Privacy Policy

Thort Werx Pty Ltd (ACN 676 429 780), Queensland, Australia. This policy covers thortwerx.com, thwixel.com, thwango.com and picotronix.com. Version 1, 2 October 2026.

1. The short version

We collect only what we need to reply to you, run CyberWarriors membership, take payments and meet our legal obligations. We never sell your details, we do not run advertising trackers, and we keep things for no longer than we need to.

2. What we collect

• If you contact us: the email address and message you send, used only to reply to you.
• If you register or join the CyberWarriors: your name, email address and country, your member code, the date you joined, and your membership status. The date you joined matters: it is used to work out your frequent backer points for any subsidy allocation.
• Votes and feedback: how you vote on project milestones, and any ideas or feedback you send us.
• Payments: card payments are handled by Stripe, and we never see your full card number. We receive a record of the payment: amount, currency, date, the country of your card, and a payment reference.
• Tax records: where we must charge tax (such as VAT or GST), the law requires us to record evidence of your country, such as the country you entered, the country of your card and the country your internet address points to. We keep this with the payment record.
• Our email to you: CyberWarriors emails are sent from our own server through our Google Workspace mail account. Picotronix news is sent through Brevo, which tells us whether an email was delivered, opened or clicked.
• Journalists and media contacts: if we send you a press release, we keep your name, publication, the work email address you publish, and when we wrote to you. The links and images in our press emails carry a short code for your publication, so our server records when our media page, press images or downloads are opened from them, with the browser type. We use this only to follow up sensibly and to make sure we never write to you again after you opt out.
• Forum accounts: if you join one of our community forums, your username, email address and an encrypted form of your password. We log your internet address when you register and sign in, only to block spam and bots. Anything you post on a forum is public, so please don’t share sensitive personal information there.
• Visiting our sites: our server keeps standard technical logs of requests for security and maintenance, which are routinely deleted. Our own visitor statistics are anonymous: no personal browsing profile is kept about you. The Picotronix blog also uses Google Analytics, with internet addresses anonymised and advertising features switched off.

3. What we use it for

To reply to you; to run your membership, your member code, votes and your subsidy account; to take payments and give refunds; to keep the records the law requires; and to send you CyberWarriors news and project updates. You can unsubscribe from our emails at any time, using the link in every email.

4. Who we share it with

We never sell or rent your details. We share them only with the services that help us run things, and only as much as each one needs:

• Stripe, to process payments and refunds;
• Google Workspace, which carries our email, and Brevo, which sends Picotronix news;
• SiteGround, which hosts our websites;
• Google Analytics, for anonymous traffic figures on the Picotronix blog;
• Google reCAPTCHA, which protects our forms from automated abuse (Google’s privacy policy applies to that service);
• tax authorities or others, only where the law requires it.

Some of these services store data outside Australia, including in the United States and Europe.

5. How long we keep it

Membership records are kept for the life of the THWIXEL project. Payment and tax records are kept for as long as the law requires, which for some countries is up to 10 years. Forum accounts are kept while they are active, and mailing-list details until you unsubscribe. Contact messages are kept only as long as needed to deal with them. Press contact records are kept while we are in touch; if you opt out, we keep a record of your address and the date, so that we never contact you again. Server logs are routinely deleted.

6. Cookies

Our sites use only the cookies they need to work, such as remembering a setting or keeping you signed in. We do not use advertising or cross-site tracking cookies. The Picotronix blog uses Google Analytics cookies to count traffic, and reCAPTCHA may set its own cookies when a form is used.

7. Your rights

You can ask to see the details we hold about you, to correct them, or to delete them. We will delete what we can, but we must keep payment and tax records for as long as the law requires. If you are a CyberWarrior, deleting your details ends your membership, because we can no longer link you to your member code; any balance in your subsidy account returns to the pool, and refunds follow the membership terms. If you live in the European Union or the United Kingdom, you have further rights under data protection law, including to object to how we use your details and to complain to your local data protection authority. In Australia, you can complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner.

8. Security

We use secure connections on all our sites, keep access to your details to the people who need it, and never see or store your card details.

9. Changes

We may update this policy. If a change matters, we will tell members by email and show the new date at the top.

10. Contact

For any privacy question or request, email privacy@thwixel.com.