Pile Capacity Privacy Notice

Pile Capacity performs its analysis on hetGE's servers, not in your browser. When you run an analysis, the inputs you have entered (borehole and ground-water elevations, soil and rock layer parameters, pile geometry, cut-off levels, target loads and factors) are transmitted to our servers, solved there, and the results returned to you. The PDF calculation report and the Excel data report are generated on the server in the same way.

We say this plainly because it is the opposite of a browser-only tool: your engineering inputs do leave your device when you use the application.

Your account's work is held in our database so that it persists between sessions and devices:

• Projects: the project name and the site's map location (the coordinates and address you pin), with the date it was created.
• Designs: the soil profile and pile schedule you entered, the analysis mode and the unit system.
• Results: the full stored output of each analysis, and a link to any generated report.
• Your user record: an internal identifier linking the above to your hetGE account. We do not keep a second copy of your name, email or credentials; those live with hetGE Account.

Generated PDF reports are written to object storage operated for the application, and are served back to you through it.

We keep your projects, designs and results until you delete them or close your account. There is no schedule on which they expire.

Deleting a project or design marks it deleted and removes it from your workspace; ask us at [email protected] if you need data erased outright.

Authentication is handled by hetGE Account (account.hetge.com). After you sign in we set session cookies on capacity.hetge.com: an application token and the access and refresh tokens, all httpOnly and therefore unreadable by page scripts, plus short-lived values used to complete the sign-in exchange securely.

One further cookie is deliberately readable by the page, so the header can show who is signed in. It holds the profile hetGE Account returns for you (your name, email address, account identifier, and your profile picture if you have one), and nothing your hetGE Account profile does not already hold.

Like every web service, our servers keep standard technical logs (IP address, timestamp, requested URL, user agent) for security and operations. We keep these logs for up to 30 days. Pile Capacity contains no advertising and no third-party analytics or tracking cookies. Its usage statistics (section 7) are sent only to hetGE Account and set no cookies.

The project map is provided by Apple MapKit. When you view the map or search for an address or coordinates, those requests go to Apple and are governed by Apple's privacy policy. hetGE issues the map token from its own credentials; we do not receive a copy of your map interactions from Apple, but Apple does receive the requests your browser makes.

The public landing page offers a short walkthrough video hosted by Vimeo. Nothing is requested from Vimeo until you press play: until then the player is a placeholder drawn by our own page. If you do press play, your browser then contacts Vimeo to stream the video, and that request is governed by Vimeo's privacy policy. We ask the player not to track viewers, and we receive no report from Vimeo about who watched.

The optional "Describe with AI" feature turns a free-text description of a ground profile into analysis inputs. There are two paths, and which one runs determines where your text goes:

• Server path (default): the text you type is sent to a language model hosted by hetGE and processed there. It is used to produce the extracted inputs and is not used to train models.
• In-browser path (opt-in): where your browser supports it, you can choose to run the model in the page instead. The model file is downloaded to your device and your text is processed locally; it does not reach our servers on this path.

The feature is optional. If you do not use it, no free-text description is sent anywhere.

Pile Capacity can be connected to an AI assistant such as Claude or ChatGPT over the Model Context Protocol. The connector, and how to add it, are documented at capacity.hetge.com/connect.

When you use it, the assistant sends us the design inputs it extracted from your conversation, and receives back the resolved inputs, the assumptions made for anything you did not specify, the analysis results, and a report link if you asked for a report.

What we send back also carries identifiers: the identifier of each project and design the tools touch, and the report link itself. The assistant holds them so that it can refer back to the same project, design or report later in your conversation.

When it asks us to check a design before running it, the assistant may also pass one sentence of your own wording about the piles. It is meant to do so only when that wording contains unit words, such as metres, millimetres, feet, inches, kilonewtons or kips. We use the sentence for one thing only: to check that the units in your words agree with the numbers in the design, so we can warn you if they do not. It is not stored and not written to our logs. The rest of your conversation never reaches us.

A report generated this way is stored under a signed link that stops working one hour after it is issued, so the file is unreachable from then on. The file itself is deleted from our storage a day after it was made, the next time the connector renders a report for you. Projects and designs are written to your account only when you ask the assistant to save them; running an analysis or rendering a report through the connector stores nothing in your account, and is counted only in usage statistics, as section 7 describes.

You can revoke an assistant's access at any time, either from your hetGE account or from the assistant's own connector settings. The assistant's own processing of your conversation, including anything it retains, is governed by its provider's privacy policy rather than this notice.

Pile Capacity reports to hetGE Account which actions you took in it, unless you have turned the "Share usage statistics" switch on your hetGE account off (it is on until you turn it off):

• that an analysis completed, whether it checked capacity at a given pile length or searched for the pile length a target load needs, and whether it ran in SI or US customary units;
• that a PDF or an Excel report was generated;
• that a design was created: as a new design, from a "Describe with AI" result, or as a copy of another;
• that a project was copied together with its designs (this counts once, however many designs it holds; the copied designs are not counted as created);
• that a design was saved through a connected AI assistant;
• that "Describe with AI" turned a description into analysis inputs on our server;

and how long the application was actively used: this counts only while you are signed in and the window is visible and focused, and only while it was in use within the last two minutes. Reading the landing page, this notice, the terms or the connector documentation is not counted.

No content of your work is sent this way: no project or design names, no soil, pile or load values, no locations or coordinates, no file names, and none of the text you give "Describe with AI". Every action is reported as one of a few fixed choices, such as "PDF" or "Excel".

A design you create from a "Describe with AI" result is reported as coming from "Describe with AI" whichever path produced it. If you chose to run the model in your browser, that is the only thing reported about it: your text still never leaves your device, and the extraction itself is not reported.

Because the analysis, the reports, "Describe with AI" on our server, and creating designs and copying projects all run on our servers, those actions are reported by our servers when the work completes, with your access token. The active-time measure is taken in your browser and sent to Pile Capacity's own server, which forwards each batch to hetGE Account with your access token; your browser never sends it anywhere else. Pile Capacity's server and hetGE Account are the only recipients, and hetGE Account keeps these statistics in a statistics service it runs itself (Umami). For the web application, your IP address and browser user agent are passed along only so that hetGE Account can form that day's per-browser record and work out your country; neither is kept for these statistics, by Pile Capacity or by hetGE Account (the ordinary technical logs described in section 3 are unaffected).

When you use Pile Capacity through a connected AI assistant, running an analysis, generating a report and saving a design are reported in the same way, marked as coming from an assistant. The assistant is named only when it is one of the few hetGE recognises (for example Claude), and is otherwise recorded as "other". No IP address or browser details are sent for this use. Previewing a design's inputs and listing your projects are not reported.

Usage statistics set no cookies. Your browser's Global Privacy Control or Do Not Track signal stops them for the web application, and so does turning "Share usage statistics" off on your hetGE account. An AI assistant has no browser and so no such signal: for use through an assistant, the "Share usage statistics" switch is your control. See the hetGE Account Privacy Policy for how it handles what it receives.

The application stores one value in your browser: your light or dark theme preference. Anything you export (PDF reports, Excel workbooks) is an ordinary file under your control once downloaded.

Your hetGE account (profile, credentials, purchases) is operated by hetGE Account and governed by its Privacy Policy at account.hetge.com/privacy.

Pile Capacity is professional software and is not directed at children under 16. We do not knowingly process personal information of children under 16.

You can withdraw work and access at any time. Delete a project or a design in the app to remove it from your workspace. Revoke a connected assistant's access from your hetGE account settings, or from the assistant's own connector settings. Write to [email protected] if you want data erased outright, including anything that a deletion in the app only marks as deleted. Turn "Share usage statistics" off on your hetGE account to stop usage statistics from Pile Capacity, in the web application and through any connected assistant.

We will post any changes to this notice on this page with a new "Last updated" date. Questions, or requests about your data: [email protected].