Privacy Policy

This Policy explains how your personal data may be processed when you visit and browse our website and social media channels. It does not address AWO’s other personal data processing operations, for example where we provide services to you on the basis of a contract between us. Additional policies and procedures addressing these processes are in place and we provide information to data subjects at the point of data collection or subsequently, as required by law.

Data controller

AWO is an agency comprised of HNK Legal, HNK Litigation, HNK Data Consulting, AWO Belgium, and AWO Australia. This website is operated by HNK Legal (ICO registration: ZA656719). Contact us via email privacy@awo.agency or post to Wessex House, Teign Road, Newton Abbot, Devon, TQ12 4AA with any questions regarding this Policy or any other data protection issue related to AWO.

What we (do not) collect

In line with AWO’s mission and values we have built this site so that we collect only very limited data while you browse through it. Our interests are informing you about our organisation and the services we provide, enabling you to contact us and maintaining the security of the website.

To better understand what our visitors are most interested in and where they come from, we have implemented limited privacy preserving web analytics. AWO has selected Matomo because it allows us to collect statistics and analyse website visits, while offering privacy-preserving options to do so in the least invasive way.

• we do not set any cookies and we do not collect any User ID
• we implement a referrer tag to better understand how people find out where traffic to our website originates from
• we mask IP addresses by removing the last nine octects
• we respect client-side Do Not Track requests
• we allow you to opt-out from analytics
• we limit the retention of the information we collect via web analytics
• we do not allow third-party tracking of any kind on this site
• we have licensed fonts from foundries that don’t entail usage tracking

Third party data processing and retention

AWO has selected Katapult.io to host its website because of its focus on security, its B-Corp status, and because its data centers are entirely powered by renewable energies. Katapult.io is headquartered in the UK and AWO website is hosted on its servers in the Netherlands.

In order to provide this service, hosting providers need to processes the Internet protocol (IP) address of the device accessing the site and additional traffic data including the browser software and operating system that the computer uses and the Internet address (URL) from which the visitor came. This information is processed for the purpose of diagnosing technical problems and defending against attacks.

AWO uses EmailOctopus to manage its mailing list and inform subscribers about its work. We selected EmailOctopus because it was the only provider we could find that allowed us to disable email tracking functionality. EmailOctopus is engaged on terms that ensure the confidentiality and security of personal data and compliance with applicable data protection laws. Email addresses are retained by EmailOctopus and AWO to manage your subscription and deleted thereafter. You can find EmailOctopus’s Privacy Policy here.

Like the rest of our website, the subscription process has been designed to limit extraneous personal data processing. Your email is briefly processed by Netlify, transmitted by EmailOctopus and automatically deleted at the end of your session on our site.

AWO makes use of a Calendly to allow visitors to book a call with us. If you wish to do so, we ask you to fill in information on which service you are interested in, your jurisdiction, your organisation, your full name, your email address, and any additional information you wish to provide us concerning your enquiry. This information will be processed by Calendly on our behalf, to allow for a smooth call scheduling. In this process, your personal data will be transferred to the United States, where Calendly is located. This transfer is based on the European Commission adequacy decision concerning the EU-US Data Privacy Framework, for which Calendly is self-certified. You can access Calendly compliance documentation here.

Information security

AWO has built it’s website using Wagtail, which is considered a secure platform due to it’s foundation on the open source Django framework, and have deployed a Let’s Encrypt TLS certificate.

Social media

AWO also uses social media and social networking to inform people about our organisation. We self-host our own instance of Mastodon and you can read more about that in our Mastodon Privacy Policy. Personal data processed by other social media platforms is subject to the terms and conditions of the platform owners, which may act as controllers of that data. If you engage with AWO’s social media accounts you should therefore also check Bluesky’s Privacy Policy, X’s Privacy Policy and Linked in’s Privacy Policy, which are subject to regular change, to understand how your data may be used. AWO’s social media accounts and pages are managed by AWO staff members. AWO is not responsible for any comments, links or content produced by third parties.

Your rights

Where AWO processes your personal data you may have the right:

• to be informed as to whether AWO holds data about you;
• to access that data;
• to have inaccurate data corrected;
• to have your data deleted;
• to opt-out of particular data processing operations;
• to receive your data in a form that makes it “portable”;
• to object to data processing;
• to receive an explanation about any automated decision making and/or profiling, and to challenge those decisions where appropriate.

There is no charge for you to exercise these rights or to make a complaint. If you’re concerned about how we’ve handled any personal data, please let us know and we will review your concerns and get back to you as soon as possible.

You can seek to exercise these rights via email to privacy@awo.agency or post to AWO, Shoreditch Exchnage, Senna Building, Gorsuch Place, London, E2 8JF. You also have the right to lodge concerns or complaints with the UK Information Commissioner’s Office or the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) depending on where you are based. Data subjects covered by EU law may also be entitled to lodge complaints with the data protection supervisory authority in their country of residence.

Changes and revisions

We may update this Policy in future. We will maintain an accessible record of any such changes.

• Policy published 1st July 2020.
• Policy updated 18 November 2021 to reflect implementation of email subscription.
• Policy updated 22nd November 2024 to reflect implementation of call booking.
• Policy updated 16 April 2025 to reflect new website hosting and privacy-preserving analytics.