Privacy Policy

1. Who we are

Knowel is operated by Bowen Strategy Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales. Registered office: Dartford, Kent, United Kingdom (full address on file at Companies House under company no. 16897561). Contact: hello@knowel.io. We are the data controller for personal data we process about Knowel customers and users of knowel.io. Customers who deploy Knowel chatbots on their own websites are the data controllers for the personal data of their own website visitors; Knowel acts as their data processor.

2. What data we collect

Account data: name, email address, hashed password, account creation date. Optional: two-factor authentication secret.

Workspace and content data: the documents, URLs, and text content you upload to train your chatbots. Configuration choices you make.

Conversation data: messages exchanged between your chatbot and your website visitors, including content, timestamps, and the IP address of the visitor's browser.

Billing data: name, billing email, payment card details (stored by Stripe, not Knowel), VAT number where supplied, billing history.

Technical data: server logs of your interactions with Knowel (HTTP requests, error logs, etc.) and your IP address for security purposes.

3. How we use your data

• To provide the Knowel service: authenticate you, store your content, run your chatbots, deliver responses to your visitors.
• To process payments through Stripe.
• To send service-related emails: account verification, billing receipts, security alerts, occasional product updates. We do not send marketing emails.
• To detect, prevent, and investigate fraud, abuse, or security incidents.
• To comply with legal obligations (e.g. tax records).

4. Legal basis for processing

We rely on the following legal bases under UK GDPR:

• Contract - to provide the service you have signed up for.
• Legitimate interests - for security, fraud prevention, and product improvement.
• Legal obligation - for tax records and lawful disclosure to authorities.
• Consent - where you have explicitly opted in (e.g. cookies, if any).

5. Where data is stored

Customer content (documents, conversations) is stored in Germany on infrastructure provided by Hetzner Online GmbH (Germany) and Cloudflare R2 (EU region). Data is encrypted at rest.

AI processing happens on infrastructure provided by Anthropic (US, DPF-certified) for text generation and Voyage AI (US, under Standard Contractual Clauses) for embeddings. These providers contractually commit not to use customer data to train their models.

6. Sub-processors

We use the following sub-processors:

7. Retention

• Documents and configurations: retained until you delete them or your account is closed.
• Conversations: 90 days from last activity, then deleted.
• Backups: retained for 14 days, then deleted.
• Account data: retained while your account is active. Deleted within 30 days of account closure.
• Billing records: retained for 7 years for legal/tax purposes.
• Server logs: retained for 14 days.

8. Your rights

You have the right to:

• Access the personal data we hold about you
• Request that we correct inaccurate data
• Request that we delete your data (subject to legal retention requirements)
• Receive your data in a portable format
• Object to our use of your data for any specific purpose
• Lodge a complaint with the UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO)

To exercise any right, email hello@knowel.io. We respond within 30 days.

9. Security

We use industry-standard security measures including TLS 1.3 encryption in transit, encryption at rest, multi-factor authentication for staff access to production systems, and 14-day backup retention. We do not share customer data with third parties except our sub-processors listed above.

10. Cookies

We use the following cookies:

• Session cookie (essential): identifies your authenticated session. Expires when you sign out or after 30 days of inactivity.
• Anonymous chat session ID (essential): the embedded chat widget uses your browser's localStorage to remember the conversation, so it doesn't reset between page navigations on a customer's site.

We do not use third-party analytics, advertising, or tracking cookies. No third-party trackers fire from knowel.io.

11. Children

Knowel is not intended for users under 18. We do not knowingly collect data from children.

12. Changes

We may update this policy. Material changes will be emailed to active customers at least 30 days before they take effect.

13. Contact

Privacy questions or requests: hello@knowel.io.
Postal: Bowen Strategy Ltd, Dartford, Kent, United Kingdom · Company no. 16897561.
UK ICO complaints: ico.org.uk