Privacy Policy

Who we are

MEP Automate is operated by Hussein Ragab, a chartered mechanical engineer based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates ("we", "us"). For anything in this policy, write to support@mepautomate.com.

What we collect

When you use the contact form we collect the details you type into it: your name, work email, office or consultancy, and — if you choose to provide them — your role, city or country, and a free-text note. We do not collect anything from that form you did not type yourself.

If you ask to be told when Code Finder is ready, we collect only the email address you type, and use it only for that.

Like almost every website, our hosting and download infrastructure (Vercel and Cloudflare) records standard server logs such as IP address, browser type, and requested pages. We do not run advertising trackers or third-party analytics on this site. Your light/dark theme preference, and whether the Darcy chat is open, are stored only in your own browser.

Our fonts are served from this site. Tutorial videos are YouTube embeds in privacy-enhanced mode (youtube-nocookie.com) and load only when you press play; from then on YouTube's privacy policy applies.

How we use it

Contact-form details are used for exactly one purpose: to reply to you about MEP Automate, and occasionally to tell you about major releases relevant to what you told us. We do not sell, rent, or share your details with third parties for their marketing.

Where it goes and how long we keep it

Form submissions are delivered over an encrypted connection to our own inbox. We keep them for up to 2 years after our last exchange with you, or until you ask us to delete them — whichever comes first.

If you buy a subscription, we keep your licence records — checkout email, name, the Machine codes you register, and the payment events Paddle sends us — while the subscription is active and for 6 years after it ends, then delete them. Paddle keeps its own tax and invoice records under its own policy.

Darcy, the website assistant

Darcy is an AI assistant that answers questions about MEP Automate. When you ask Darcy something, the chat (your messages and Darcy's replies, at most the last 10 messages) goes from our server to Anthropic's Claude API, which writes the reply. Anthropic processes it as our service provider under its commercial terms and privacy policy.

We do not store what you type to Darcy. For each reply we keep only the time, the kind of question (for example sales or support), the language, whether a person was suggested, and how much the reply cost. To apply the daily question limit, Darcy keeps a one-way code made from your IP address, the date and a secret value; it is not your IP address, and codes from earlier days are deleted as new questions arrive. The chat itself stays in your browser tab and is gone when you reload the page.

If you choose "Send this chat to support" and tick the box, the chat (at most the last 10 messages) and the email address you add, if any, are emailed to us. Cloudflare Turnstile checks that a person is sending it. We keep that email like a contact-form message.

Your choices

Email support@mepautomate.com at any time to see what we hold about you, correct it, or have it deleted. Every release or news email we send tells you how to opt out of further messages.

Payments

When you buy a subscription, checkout runs on Paddle.com. Paddle is the Merchant of Record and an independent payment and tax processor.

Paddle collects name, email, billing country, tax ID if you enter one, and payment-method details. That processing is under Paddle's privacy policy.

We receive from Paddle: your name, checkout email, country, subscription status, billing period, payment references, and any refund or dispute. We use the checkout email to match you to your subscription when you download or renew a licence file, to write it into the licence file, and to answer your support requests. We also store the Machine codes you register (up to two). Paddle, not we, sends receipts and billing mail. We send no marketing mail to this address.

We do not receive or store card numbers.

The desktop application

MEP Automate calculations run locally on your machine, and your project files stay on your machine. When a tool starts with an internet connection, it reads the current date from public web servers, checks our download server for updates and for our list of withdrawn licence files, and, when your licence file is within 7 days of its end, asks our licence service for a renewed file by sending the email address and Machine code already in that file. Four tools (Condensate Calculator, Swimming Pool Load Simulator, Smoke Management Calculations and Ventilation Energy Consumption) can also fetch historical weather from Open-Meteo (open-meteo.com) when you run a weather-based calculation. They send the city and country you choose, to find its coordinates, and then those coordinates and the date range, to get hourly weather. Like any web server, Open-Meteo sees your IP address; its own privacy terms apply (open-meteo.com/en/terms). Nothing else is sent: no project data and no usage data. The tools need a connection the first time they start, and then at least once every 14 days (or after 200 starts offline).

Changes

If this policy changes, the date at the top changes with it. Material changes will be announced to the early-access list before they take effect.