Privacy Notice

Last updated: 21 October 2026

This notice explains how I, Slava Balykov, handle personal information when you visit www.balykov.me or contact me about my communications and reputation work.

Who is responsible for your information?

Data controller: Slava Balykov, Cork, Ireland. I work as an independent adviser; “Communications & Reputation Practice” describes that work and is not a separate company.

Privacy enquiries and requests: slava@balykov.me

What information do I collect?

When you contact me by email or through the website form, I receive your name, email address, organisation if you give it, the information you choose to include in your message, and our subsequent correspondence. If you use the form, I also receive whether you marked the enquiry as time-sensitive.

When you visit the site, the hosting provider processes technical information needed to deliver pages and keep the site secure, such as your IP address, browser type and the pages requested. The contact form also uses your IP address, briefly, to limit repeated submissions.

You do not need to send sensitive personal information through the contact form. Please avoid including confidential business documents or special-category personal information in an initial enquiry.

Why do I use this information, and on what basis?

Replying to enquiries and professional correspondence: legitimate interests (Article 6(1)(f) GDPR) in responding to and managing genuine business enquiries.
Discussing or preparing a proposal at your request: steps taken at your request before entering a contract (Article 6(1)(b)), where you would personally be a party to that contract; otherwise legitimate interests (Article 6(1)(f)).
Delivering agreed work: performance of a contract (Article 6(1)(b)) where you are personally a party to it; for contacts at a client organisation, legitimate interests (Article 6(1)(f)) in carrying out the engagement.
Keeping accounting, tax and other legally required records: compliance with a legal obligation (Article 6(1)(c)).
Keeping reasonable records of correspondence and establishing or defending legal claims: legitimate interests (Article 6(1)(f)).
Delivering the website and keeping it secure, including protecting the contact form from spam and abuse: legitimate interests (Article 6(1)(f)).

I do not add enquiries to a mailing list or send marketing emails to people who contact me.

Who helps operate the website?

These service providers process personal information on my behalf:

Netlify, Inc. (USA): website hosting. The site’s server functions, including the contact form, run in Netlify’s US East (Ohio) region, and pages are delivered through Netlify’s global network.
Sanity US Inc. (USA): content management for the site, including delivering the images shown on it. Sanity’s primary hosting is in Belgium, and it may also process data in the United States.
Plus Five Five, Inc., trading as Resend (USA): delivering messages sent through the contact form to my Zoho Mail inbox. Resend’s primary processing takes place in the United States. It keeps copies of sent messages and delivery logs for 30 days.
Zoho Mail (Zoho group): my email service. Emails you send me, and messages from the contact form, arrive and are kept in my Zoho Mail inbox, which is hosted in Zoho’s EU data centre.

I do not sell personal information or share enquiries with advertisers.

International transfers

Some of these providers process information outside the European Economic Area. The safeguards they rely on:

Netlify is certified under the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework and its UK Extension, which provide adequate protection for transfers to the United States; its Data Processing Agreement applies the EU Standard Contractual Clauses if that framework no longer covers a transfer.
Sanity’s Data Processing Addendum incorporates the EU Standard Contractual Clauses for transfers outside the EEA.
Resend transfers data under the EU Standard Contractual Clauses in its Data Processing Addendum, and states that it complies with the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework.
Zoho Mail keeps EU account data in its EU data centre. Zoho states that a limited number of its staff in India (and, for Spanish-language support, Mexico) may access it to support EU customers, under an agreement between Zoho group companies based on the Standard Contractual Clauses.

You can ask me for more information about these safeguards at slava@balykov.me.

How long is information kept?

Enquiries and correspondence: I keep these for as long as they are needed to respond to you, consider potential projects or manage our professional relationship. I review my correspondence periodically and delete what is no longer needed.

Accounting and tax records: invoices and other records that Irish law requires me to keep are retained for the periods it sets, generally six years.

Resend deletes its copies of contact-form messages after 30 days. Technical logs held by service providers are kept for periods set by those providers.

Cookies and analytics

The site does not set cookies or use analytics, advertising pixels or cross-site tracking for visitors.

Some articles include a video hosted on YouTube. The player is not loaded until you choose to play the video; YouTube (Google) may then store data on your device under its own privacy policy.

I do not use Google Analytics, advertising pixels or behavioural advertising tracking.

Links to other websites

This site links to third-party sites, including LinkedIn and articles or publications mentioned in case studies. Their privacy practices are governed by their own notices.

Your data-protection rights

Subject to the rules and exceptions that apply, you may ask to access your personal data, correct it, delete it, restrict processing, object to certain uses, or receive it in a portable format where relevant. Where processing relies on consent, you can withdraw that consent without affecting earlier lawful processing.

To make a request, contact slava@balykov.me. I may need to verify your identity before responding to a request involving personal information.

You can also complain to the Irish Data Protection Commission at dataprotection.ie.

Changes to this notice

I may update this notice if the site, the services I use or my data-handling practices change. The date at the top shows the latest version.