Privacy Policy

This site (bensevern.dev) is the personal portfolio of Ben Severn and hosts the live AI spreadsheet-dedupe demo, built on open-source data-quality tools. This policy explains what information is collected, how it is used, and your rights.

1. Information we collect

Account data. If you sign in, we use Clerk as our authentication provider. Clerk stores your email address, name, profile image, and any OAuth provider identifiers (e.g. Google sub). We do not store passwords. See Clerk’s privacy policy.

Uploaded files. The demo lets you upload CSV files to dedupe. Files are processed in-memory on the backend, used only to generate the result you see, and are not persisted after the request completes.

Usage data. Standard server logs (IP address, user agent, timestamps, requested path) are retained briefly for security and debugging.

2. GoldenMatch for Excel add-in

GoldenMatch for Excel is an Office add-in that finds duplicate rows in a worksheet. It runs only on data you choose, and it never reads other workbooks, your files, or your Microsoft account.

• The add-in reads only the range you explicitly select (or the sheet’s used range when you choose “use whole sheet”).
• Your data leaves the workbook only when you click Find duplicates or Create account & save to workspace. At that point the selected rows are sent over HTTPS to our matching API (api.bensevern.dev) to compute the result.
• Find duplicates processes the rows in memory and returns the duplicate groups; the upload is held in a short-lived cache (about 30 minutes) only to support re-runs, then discarded.
• Save to workspace stores the selected rows briefly (about 30 minutes) under a single-use token so they can be loaded into the workspace you create. Once claimed, the data lives in your account; unclaimed data expires and is deleted.
• We do not sell this data, use it for advertising, or use it to train models.

3. How we use information

• To authenticate you and keep your session active.
• To run the dedupe demo on data you explicitly upload.
• To monitor uptime, debug errors, and prevent abuse.

We do not sell your data. We do not run advertising.

4. Third-party services

• Clerk — authentication and user management.
• Google OAuth — optional sign-in provider.
• GitHub OAuth — optional sign-in provider.
• Railway — application hosting.
• Cloudflare — DNS and edge network.
• Umami — privacy-friendly, cookieless page-view analytics.

You can opt out of product analytics at any time on this browser:

5. Your rights

You may delete your account at any time by contacting us (see below). Deletion removes your profile from Clerk and any associated records from our backend.

6. Contact

Questions about this policy? Email ben@bensevern.dev.

7. Changes

We may update this policy. Material changes will be reflected in the “Last updated” date above.