Privacy Policy

1. Overview

This Privacy Policy describes how Samir Shaikh(“I”, “me”, “my”) collects, uses, and protects personal information on this portfolio website located at https://samir-portfolio-dev.vercel.app (the “Site”).

This is a personal portfolio and professional services enquiry website, not a consumer product or SaaS application. Data collection is minimal and limited to what is strictly necessary to respond to your enquiries and understand aggregate traffic.

2. Data We Collect

2.1 Contact Form

When you use the contact form at /contact, the following data is submitted and stored:

• Name — provided by you
• Email address — provided by you, used to reply to your enquiry
• Message — the content of your enquiry

No other personal data (phone number, IP address, device fingerprint) is captured through the contact form.

2.2 Google Analytics

This site uses Google Analytics 4 (GA4) to collect anonymised, aggregated usage data including pages visited, time on page, referral source, and browser/device type. This data is used solely to understand overall traffic patterns and improve the site. No personally identifiable information is linked to Analytics data.

Google Analytics sets cookies in your browser (see Section 4). You can opt out using the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on.

2.3 Vercel Web Analytics and Speed Insights

This site also uses Vercel Web Analytics and Vercel Speed Insights, provided by the hosting platform, to measure aggregate page views and real-user Core Web Vitals (LCP, INP, CLS).

These services are designed to be privacy-preserving: they set no cookies, create no persistent cross-site identifiers, and perform no cross-site tracking. They do not build a behavioural profile of you, and I do not use them to identify individual visitors.

The custom events I record through these services are limited to the route you are on and whether you scrolled past 75% of the page, submitted the contact form, or opened the AI assistant. The content of your messages, your name, your email address, and any device fingerprint are never sent to either analytics service.

Vercel processes this data under its own Privacy Policy. Because no cookies or persistent identifiers are involved, there is nothing to opt out of via a browser add-on — instead, an installed content blocker will prevent the measurement script from loading, at the cost of the site appearing without traffic reporting.

2.4 Server Logs

The hosting infrastructure (Vercel) automatically logs standard HTTP request data — IP address, request path, user agent, and timestamp — for security and reliability purposes. These logs are managed by Vercel under their own Privacy Policy and are not used by me for any other purpose.

3. How Your Data Is Used

• Contact form submissions — used exclusively to respond to your enquiry via email. Your data is not sold, shared, or used for any marketing purpose.
• Analytics data — used to understand site traffic in aggregate. No individual profiling.
• Performance measurements — Core Web Vitals data from real visitor sessions is used to find and fix slow-loading pages. It is never joined to contact form submissions or used to identify you.

4. Cookies

This site sets the following cookies on public pages:

• _ga, _ga_* — Google Analytics tracking cookies. Expire after 2 years / 24 hours respectively.
• Theme preference — a small local storage entry (not a cookie) storing your light/dark mode preference. Contains no personal data.

Vercel Web Analytics and Speed Insights set no cookies at all — they rely on an aggregate, cookie-free measurement model (see Section 2.3).

No advertising or cross-site tracking cookies are set on any page of this site.

A separate note on the private /admin area: it uses a strictly necessary authentication session cookie (authjs.session-token or its secure__Secure- variant) to keep an administrator signed in. It is set only for administrators, is not used to track visitors, and is not shared with any third party.

5. Third-Party Services

The following third-party services process data on behalf of this site:

• Vercel — hosting and edge infrastructure, and additionally the provider of Web Analytics and Speed Insights measurement ( Privacy Policy)
• Neon (Serverless PostgreSQL) — database storage for contact form submissions (Privacy Policy)
• Google Analytics — anonymised usage analytics (Privacy Policy)
• Cloudinary — image and media hosting (Privacy Policy)

I do not sell or share personal data with any third party beyond the service processors listed above, and only to the extent necessary to operate the site.

6. Data Retention

Contact form submissions (name, email, message) are retained in the database until the enquiry has been resolved and a reasonable period has elapsed thereafter, or until you request deletion — whichever comes first.

Google Analytics data is retained for 14 months per Google's default retention settings.

Vercel Web Analytics and Speed Insights data are retained by Vercel in aggregate form on a rolling 90-day window and are not stored against an individual visitor. Contact form submissions are the only personal data retained by this site, and they are deleted on request as described in Section 7.

7. Your Rights

You have the right to request access to, correction of, or deletion of any personal data you have submitted through this site. To make a request, email shaikh.samir.work@gmail.comwith the subject line “Data Request”. I will respond within 30 days.

8. Children's Privacy

This site is not directed at children under the age of 13. I do not knowingly collect personal data from children. If you believe a child has submitted data through this site, contact me at shaikh.samir.work@gmail.com and I will delete it promptly.

9. Changes to This Policy

I may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. The “Last updated” date at the top of this page will reflect any changes. Continued use of the site after a policy update constitutes acceptance of the revised policy.

10. Contact

For any questions about this Privacy Policy or your data, contact: