Privacy Policy | ILLUSTUDIO

1. About This Policy

ILLUSTUDIO is responsible for the information described here, relating to its website, software, licence services and support. Contact support@illustudio.cc with privacy questions or requests.

2. Information We Use

Website visits: IP addresses, browser and request information, and access or error logs, to operate and secure the website.
Website accounts: Name, email address, sign-in credentials, and verification and session records, to create and protect your account and provide account access.
Purchases and support: Contact details, order and payment-status information received from Paddle, and messages or attachments you provide, to administer purchases, licences, support, refunds and disputes.
Licensing: Licence credentials, assigned-user details, project names and identifiers, device and installation identifiers, hardware-verification data, software information, and activation or verification history, to validate licences, enforce allowances and prevent misuse. Information may come from you, your studio administrator or the software. Identifiers can be linked to your licence or device.
Demo evaluation questionnaires: Your submitted email, name, role, industry, country or region, project type, and any optional studio, portfolio, project description, evaluation interests and test-system information you provide. We store your agreement version, acceptance time, email-verification events, download permission and transfer-start records to understand product interest and administer the evaluation. No ILLUSTUDIO account or individual approval is required. A single-use link verifies access to your email inbox before downloading; it does not verify your identity. The form does not collect government ID, a home address or nationality.

We may report aggregate demo-interest figures, including to potential investors, without publishing applicant identities or questionnaire answers. These figures distinguish survey submissions, distinct submitted email addresses and demo permissions issued. Repeated addresses count once in the distinct-email figure. A submission alone does not prove email verification; new download permissions require it, while earlier records may not. These figures are not sales, confirmed unique people, completed downloads or proof of local software use.

Where applicable, processing relies on fulfilling our contract with you, legal obligations, or legitimate interests in operating and protecting our services, balanced against your rights. Where consent is required, we obtain it separately.

3. Licence Checks

We may run licence checks during application runtime, sending installation, project, device and network information to verify licence validity. These checks do not require uploading artwork or source code. Failed checks may prevent activation or disable affected software features; contact support for human review.

Declining offline hardware enrollment does not stop online checks. Local device identifiers and hardware-verification state may be created before the enrollment prompt and remain after uninstalling. Where our software is included in another application, its developer must inform users about these checks.

4. Cookies and Storage

The website uses local storage for display preferences, not advertising or site analytics. Account services use essential session cookies for sign-in and access control. The demo questionnaire uses a separate essential browser cookie lasting up to 65 minutes after requesting or resending verification; it does not create an account. Email confirmation sets a new download cookie lasting one hour, only in the browser that confirms the email. Download access expires one hour after verification. Clearing browser storage resets local preferences and download permission but does not delete responses stored on our server. Paddle may use cookies or similar technologies when its payment services load. External services, including Google Drive storage, have their own privacy policies.

Paddle acts as merchant of record for payments it processes, handling payment details, tax and fraud prevention under its Privacy Notice. Payment-card details are entered with Paddle, not collected through an ILLUSTUDIO card-entry form.

Namecheap provides website hosting and support email; Vultr hosts account, licence-verification and contact-form services. Contact-form messages are forwarded to our support or contact inbox according to the selected topic. These providers process information to deliver those services. We may disclose relevant records to advisers or authorities where necessary for legal obligations or claims.

After the demo questionnaire is saved, we send a single-use email-verification link valid for five minutes. Confirming it on our website grants one hour to start, retry or resume a download only in the browser that confirms the email. The page opened from the email shows the download button; the original questionnaire browser does not receive download access if it is a different browser. A transfer already running may finish after that window. Our server streams the private archive from our hosting or, when used, Google Drive storage. We do not send your questionnaire answers or submitted email to Google to grant individual access. Storage providers process file-storage and retrieval requests under their own policies. Our portal records download permission and transfer starts; neither record proves that you received or used the complete file.

Providers may process information outside your country. Contact support for information about provider locations and applicable transfer safeguards.

6. Retention and Security

Retention depends on the continuing need to provide licences and support, prevent misuse, meet recordkeeping obligations or resolve disputes. Licence expiry or uninstalling does not automatically delete records, including backups. Contact support to request deletion.

Licence-server connections use HTTPS. No transmission or storage can be guaranteed completely secure. Do not send passwords, payment-card details or unnecessary sensitive information to support.

7. Your Rights

Depending on applicable law, you may request access, correction, deletion, restriction or portability, withdraw consent, and complain to your data-protection authority. These rights may be subject to lawful exceptions.

Right to object. You may object to processing based on legitimate interests where applicable law provides that right.

Email support@illustudio.cc. We may need to verify your request and explain any necessary retention or effect on licence operation. Requests are handled within applicable legal deadlines. Contact Paddle separately about information it controls.

8. Changes

We update this policy when our practices change and provide additional notice or obtain consent where required.