ShadowGate Privacy Policy

Effective: 5 August 2026

ShadowGate is a privacy-first AI inference gateway operated by Tech Cave (ABN 62 992 428 919). This policy explains what we collect, what we never collect, and how Stripe handles your payment data. It applies to the ShadowGate product and service.

The short version

• We do not store your prompts or responses. Inference content is streamed through the gateway and never persisted, profiled, or used to build a model of you.
• We log metadata only — timestamps, model identifiers and usage counts — for billing and operations.
• Payments are handled by Stripe. We never see or store your full card details.
• We do not sell your data. Ever.

Information we collect

Account data

When you create an account you provide an email address and a password (stored hashed). This lets you manage API keys and view usage.

Usage metadata

We record metadata about your API usage: timestamps, model identifiers, request counts and token counts. This is used solely to meter your plan and detect abuse. Message content is not captured.

Payment data via Stripe

Subscriptions and purchases are processed by Stripe. Stripe collects the payment details (card number, billing address, etc.) directly and stores them on its own PCI-DSS-compliant infrastructure. Tech Cave receives from Stripe only the information needed to fulfil your subscription, such as your plan, status, and a masked payment token. We do not have access to your full card number. Your payment data is subject to the Stripe Privacy Policy.

What we never do

• We never store prompts, messages, or model outputs.
• We never build advertising or behavioural profiles from your usage.
• We never sell or rent your personal data.
• We never use your inference content to train or fine-tune models.

Cookies and analytics

The site and gateway do not use tracking cookies or third-party advertising analytics. We may use privacy-respecting, aggregated server logs to maintain service reliability.

Data sharing

We share data only where required to run the service:

• Payment processors (Stripe) — to process your transactions, per their privacy policy.
• Service providers — hosting and infrastructure providers that process data on our behalf under contract.
• Legal obligations — where we are required by law to disclose information.

Data retention

Account data is kept while your account is active. Usage metadata is retained for a limited period for billing reconciliation and fraud prevention. On request, we will delete your account data. We cannot reconstruct any inference content, as it is never stored.

Your rights

You may request access to, correction of, or deletion of your personal data at any time by contacting us. Under the Australian Privacy Act 1988 (Cth) you also have the right to complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner.

Children

ShadowGate is not directed at children under 16 and we do not knowingly collect their data.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. Material changes will be noted on this page with an updated effective date. Continued use of the service after changes constitutes acceptance.

Contact

Privacy enquiries: info@thetechcave.net or via our contact page. Tech Cave, ABN 62 992 428 919, Wangaratta, VIC 3691, Australia.