Legal
Privacy & cookies
What we collect, why we collect it, and how to change your mind.
Autonomous Systems Review (“ASR”, “we”) is the data controller for the information described on this page. If you have a question about it, or want to exercise any of the rights set out below, write to privacy@asrhq.com.
The short version: we run one analytics tool, only if you agree to it, and we do not sell anything about you to anybody. There is no advertising network on this site — the advertising you see is drawn by us, from our own system, and it sets nothing in your browser.
Cookies and similar storage
A cookie is a small file a site stores in your browser. We use as few as we can, in two groups.
Essential — always on
The only strictly necessary storage is the record of the choice you made on the cookie banner, kept in your browser so we do not ask again on every page, and the sign-in session for our own staff using the newsroom. Neither is used to track you and neither leaves your device for any purpose other than keeping you signed in.
Analytics — only with consent
If you accept, we load Google Analytics, which sets two cookies (_ga and _ga_79T0JNS42E). They last up to two years and let us count visitors and see which pages get read. If you decline, the Google Analytics script is never loaded at all — not loaded in a restricted mode, not loaded and blocked, simply never requested. Nothing is sent to Google and no analytics cookie is set.
You can change your answer at any time: . You can also clear cookies in your browser settings, which will make us ask again.
What we collect, and why
If you accept analytics. Google Analytics records the pages you visit, roughly where you are in the world, the site or search that sent you, and general details of your device and browser. It is used to understand what our readers read. Google processes this on our behalf and may transfer it outside the UK; see Google’s own privacy notice for what they do with it.
Hosting records.Our host, Google Cloud, keeps standard server logs, which include IP addresses. These exist to run and secure the site — spotting faults and abuse — not to build a profile of you. This happens whether or not you accept analytics, because a web server cannot answer a request without knowing where to send the reply.
Press rooms.The client media centres hosted here record how their assets are used — a release opened, an image downloaded, a search run — so the client can see what journalists took. These records deliberately hold no cookie, no IP address and no identifier for you. What is stored is the action, the country your request came from, whether the device was mobile, tablet, desktop or a bot, and which site linked you. It is not possible for us or the client to work back from that to a person.
Newsletter. The signup form on this site is not yet connected to a mailing system. Any address typed into it stays in your browser and is not transmitted to us or stored anywhere. When the newsletter launches this page will be updated before a single address is collected.
Things we deliberately do not do
We do not use an advertising network, so there are no advertising or retargeting cookies here. We do not share or sell personal data. We do not track you across other websites. Our typefaces are served from our own servers rather than from Google Fonts, so simply reading a page here does not announce your visit to a third party.
Embedded video
A small number of company profiles include a video hosted by YouTube or Vimeo. Where we can we use YouTube’s privacy-enhanced player, which does not set tracking cookies unless you press play. Once you play a video, that provider may set its own cookies and receive your IP address under its own privacy policy, which we do not control.
How long we keep things
Analytics data is held for 14 months, the longest Google Analytics allows us to set, after which Google deletes it automatically.
Press room usage records have no time limit, and deliberately so: they contain no cookie, no IP address and nothing else that points to a person, so there is no individual whose data would need deleting. Keeping them lets a client see how coverage of a launch built over years rather than months.
Server logs are kept for as long as our host retains them.
Your rights
Under UK data protection law you can ask us for a copy of the personal data we hold about you, ask us to correct or delete it, object to how we use it, or ask us to restrict it. Withdrawing consent for analytics is immediate and needs no request — .
In practice, we hold very little that identifies you. If you write to us at privacy@asrhq.com we will tell you honestly what, if anything, we have. If you are unhappy with our answer, you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office at ico.org.uk.
Changes to this page
If we start collecting something new, we will update this page and change the date at the top before we begin, not after.