This Policy applies where AetherForge acts as the controller or business responsible for personal information. It does not apply to third-party websites or services that have their own privacy policies.
1. Information we collect
Information you provide
- Account information: name, email address, authentication information, account settings, location information you choose to provide, and subscription tier.
- Invention and project content: invention descriptions, conversations, notes, journals, research, designs, sketches, images, recordings, transcripts, specifications, bills of materials, test records, prototypes, patent-readiness materials, sales materials, uploads, and generated documents.
- Communications: support messages, feedback, safety reports, survey responses, and other communications with us.
- Payment information: subscription, transaction, billing status, and limited payment-method details. Our payment processor receives full payment-card details; AetherForge generally receives transaction tokens and related records rather than full card numbers.
- Data-rights information: requests to access, correct, export, or delete information and data used to verify and fulfill those requests.
Information collected through use of the Service
- Usage and device information: IP address, device and browser type, operating system, pages and features used, dates and times, referring pages, session identifiers, and diagnostic events.
- Product activity: projects, sessions, workflow stages, feature usage, exports, generated artifacts, tool activity, and interactions with AI-assisted features.
- Technical and security records: authentication events, error logs, audit records, fraud signals, access records, and system performance data.
- AI and tool records: prompts, selected project context, conversation history, tool inputs and outputs, provider/model identifiers, response identifiers, citations, token or resource usage, cost records, and generated content.
- Approximate location: location inferred from an IP address and any ZIP code or location you provide for location-dependent features.
- Cookies and similar technologies: essential authentication and security cookies. We also use browser local storage to remember appearance, text-size, motion, and similar device preferences. On the public marketing website only, Google Analytics may use cookies and similar technologies as described below. We do not use third-party advertising cookies.
Public marketing website analytics
AetherForge uses Google Analytics only on the public marketing pages of afcopilot.com to understand visits to public pages, general page usage, device and browser characteristics, approximate location information supplied through the analytics service, and public-site performance. Google Analytics is not loaded within the authenticated AetherForge application. Inventor work, invention content, account activity, billing activity, and authenticated application activity are not sent to Google Analytics.
Public-page analytics may involve Google processing public-page interactions and technical device, browser, network, and approximate-location information, subject to Google’s terms and privacy practices. AetherForge does not configure Google Analytics to receive names, email addresses, account identifiers, invention content, or authenticated application activity. We do not enable Google Signals, advertising personalization, remarketing, cross-domain tracking, User-ID tracking, enhanced conversions, or custom marketing events.
Analytics choices depend on the visitor’s applicable jurisdiction. In regions requiring affirmative analytics consent, Google Analytics does not load and no request is sent to Google before the visitor selects “Allow analytics.” Other visitors may disable Analytics at any time through Cookie preferences in the public-site footer. Declining or withdrawing consent prevents later Analytics loading and removes AetherForge-accessible Google Analytics cookies where technically possible.
Google’s independent processing is governed by its own practices, which AetherForge does not control beyond AetherForge’s configuration. Learn more through Google’s Privacy Policy and Google’s Analytics opt-out tools. Public-site Google Analytics is separate from AetherForge’s internal first-party operational records.
Information from other sources
We may receive information from authentication providers, payment processors, service providers, external search and mapping sources, publicly available sources, and a person who invites you to or shares material with you.
2. How we use information
We use personal information to:
- provide, personalize, maintain, and secure the Service;
- save invention work and let you continue it across sessions;
- process prompts and run AI, transcription, image, search, document, and other requested features;
- distinguish user-authored, AI-generated, and externally sourced material and maintain version history and provenance;
- process payments, subscriptions, limits, credits, and refunds;
- communicate about accounts, transactions, service changes, support, and security;
- troubleshoot errors, monitor performance, reconcile usage and costs, and improve product reliability;
- prevent fraud, abuse, unauthorized access, and safety incidents;
- enforce our Terms, protect rights, and resolve disputes;
- comply with law, court orders, and lawful requests; and
- analyze aggregate or de-identified trends and develop the Service.
We do not use private invention content to train AetherForge or third-party general-purpose AI models. Our API-based AI provider does not use API inputs or outputs to train its models. We may use aggregate or properly de-identified information to understand and improve the Service, but not to reconstruct or disclose private invention content.
3. How AI and external tools process your information
When you use an AI-assisted or external-tool feature, we may send the information needed to perform your request to the applicable provider. Depending on the feature, this can include system instructions, your prompt, relevant conversation and project context, tool schemas and results, images, sketches, audio, search terms, equipment keywords, ZIP code, and files or extracted text.
We aim to send only information reasonably needed for the requested feature. Provider processing is subject to our agreements and configuration with those providers and, where applicable, their own terms and privacy notices.
Current provider categories include:
- AI model, image-generation, image-editing, speech-to-text, and web-search providers;
- cloud hosting, database, and file-storage providers;
- authentication and security providers;
- payment processing providers;
- transactional email and support providers;
- mapping, geocoding, and equipment-location services; and
- internal analytics and Vercel-hosted application logging used for reliability and operations.
Our current service-provider and subprocessor list is available on our Subprocessors page.
4. How we disclose information
We may disclose personal information:
- To service providers and subprocessors that perform services for us under appropriate restrictions.
- At your direction, such as when you export, share, publish, or send project material.
- For legal and safety reasons, when reasonably necessary to comply with law, protect people or rights, investigate fraud or abuse, or secure the Service.
- In a business transaction, such as a financing, merger, acquisition, reorganization, bankruptcy, or sale of assets, subject to applicable law and appropriate confidentiality protections.
- With professional advisers, such as lawyers, auditors, insurers, and accountants who need the information for their work.
- With affiliates, if any, consistent with this Policy.
We may disclose aggregate or de-identified information that cannot reasonably be used to identify you. We do not attempt to re-identify information we maintain as de-identified, except to test whether our de-identification processes are effective or as permitted by law.
Sale and targeted advertising. AetherForge does not sell personal information and does not share personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising or targeted advertising. If our practices change, we will update this Policy and provide legally required notice and opt-out mechanisms before the change applies.
5. Invention privacy and access controls
Invention projects are private by default. AetherForge personnel are not permitted to browse private invention content casually. Authorized personnel may access information when reasonably necessary for support you request, security, safety, fraud prevention, legal compliance, or reliable operation, subject to role-based permissions and auditing.
You control disclosures you initiate through sharing, exporting, publishing, downloading, or integrations. Once information is disclosed to someone else at your direction, their handling of it may be outside AetherForge’s control.
Do not treat use of the Service by itself as a substitute for a nondisclosure agreement, patent filing strategy, trade-secret program, export-control review, or advice from qualified counsel.
6. Legal bases for EEA, UK, and similar jurisdictions
Where applicable, we process personal information as necessary to perform our contract with you, including providing the Service and requested features; for our legitimate interests in securing, supporting, and improving the Service, preventing abuse, and operating our business; to comply with legal obligations; and with consent where consent is required. You may withdraw consent at any time, without affecting earlier lawful processing.
Where we rely on legitimate interests, we consider the impact on your rights and do not rely on that basis where your interests or rights override ours.
7. Retention
We retain personal information only as long as reasonably necessary for the purposes described in this Policy, including to provide the Service, preserve user-requested invention history and provenance, meet legal and accounting requirements, resolve disputes, prevent abuse, and enforce agreements.
Retention depends on the data category and context:
| Category | Retention period |
|---|---|
| Account profile | Life of the account, including while a canceled workshop remains read-only, plus any limited period required for deletion processing, backups, legal obligations, security, or disputes |
| Active invention/project content | Life of the account or until the user separately deletes the account or makes a valid deletion request, subject to legal holds and other lawful exceptions |
| Version history and provenance | While the related account or project remains active, or longer when the user chooses to preserve invention history, subject to deletion rights and lawful exceptions |
| Deleted project/account data in backups | Until overwritten or deleted through the ordinary secure backup lifecycle |
| AI/tool execution records containing content | As needed to provide the requested feature, preserve the user’s project record, secure the Service, and resolve errors or disputes |
| Security and access logs | For a limited period appropriate to security monitoring, investigation, fraud prevention, and legal obligations |
| Administrative audit records | Generally up to 24 months, or longer when required by a legal hold, investigation, or legal obligation |
| Payment, tax, and accounting records | For the period required by tax, accounting, payment, anti-fraud, and other applicable laws |
| Support communications | For as long as reasonably needed to resolve the request, maintain support history, prevent abuse, and address disputes |
| Rights-request records | For as long as reasonably needed to document compliance, prevent fraud, and resolve disputes |
Deletion may remove or anonymize direct identifiers while retaining non-identifying usage, cost, integrity, audit, or transaction records. We may delay or limit deletion for an active legal hold, legal obligation, security investigation, fraud prevention, dispute, or legal claim. When a hold ends, deletion rules resume.
Canceling a subscription does not delete personal information or invention content. A canceled workshop remains available in read-only form so the user can review saved work or reopen later. Account deletion is a separate action available through Account Preferences → Your Data → Delete.
8. Security
We use administrative, technical, and organizational safeguards designed to protect personal information, including encryption in transit and at rest, role-based administrative access, authentication controls, secret protection, logging, and backups. No method of storage or transmission is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.
If you believe your account or information is at risk, contact legal@afcopilot.com.
9. Your choices and rights
Depending on where you live, you may have rights to know or access personal information; correct it; delete it; receive a portable copy; restrict or object to processing; withdraw consent; opt out of sale, sharing, or targeted advertising; limit certain uses of sensitive personal information; appeal a denied request; and complain to a regulator.
You may also:
- update account information through Account Preferences;
- export account information through Account Preferences → Your Data → Download everything;
- permanently delete your account through Account Preferences → Your Data → Delete;
- archive invention projects that contain saved work; the current inventor interface does not provide permanent project-level deletion for projects containing evidence;
- unsubscribe from marketing email using the link in the message; and
- manage browser cookies and local storage through browser controls, although blocking essential authentication storage may prevent sign-in or saved preferences.
- review or change public-site analytics consent through Cookie preferences in the public-site footer.
See the Data Rights page for request methods, verification, timing, authorized agents, appeals, and jurisdiction-specific information.
We will not discriminate against you for exercising a privacy right. Rights are not absolute, and we may deny or limit a request where law permits, such as to protect another person’s rights, preserve security, comply with law, or establish or defend legal claims.
10. International data transfers
AetherForge makes the Service available in supported countries, as indicated during registration or checkout. Availability may change based on legal, payment, provider, sanctions, export-control, tax, or operational requirements. AetherForge and its providers may process information in the United States and other countries whose laws may differ from those where you live. Where required, we use legally recognized safeguards for international transfers and provide information about those safeguards on request.
11. Children’s privacy
The Service is for adults aged 18 or older. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 18. If we learn that a person under 18 has provided personal information, we will take appropriate steps to close the account and delete or anonymize the information, subject to applicable law. Contact legal@afcopilot.com if you believe a minor provided information to us.
12. U.S. state disclosures
In the preceding 12 months, we may have collected the categories described in Section 1, including identifiers; customer records; commercial information; internet or network activity; approximate geolocation; audio, visual, and similar information; professional or employment-related information users include in projects; inferences generated to provide requested features; and information that may be treated as sensitive under some laws.
We collect and use these categories for the business and commercial purposes in Section 2 and disclose them to the recipient categories in Sections 3 and 4. We have not sold personal information or shared it for cross-context behavioral advertising. We do not knowingly collect, sell, or share the personal information of consumers under 18.
California residents may have rights to know, access, correct, and delete personal information; opt out of sale or sharing; limit certain uses or disclosures of sensitive personal information; and receive equal service and pricing. Other U.S. state laws may provide similar rights, including portability, targeted-advertising opt-out, profiling opt-out, and an appeal.
13. Changes to this Policy
We may update this Policy as the Service, law, or our practices change. We will post the updated version and effective date. If a change materially affects your rights or how we use previously collected personal information, we will provide additional notice or obtain consent where required.
14. Contact
Privacy questions and requests: legal@afcopilot.com
Security reports: legal@afcopilot.com
Mail: AetherForge Labs, Inc., 2479 Peachtree Road #1210, Atlanta, GA 30305