Privacy Policy

Last updated: October 21, 2026

1. Introduction

Welcome to IT Architecture Patterns. We are committed to protecting your personal information and your right to privacy. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, and safeguard your data when you visit our website.

2. Advertising and Google AdSense

We use Google AdSense to serve advertisements on our website. To facilitate this, Google and other third-party vendors use cookies to serve ads based on your prior visits to our site or other websites on the Internet.

Key Disclosures & Controls:

  • Google's use of advertising cookies enables it and its partners to serve ads to you based on your visit to this site and/or other sites on the Internet.
  • You can opt out of personalized Google advertising by visiting the Google Ads Settings page.
  • Alternatively, you can opt out of a third-party vendor's use of cookies for personalized advertising by visiting the YourAdChoices portal.

3. Information We Collect

We may collect certain technical information automatically when you visit our site, such as your browser type, device details, and operating system. Your IP address is also received with each request, by our hosting service and by the other services our pages load: Google (Google Analytics; Firebase, which serves some of the site's content and images; and, on some browsers, the scripts for Firebase sign-in) and, on the tool pages, cdnjs.cloudflare.com (the Strategy Modeler's html2canvas and jsPDF libraries) and cdn.jsdelivr.net (the ICR Builder's Mermaid library, if you draw a diagram). If you choose to log in using Google OAuth (restricted to administrators), we authenticate your identity via Firebase Auth, which collects your email address and profile photo. Section 5 describes what Google Analytics collects.

4. Cookies and Tracking

In addition to advertising cookies used by Google AdSense, we use local storage and standard session cookies to remember user interface preferences (such as light/dark mode selection) and to persist your dismissed states for user interface components like our sponsor ad banners. Google Analytics also sets cookies, which section 5 describes.

5. Usage Analytics and Google Analytics

We use Google Analytics 4, a web analytics service provided by Google, to count how the site is used: which pages are viewed, and whether the tools, templates and worked example are used. The Google Analytics tag loads for every visitor on the site's pages (the interactive tools opened from the Tools page do not load it). This site does not show a consent banner, so the tag runs unless you block it (see your choices below).

What Google Analytics receives for each page you view:

  • The address of the page, including any query string. Google Analytics is set to remove the search words (the q parameter that the pattern and template search puts in the address) from the address before it is sent, and from the address of the page you came from.
  • The title of the page, and the page you came from.
  • Technical details about your visit, such as your browser and your approximate location.
  • Your IP address. Google receives your IP address to provide the service and uses it to estimate your approximate location; Google states that Google Analytics 4 does not log or store IP addresses (see Google's help pages IP masking and Usage of IP address for non-EU, non-Switzerland, or non-UK users).

Events this site sends, in addition to page views:

  • A tool is opened: which tool, and which page the link was on.
  • A template is downloaded: which template, whether as Markdown or Word, and whether it was the blank template or the worked example.
  • A template is copied: which template.
  • The Appointment Booking worked example is viewed.
  • A link from the worked example to one of its records is followed: which kind of record it was, such as a decision record, a requirement or the demo.

These five events carry no name, email address or free text that you typed.

Google Analytics also records some things on its own, without any code of this site: a page view each time a page loads or its address changes (including when you search or filter the patterns and templates), the start of a visit and a first visit, and how long a page is open in the foreground. It is set to record no other interactions on its own; the site owner can change that setting in the Google Analytics account.

Google Analytics uses cookies, named _ga and _ga_<id>, to tell visitors and their visits apart, and to recognise a browser that returns. The site owner's Google Analytics account sets how long detailed, event-level data is kept; summary reports built from it, such as page views by page address, are not affected by that setting. Where the law requires a legal basis for this processing, we rely on our legitimate interest in understanding and improving how the site is used. Google's use of the information is described in Google's Privacy Policy and in How Google uses information from sites or apps that use our services.

Your choices:

  • Install the Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on, which stops the tag from sending data to Google Analytics.
  • Use your browser's settings to block or delete cookies, or block the Google Analytics tag with the browser's tracking protection or a content blocker.
  • The pages and tools of this site continue to work when Google Analytics is blocked.

6. Policy Updates

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. The updated version will be indicated by an updated "Last updated" date at the top of this page. We encourage you to review this Privacy Policy periodically to stay informed of how we are protecting your information.

7. Contact Us

If you have any questions or concerns about this Privacy Policy, please contact us or visit our homepage at IT Architecture Patterns.