Privacy Policy

This notice explains what BoardLab does with information about you and with the design files you upload. BoardLab is a small service run by one person, so the list below is short and specific.

Who is responsible

BoardLab is operated by Michele Bigi, an individual based in Italy, who acts as data controller under the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Write to mikbigi@gmail.com for anything related to this notice.

What is collected

• Account details. Your name, your email address and a salted hash of your password. The password itself is never stored.
• Design files. The KiCad project, netlist, bill of materials, PCB layout, fabrication notes and datasheets you upload, plus everything BoardLab derives from them: the design graph, findings, review states, comments and the final report.
• Billing records. Credit balance, top-ups and how many credits each run consumed. Card payments are handled entirely by Stripe; BoardLab never sees your card number.
• Messages. What you send through the contact form, the in-app Contact button or the "report finding" button, together with the project and finding they refer to.
• Onboarding answers. If you answer the two-question survey, how you heard about BoardLab and which description fits you best.
• Technical logs. Server logs with request times, IP addresses and error traces, used to keep the service running and to stop abuse.

BoardLab does not use advertising cookies, tracking pixels or third-party analytics. The browser keeps your sign-in token and a few display preferences (theme, last report view) in local storage.

Why it is used

• To run the analysis you ask for and show you the results (performance of a contract).
• To charge credits and keep accounting records (contract and legal obligations).
• To answer your messages and notify you when an analysis finishes, if you leave that option on (contract and legitimate interest).
• To secure the service and investigate failures (legitimate interest).

Your designs are not used to train machine-learning models, and they are not shared with other users unless you add them as collaborators on a project.

Who else processes data

Some processing relies on outside services, each receiving only what its task requires:

• Language-model API. Datasheet pages and the relevant parts of your design are sent to a large-language-model provider (currently DeepSeek) to extract parameters and evaluate checks.
• Part distributors. Manufacturer part numbers may be looked up with distributor services (for example DigiKey or LCSC) to find specifications and datasheets. Only part numbers are sent.
• Stripe processes card payments when card checkout is enabled.
• Email delivery. Transactional emails (password resets, run notifications, replies) go through an email delivery provider.
• Hosting. Files and databases live on the servers that host BoardLab.

How long it is kept

Projects stay in your account until you delete them; deleting a project removes its files and reports. Accounting records are kept for as long as Italian tax law requires. Messages and logs are deleted when they are no longer needed for the purpose above. You can ask for your account to be closed at any time.

Your rights

Under the GDPR you can ask for access to your data, a copy in a portable format, correction, deletion, restriction of processing, or object to processing based on legitimate interest. Send the request to the address above. You may also lodge a complaint with the Italian data protection authority, the Garante per la protezione dei dati personali.

Changes

If this notice changes in a meaningful way, the date at the top of this page will change and registered users will be told by email.