Courtesy translation. In the event of any discrepancy, the French version — the sole legally binding version — shall prevail.
Privacy Policy
Last updated: 2026-07-01
1. Data controller
Lefeuvre H2 Consulting — Rennes, France — serviceclient@refchat.eu
2. Data collected on this site
This site does not use any cookies and does not use any third-party tracking service (Google Analytics, etc.). Visits are counted anonymously:
- Timestamp of the visit
- Page visited
- Hashed IP fingerprint with a random salt regenerated every day at midnight UTC: the real IP address is never stored, and it becomes impossible to link two visits beyond 24 hours
- User-Agent and Referer (truncated), for statistical purposes only
Legal basis: the Publisher's legitimate interest in measuring site traffic (art. 6.1.f GDPR). No consent is required since this mechanism does not allow a visitor to be identified.
3. Data processed by the RefChat software
RefChat is designed to run locally by default: your documents, your index, and your queries stay on your computer and, in this mode, are never transmitted to any server.
When a license is activated and validated, the following is sent to the Publisher's license server:
- License key
- Email address associated with the license
- Machine fingerprint (hash of hostname, MAC address, OS)
- Software version in use
The content of your library is not transmitted at this step. However, certain optional features that you activate yourself send data to sub-processors (table below). In fully local mode, none of these features are active and no data leaves your machine.
4. Sub-processors and third-party services
| Service | When | Data transmitted | Location |
|---|---|---|---|
| OVHcloud | Hosting of the site and license server; cloud indexing (optional feature) | License data; in cloud indexing mode: your PDF files + an authentication token | France (EU) |
| Mistral AI | "API" generation mode (optional) | Your query and the relevant document excerpts | EU |
| Stripe Payments Europe, Ltd. (Dublin, Ireland) | Payment, billing and subscription management | Email, name, billing details, card data (RefChat never sees or stores it) | EU — any transfer outside the EU is governed by standard contractual clauses |
| HuggingFace Hub | Download of AI models (embeddings, reranker, local LLM) on first launch | Download request only — no content or personal data | International |
| OpenAlex / Semantic Scholar | Web bibliographic search in chat (optional) | Search terms only | International |
This data is not used to train AI models (subject to each provider's terms). For customers using cloud mode, the Publisher acts as a data processor within the meaning of art. 28 of the GDPR; a data processing agreement is available on request.
Data Processing Agreements (DPA) of our main sub-processors: Stripe · Mistral AI · OVHcloud.
5. Retention period
- Site views: 12 months (then kept indefinitely as anonymous aggregates)
- License data: contract duration + 3 years (accounting obligations)
- Invoices: 10 years (art. L.123-22 of the French Commercial Code)
6. Your rights
Under the GDPR, you have the right to access, rectify, erase, port, restrict and object to the processing of your data. You may exercise these rights by writing to serviceclient@refchat.eu.
You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the French data protection authority, the CNIL (cnil.fr).
7. Hosting
Site and license server hosted by OVHcloud — 2 rue Kellermann, 59100 Roubaix, France (European Union).