Privacy Policy

1. Who We Are

This Privacy Policy applies to the website tariqmkhan.com ("the Site"), operated by Tariq M. Khan, an independent SEO Consultant providing services to businesses across North America and English-speaking markets.

For the purposes of applicable data protection legislation — including the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the UK GDPR, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA/CPRA), and other applicable laws — Tariq M. Khan acts as the data controller for personal data collected through this website.

Contact: All privacy-related requests should be submitted via the contact form at tariqmkhan.com/#contact.

2. Information We Collect

2.1 Information You Provide Directly

When you submit the contact form on this website, we collect:

• Full name — to address you personally in our response
• Email address — to send you a reply to your enquiry
• Budget range (optional dropdown) — to help qualify the scope of your request
• Message content — the free-text description of your enquiry

Submission of the contact form is entirely voluntary. You are not required to provide any information to browse this website.

2.2 Information Collected Automatically

When you visit the Site, certain technical information is automatically collected by the services described in Section 6 (Third-Party Services). This may include:

• IP address (anonymised by Google Analytics where applicable)
• Browser type and version
• Operating system
• Pages visited, time on page, and navigation path
• Referring URL (the site you came from)
• General geographic location (country/city level — not precise GPS data)

This data is collected in aggregate and is used solely to understand how visitors use the Site and to improve its content and performance.

2.3 Information We Do Not Collect

We do not collect:

• Payment card or banking information
• Government-issued identification numbers
• Precise geolocation data
• Biometric data
• Sensitive personal categories (health, religion, ethnicity, etc.)

3. How We Use Your Information

We use the personal information you provide through the contact form for the following purposes:

• To respond to your enquiry — replying to your message via email within our stated response time (typically within 24 hours, Monday–Friday)
• To assess your requirements — understanding your budget, timeline, and business needs to determine whether and how we can help
• To maintain a record of communications — retaining a copy of your message and our response for the purposes of continuity and professional conduct

We use automatically collected data (analytics) to:

• Understand which pages and content are most useful to visitors
• Identify and resolve technical issues with the Site
• Improve the overall user experience

We do not use your information for:

• Unsolicited marketing emails or newsletters (unless you explicitly opt in to a future mailing list)
• Automated decision-making or profiling
• Selling, renting, or sharing with third parties for commercial purposes

4. Legal Basis for Processing (GDPR)

For visitors in the European Economic Area (EEA) and the United Kingdom, we rely on the following legal bases under Article 6 of the GDPR:

• Consent (Article 6(1)(a)) — for the use of non-essential cookies and analytics tools where your prior consent has been obtained
• Legitimate Interests (Article 6(1)(f)) — for processing contact form submissions and maintaining website analytics to improve the Site. Our legitimate interest is in operating a professional business website and responding to prospective client enquiries. This interest does not override your fundamental rights and freedoms.
• Pre-contractual measures (Article 6(1)(b)) — processing your contact form submission constitutes steps taken at your request prior to potentially entering into a service agreement

5. Cookies & Tracking Technologies

This website uses cookies — small text files stored on your device — for the following purposes:

5.1 Strictly Necessary Cookies

These cookies are essential for the Site to function and cannot be switched off. They include security cookies set by Cloudflare Turnstile (the CAPTCHA used on the contact form) to distinguish human visitors from bots.

These do not require your consent as they are technically necessary for legitimate security purposes.

5.2 Analytics Cookies

We use Google Analytics 4 (GA4) via Google Tag Manager to collect aggregated, anonymised data about how visitors use the Site. This includes page views, session duration, geographic location (country/city level), and traffic sources.

Google Analytics uses cookies to track returning visitors. The data is anonymised and does not allow us to identify you personally.

You can opt out of Google Analytics by installing the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on.

Google Tag Manager is loaded after page paint using requestIdleCallback to minimise its impact on page performance. No tracking occurs until the page has fully loaded.

5.3 Managing Cookies

You can control and delete cookies through your browser settings. Note that disabling certain cookies may affect the functionality of the Site. Most modern browsers allow you to:

• See what cookies are stored and delete them on an individual basis
• Block third-party cookies
• Block cookies from specific websites
• Block all cookies
• Delete all cookies when you close your browser

6. Third-Party Services

This website uses the following third-party services. Each has its own privacy policy and data handling practices:

6.1 Google Analytics 4 & Google Tag Manager

Purpose: Website analytics — understanding visitor behaviour in aggregate.

Data collected: Anonymised usage data including page views, session duration, device type, and geographic region.

Data location: Google may store data on servers outside the EEA. Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs) are used to ensure GDPR-compliant transfers.

Privacy Policy: policies.google.com/privacy

6.2 Cloudflare Turnstile

Purpose: CAPTCHA protection on the contact form — preventing spam and automated submissions.

Data collected: Interaction patterns (mouse movements, timing), IP address metadata — used solely to assess whether a visitor is human.

Privacy Policy: cloudflare.com/privacypolicy

6.3 Web3Forms

Purpose: Processing and routing contact form submissions to our email inbox.

Data collected: Name, email address, budget range, and message content submitted through the contact form.

Data retention: Web3Forms processes submissions in transit and does not permanently store your form data beyond the period required for delivery.

Privacy Policy: web3forms.com/privacy

6.4 Google Fonts

Purpose: Serving web fonts (Cormorant Garamond, Outfit, JetBrains Mono) to ensure consistent typography across devices.

Data collected: When fonts are loaded, your IP address is transmitted to Google's servers. This is technically unavoidable when loading fonts from external servers. Fonts are loaded asynchronously and do not block page rendering.

Privacy Policy: policies.google.com/privacy

6.5 Cloudflare CDN & Hosting (via Cloudflare Pages)

Purpose: Content delivery, DDoS protection, and website hosting infrastructure.

Data collected: IP addresses and request metadata — processed by Cloudflare's network for security and performance purposes.

Privacy Policy: cloudflare.com/privacypolicy

7. Data Retention

We retain your personal data for the following periods:

• Contact form submissions — Email records of enquiries and responses are retained for up to 3 years from the date of submission, or until a client relationship ends, whichever is later. This allows us to maintain a professional record of communications.
• Google Analytics data — Retained in accordance with Google Analytics settings, currently set to 14 months before automatic deletion.
• Cloudflare Turnstile data — Processed in real-time; not retained by us after submission.

After the relevant retention period, personal data is deleted or anonymised. You may request earlier deletion at any time (see Section 9).

8. Data Security

We take the security of your personal data seriously. The following measures are in place:

• HTTPS / TLS encryption — All data transmitted between your browser and this website is encrypted in transit via HTTPS (TLS 1.2/1.3). This is enforced by Cloudflare.
• CAPTCHA protection — Cloudflare Turnstile prevents automated bots from submitting the contact form.
• No database on this site — This is a static website. No personal data is stored in a server-side database on this domain.
• Limited access — Contact form submissions are delivered to a single, password-protected professional email account with two-factor authentication enabled.

No method of transmission over the internet is 100% secure. While we use commercially reasonable means to protect your information, we cannot guarantee absolute security. If you believe your data has been compromised, please contact us immediately.

9. Your Rights

Depending on your location, you may have some or all of the following rights regarding your personal data:

Under GDPR (EEA & UK residents)

• Right of Access (Article 15) — You have the right to request a copy of the personal data we hold about you.
• Right to Rectification (Article 16) — You can request that we correct inaccurate or incomplete personal data.
• Right to Erasure / "Right to be Forgotten" (Article 17) — You can request that we delete your personal data where there is no compelling reason for us to continue processing it.
• Right to Restrict Processing (Article 18) — You can request that we limit how we use your data in certain circumstances.
• Right to Data Portability (Article 20) — You can request your data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format.
• Right to Object (Article 21) — You can object to processing based on legitimate interests.
• Right to Withdraw Consent — Where processing is based on consent, you may withdraw it at any time without affecting the lawfulness of prior processing.

Right to Lodge a Complaint

If you are in the EEA or UK and believe we are processing your data unlawfully, you have the right to lodge a complaint with your local data protection authority:

• UK: Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) — ico.org.uk
• EU: Your national data protection supervisory authority — EDPB Member List

How to Exercise Your Rights

To exercise any of the above rights, please submit your request via the contact form at tariqmkhan.com/#contact. We will respond within 30 days. We may need to verify your identity before processing the request.

10. California Privacy Rights (CCPA / CPRA)

If you are a California resident, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), as amended by the California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA), provides you with specific rights regarding your personal information.

Your California Rights Include:

• Right to Know — The right to request disclosure of the categories and specific pieces of personal information we have collected about you in the past 12 months, including the purposes for collection and any third parties with whom it was shared.
• Right to Delete — The right to request deletion of personal information we have collected, subject to certain exceptions.
• Right to Correct — The right to request correction of inaccurate personal information.
• Right to Opt-Out of Sale or Sharing — We do not sell or share your personal information for cross-context behavioural advertising. This right is not applicable here.
• Right to Non-Discrimination — We will not discriminate against you for exercising any of your CCPA rights.

Categories of Personal Information Collected (Last 12 Months)

• Identifiers: name, email address (contact form only)
• Internet/network activity: browsing behaviour on this site (analytics only, via Google Analytics)
• Geolocation: city/country-level approximation (via analytics — not precise)

To exercise your California rights, contact us via the form at tariqmkhan.com/#contact with the subject "CCPA Request". We will respond within 45 days as required by law.

11. International Data Transfers

This website is operated from and may transfer data to countries outside the European Economic Area (EEA) and the United Kingdom, including the United States, where our third-party service providers (Google, Cloudflare, Web3Forms) are based.

Where such transfers occur, we rely on appropriate safeguards including:

• Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs) — as approved by the European Commission and the UK Information Commissioner's Office
• Adequacy decisions — where the European Commission has deemed a country's data protection laws adequate

Our third-party providers maintain their own GDPR compliance programs and execute data processing agreements with the same clauses.

12. Children's Privacy

This website is intended for use by business owners, marketing professionals, and adults aged 18 and over. We do not knowingly collect personal data from individuals under the age of 16 (or under 13 in jurisdictions where that is the minimum age).

If you believe we have inadvertently collected data from a child under the applicable age threshold, please contact us immediately so we can delete it promptly.

13. Links to Other Websites

This website may contain links to third-party websites including Upwork, LinkedIn, UC Davis/Coursera, and certification verification portals. Once you leave tariqmkhan.com, this Privacy Policy does not apply.

We are not responsible for the privacy practices of those websites and encourage you to review their respective privacy policies before submitting any personal information.

14. Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices, technology, legal requirements, or other factors. When we do, we will update the "Last Updated" date at the top of this page.

We encourage you to review this page periodically. Continued use of the Site after any changes constitutes your acceptance of the updated policy. Where required by law (e.g. for material changes affecting data subjects in the EEA), we will provide more prominent notice.

In accordance with the CCPA, this policy is reviewed and updated at a minimum of once every 12 months.

15. Contact Us

For any questions, requests, or concerns about this Privacy Policy or how we handle your personal data, please contact us: