Privacy Policy

This website is run by The Ops Layer. We decide how and why your information is used, which makes us the data controller (in India, the data fiduciary).

For anything in this policy, write to vishnu@theopslayer.com. Vishnu Balasundaram reads and answers every message, and is also the contact for grievances.

Only what you give us, plus analytics if you allow it.

• The Execution Architecture Snapshot: company name and website, your role, headcount, your answers to the questionnaire, including free-text descriptions of how your company operates, and your work email.
• Sprint applications: your name, work email, company and website, role, headcount, a description of what is breaking, whether you have completed the Snapshot, and your preferred start month.
• The Routing Layer signup: your email address only.
• Email you send us: whatever you choose to include.
• Analytics, only if you accept analytics cookies: pages visited, referring site, device and browser type, approximate location derived from your IP address, and how you move through pages. Microsoft Clarity also records sessions, meaning clicks, scrolling, and mouse movement, with text you type into forms masked.

Please do not send us sensitive personal information, such as health or financial account details. The forms do not ask for it and we do not need it.

• To write and send your Snapshot.
• To review your Sprint application and reply to it.
• To answer questions you send us.
• To send The Routing Layer and occasional notes from The Ops Layer, only if you asked for them.
• To understand how the site is used and improve it, only if you accepted analytics cookies.

We do not sell your personal information, rent it, or share it for advertising.

Where a legal basis is required, we rely on your consent for marketing email and analytics cookies, and on our legitimate interest in responding to a business enquiry you started, such as a Snapshot, an application, or an email. You can withdraw consent at any time without affecting anything we did before.

Only with service providers who process it on our behalf and under their own data protection terms:

• Our website hosting provider, which runs the site and stores form submissions.
• Our email newsletter provider, which sends The Routing Layer.
• The provider of our email inbox, where form notifications and your emails arrive.
• Google (Google Analytics 4) and Microsoft (Clarity), only if you accept analytics cookies.

We may also disclose information to professional advisers, or where the law requires it.

• Snapshot submissions, Sprint applications, and enquiries: only as long as we need them to reply and follow up. You can ask us to delete them at any time. If you become a client, the engagement contract sets the period instead.
• The Routing Layer list: until you unsubscribe. After that we keep only your email address on a suppression list, so we never write to you again by mistake.
• Analytics: Google Analytics 4 data is kept for 14 months. Clarity keeps session recordings for 30 days and aggregated data for up to 13 months.

Every issue of The Routing Layer has an unsubscribe link. You can also write to vishnu@theopslayer.com and we will remove you.

Depending on where you live, you can ask us to:

• tell you what we hold about you and give you a copy
• correct it
• delete it
• stop or restrict how we use it
• withdraw consent you gave

Residents of California and other US states with privacy laws have the right to know, delete, and correct personal information, and to opt out of its sale or sharing. We do not sell or share personal information, so there is nothing to opt out of, and we will not treat you differently for exercising any right.

Under India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, you can also nominate someone to exercise your rights if you are unable to, and raise a grievance with us first.

To exercise any right, write to vishnu@theopslayer.com. We reply within 30 days and may ask you to confirm your identity first. If you are not satisfied, you can complain to the Data Protection Board of India or to the regulator where you live.

The Ops Layer is based in India and most visitors are in the United States. Our service providers may process information in the United States, India, and other countries. Where they do, they rely on their own contractual safeguards for international transfers.

We use reasonable technical and organizational measures to protect what you send us, including encrypted connections and access restricted to the people who need it. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, so please keep confidential company documents out of the forms.

Documents, system access, and anything else shared during a client engagement is governed by that engagement's contract and confidentiality terms, not by this policy. It is never used for marketing, and client engagements are not named publicly unless the client agrees in writing.

This site is for business use and is not directed at anyone under 18. We do not knowingly collect information from minors.

When this policy changes, the date at the top changes too. If a change materially affects how we use your information, we will tell Routing Layer subscribers by email before it takes effect.