the service under its Cloud Data Processing Addendum. This website does not automatically email sample confirmations.

Google and its subprocessors may process email information internationally, including in the United States. Google describes its use of the EU–US Data Privacy Framework for transfers to Google LLC in its transfer notice. Its data processing terms provide standard contractual clauses for other restricted transfers where required. Contact us for information about these safeguards.

If you contact us through LinkedIn, LinkedIn processes that exchange under its own privacy policy. This website embeds no LinkedIn login or tracking component.

Christmas cards

Your enquiry. If you ask about Christmas cards, we use what you send us (your company, your name and postal address, the design, the number of cards, the posting period, your text, your phone number and how you heard of us) to answer you, prepare your free visualisation, call you, make you an offer and see how businesses find us. For the visualisation we write one card by hand to your name and address and email you a photo of it. If you ask for it, we post that card to you. Deutsche Post AG carries it as an open postcard, so its text and address can be read in transit. We call only the number you give us, and only about your enquiry. The basis is Article 6(1)(b) GDPR for steps towards a contract at your request, or Article 6(1)(f) for our legitimate interest in answering business enquiries and seeing how businesses find us.

Your order. When you order, we use your order details, your text and your name as the sender to write, post and invoice your cards. Your name is written by hand on every card, and the card travels as an open postcard, so your recipients and Deutsche Post AG can read it. The basis is Article 6(1)(b) GDPR, or Article 6(1)(f) where you act for a company. We keep the order confirmation, the invoice and your company’s name and invoice address as booking records for 8 years, and emails that are business letters of the order for 6 years, each from the end of the year, because German law requires it (Article 6(1)(c); § 147 AO, § 257 HGB).

If you received a Christmas card from Project Kant

We wrote it on behalf of the business that sent it, whose sender name is on the card. That business decided to write to you and gave us your name and postal address, and, if it chose to, your title, salutation and whether to address you formally. It is responsible for your data. We process it only on its instructions, under a data processing agreement (Article 28 GDPR) that the business concludes before it sends us its list. To ask why you were contacted, to see, correct or delete your details, or to stop cards from that business, contact it. If you write to us instead, we tell you which business it is, pass your request on to it without delay and help it reply. We use the list only to write, address and post that business’s cards. People write the cards by hand, and everyone who writes for us has agreed in writing to keep the list confidential. Deutsche Post AG carries the card as an open postcard, so the greeting and address can be read in transit. We delete the list, our working copies and printouts 30 days after the last card of the order is posted (if none is posted, 30 days after the order is cancelled), and we shred spoiled cards.

6. The Project Kant app

Businesses use the Project Kant app to order handwritten letters. This section covers people who use the app and people who receive a letter ordered through it. The controller is the same as in section 1, except for the details of the people our customers write to, which we process on the customer’s behalf (see “If you received a letter from Project Kant”). A sample request (section 4) does not create an app account, and an app account does not request a sample.

Your account

• When you sign up: your work email address, your company’s name and a password. Your password passes through our server to our login provider, Supabase (section 4), without being stored or logged. Supabase keeps it only in scrambled form (a one-way hash), and keeps the company name you entered with your login. We email you a link to confirm your address. We also save the language you use the app in (English or German); you can change it in Settings. If you use or have used the app in German, Supabase also keeps the language with your login, so that the emails to confirm your address and reset your password are in your language.
• Your name and company details: your name, which signs your letters as the sender; your company’s return address for the envelopes; an invoice address if different; and what you would like letters to do for you, if you tell us. Your name signs each letter, and your name and your company’s return address are written on the back of each envelope, so the people you write to and Deutsche Post AG (section 4) receive them.
• Continue with Google: if you choose it, Google passes your name, email address, profile picture link and Google account ID to Supabase, which keeps them with your login; your browser connects to Supabase directly for this. The app itself uses only your email address and your name, which we suggest as the sender name on your letters; you can change it. Google Ireland Limited provides the Google sign-in under its own responsibility (see Google’s privacy policy) and may transfer data to the US.
• Staying logged in: you stay logged in for 7 days. Setting a new password logs out your other devices.

We use these details to provide the app. Where you sign up for yourself, for example as a sole trader, the basis is Article 6(1)(b) GDPR. Where you act for a company, we rely on our legitimate interest in providing the service your company uses (Article 6(1)(f)). To stop password guessing and other abuse, we count attempts to sign up, log in, confirm your email address or reset your password by a scrambled form of the IP address or email address, and password links requested in Settings by account, and delete the counts after 15 minutes, based on our legitimate interest in keeping accounts safe (Article 6(1)(f)).

To use the app you need to give your work email address and a password (or use Google sign-in), your name and a return address, and your company’s name when you sign up with email. To order, you also need an invoice address, which is your return address unless you give another. Without them we cannot open your account or carry out orders. What you would like letters to do and the questions when you start a campaign are optional.

The waitlist

We open accounts one by one as our capacity grows. After you sign up, your account waits until Florian Findeis opens it; until then we keep only what you gave when signing up. To decide when, he sees your company’s name, your email address (and your name, if you used Google sign-in) and when you signed up. He decides himself; nothing is decided automatically. We ask for your name, your return address and what you would like letters to do once your account is open. We keep the date your account was opened. When it is open, the app emails you that your account is ready, from florian@projectkant.com through Brevo (see “Emails” below), with your name if we have it and your company’s name. The basis is the same as for your account (above). You can ask us to delete your account at any time, including while you wait. If we have not opened your account 12 months after you signed up, we delete it, including your login.

Campaigns and orders

For each campaign we keep its name, your answers to the optional questions when you start it (who you are writing to, what they should do and the occasion), the letter texts, the recipients you add and the sender details used. When you order, we keep a record of who confirmed which letters, when and at what price, and the dates your letters are posted.

You pay on the payment page of Stripe Payments Europe, Limited (Ireland) and enter your card details and email address there, never with us. We pass Stripe your company’s name (or your own name, if your addresses give no company name), the invoice address, the number of letters, the amount and our order reference, and keep the payment status and Stripe’s payment reference. We process order data to fulfil the order (Article 6(1)(b) GDPR, or Article 6(1)(f) where you act for a company) and keep booking records because German law requires it (Article 6(1)(c)). We do no credit scoring.

Emails

The app only emails you what you need to use your account: the address confirmation and password reset links, and the email that your account is ready once we open it. It sends no newsletter or advertising. When an order is paid or its payment needs a check, it also emails us, not you, a short notice with the order reference, the number of letters, the amount, the posting date (only in the notice that it is paid) and a link to the order in the app; if the payment was only a test, it says so. The emails go out through Brevo, a sending service based in France, which receives the recipient’s email address (yours, or ours for the notices) and the email’s content. The basis is the same as for your account (above).

Brevo’s service adds an invisible image to the emails to you and sends their links through its own server first, so that it can count opens and clicks; on our current plan this cannot be switched off. We have set Brevo to count them anonymously: the counts are not linked to your email address, and your IP address is anonymised. An open or a click still sends your IP address, details of your email program or browser and the time to Brevo’s server. We do not use these counts.

Florian may also write to you himself about your account or an order, from the mailbox described in section 5.

If you received a letter from Project Kant

We wrote it on behalf of the company named as the sender. That company decided to write to you and gave us your name and postal address. It is responsible for your data, and we process it only on its instructions, under a data processing agreement (Article 28 GDPR) that the company accepts before it can add recipients. To ask why you were contacted, to see, correct or delete your details, or to stop letters from that company, contact the company named as the sender. If you write to us instead, we pass your request on to that company without delay and help it reply.

We receive your name, company and postal address, the other columns of the sender’s list (for example a reference number from its own records, or details used to personalise the letter), whether or not the letter uses them, and the letter text. We use them to write, address and post that letter and to report to the sender whether it was posted, held, not sent or returned, with the date and, where needed, a short reason (for example “address unknown”). Deutsche Post AG sees your name and address on the envelope (see section 4). We erase your name, address, the other details and the letter text 90 days after the last letter of that order is posted (if none was posted, 90 days after the letters are marked as not sent), or 90 days after a refund; a letter still on hold delays this. Files we download to write the letters are deleted by the same date. If the sender never pays for the order, your details stay until the sender deletes the campaign.

Hosting, security and cookies

The app runs with Render (see section 2) in its Frankfurt service region; its login and database are with Supabase (see section 4) in the Frankfurt region. Your browser sends technical data with every request, including your IP address. Render keeps the app’s logs for 7 days, and Supabase keeps login records (including your IP address) for 1 day. Our own error logs record the type of request, the app address it went to and a short error description. We do not log what you send, but a provider’s error description can occasionally include a value such as an email address. This is our legitimate interest in running a secure service (Article 6(1)(f) GDPR). All connections are encrypted, and each company sees only its own data. The app has no analytics or advertising and loads no fonts or scripts from other companies’ servers.

Unlike this website, the app sets two cookies. Both are strictly necessary for the service you asked for, so we do not ask for consent for them (§ 25(2) No. 2 TDDDG):

• kant_session keeps you logged in, for 7 days.
• kant_google holds a one-time security value during “Continue with Google”, for 10 minutes.

How orders progress

To see where ordering gets stuck, we count how many campaigns in the last 30 days were created, received recipients, reached the payment page and were paid. We count this from the order records we keep anyway (above) and see only the totals; nothing extra is recorded and no other company is involved. This is our legitimate interest in improving the ordering process (Article 6(1)(f) GDPR).

Service providers

Besides Render (section 2), Supabase (section 4) and our Google Workspace mailbox (section 5), these companies process app data for us (Brevo also our notices about sample requests, section 4) under data processing agreements, only for the purposes above:

• Stripe Payments Europe, Limited: payments and refunds; Ireland, may transfer data to the US. Stripe is also responsible for its own fraud prevention and legal duties (see its privacy notice).
• Brevo: sends the app’s account emails, and short notices to us about orders and sample requests; France.

Google Ireland Limited provides “Continue with Google” under its own responsibility (see “Your account”).

Where data may reach the United States or another country outside the European Economic Area, the transfer relies on the EU–US Data Privacy Framework if the provider is certified under it, and otherwise on the European Commission’s standard contractual clauses (Article 46(2)(c) GDPR). You can contact us for a copy of these safeguards.

How long we keep app data

• Recipient names, addresses and reference numbers, the other columns of the sender’s list, notes on held, unsent or returned letters, letter texts, the sender used and your answers when starting a campaign: 90 days after the last letter of an order is posted (if none was posted, 90 days after the letters are marked as not sent), or 90 days after a refund; a letter still on hold delays this. Files we download to write the letters are deleted by the same date. The campaign name, counts, statuses and dates stay with the order records (8 years, below).
• Campaigns not paid for (drafts and those awaiting payment): until you delete them. When you delete one, its recipients, letter texts and answers are erased at once; its name is kept until your account is deleted.
• Order and payment records (amount, date, status, payment reference): 8 years from the end of the year, as German law requires (§ 147 AO, § 257 HGB).
• Your account and company details, including the waitlist and the date your account was opened: while your account exists; deleted when you ask us. An account we have not opened is deleted 12 months after sign-up, with its login at our login provider. If you ask after a paid order, we keep your company’s name and current invoice address for 8 years for our booking records.
• Emails about your account or an order: routine messages within 120 days after they are resolved (as in section 7); messages that are business records of an order, 6 years from the end of the year (§ 257 HGB).
• Logs: the app’s logs at Render 7 days; login records at Supabase 1 day.
• Emails at Brevo (account emails and our notices: a copy of the email, its delivery log and the anonymous open and click counts): 1 month.
• Login sessions: 7 days in the app. Our login provider’s record of your login (when it started, your IP address and browser) is ended with it: when you log out, when you set a new password (for your other logins) or after the 7 days. If our login provider cannot be reached at that moment, we end it as soon as it can. Attempt counters: 15 minutes.

7. How long we keep website information

For the app, see “How long we keep app data” in section 6.

• Sample records: deleted from the active store 90 days after the request, at the next hourly cleanup or server restart. This is our operating retention period, not a statutory minimum. Earlier deletion requests are handled individually.
• Unsubmitted lookups: the returned form details are held temporarily for retries for up to two minutes, then removed by the next minute’s cleanup. The profile URL, private provider reference and random lookup reference expire after 30 minutes and are removed by the next minute’s cleanup. Both are lost on a server restart. We do not save the raw provider response in the sample database.
• Request counters: expire after one hour and are removed by the next minute’s cleanup.
• Confirmation access: the confirmation page uses a random access token in its URL fragment. It expires after 30 minutes or a server restart and is removed by the next minute’s cleanup. It is not included in links to other websites.
• Sample correspondence and working copies: deleted at the monthly review following 90 days, within 120 days of the request. Routine enquiries are deleted within 120 days after resolution. A specific ongoing enquiry, legal duty or dispute may require relevant records to be kept longer; any exception is limited to that purpose.
• Request notices: the short email to us (section 4) holds none of your details. Brevo keeps its copy for 1 month; we delete ours at the monthly review.
• Christmas card enquiries: like routine enquiries, deleted within 120 days after they are resolved, together with the photo of your visualisation. Records of an order follow section 5, “Your order”.
• Christmas card recipient lists: deleted with working copies and printouts 30 days after the last card of the order is posted (if none is posted, 30 days after the order is cancelled).

Our current Supabase plan does not include customer-accessible automatic database backups. Operational exports follow the working-copy period above. If records are restored from a working copy, we check expiry dates and reapply earlier deletion requests before using them. Provider infrastructure and security records follow the respective provider’s data processing terms.

Email-provider recovery copies follow Google’s deletion process under its data processing terms. Retention of provider account and security records is separate from our sample records. Contact us if you need details about a particular deletion request.

8. Your rights

Under the conditions in the GDPR, you may ask for access, correction, deletion, restriction of processing and data portability. Where processing relies on consent, you may withdraw it at any time without affecting processing before withdrawal. Contact florian@projectkant.com; no account is needed.

You may object to processing based on legitimate interests for reasons relating to your situation. You may object to direct marketing at any time, without giving a reason.

You can complain to a data protection supervisory authority, particularly where you live, work or believe an infringement occurred. You do not have to contact us first.

For our establishment in Bavaria, you can contact the Bayerisches Landesamt für Datenschutzaufsicht (BayLDA), Promenade 18, 91522 Ansbach, Germany. You may also contact another competent authority.

If you received a letter or Christmas card that a business ordered from us, that business decides on your requests (see sections 5 and 6); we pass on any we receive.

We do not use your information for automated decisions with legal or similarly significant effects.