Privacy Policy — Hidden Authority

Last updated: 26 May 2026

This privacy policy describes how your personal information is collected, used, and shared when you visit hiddenauthority.com, subscribe to the Hidden Authority Brief, or purchase Hidden Authority Intelligence.

Hidden Authority is operated by Simon Kaiwai, based in Bolivia.

We take your privacy seriously. If you have questions, contact us at simon@hiddenauthority.com.

What we collect

When you subscribe to Hidden Authority (free or paid), you provide us with your name and email address. This information is stored and managed through Ghost, our content management system.

When you visit the site or use a member account, Ghost may also process basic technical information needed to operate the site, maintain sessions, prevent abuse, and deliver email publications.

For paid subscribers, payment processing is handled entirely by Paddle.com, our Merchant of Record. Paddle collects billing information (including card details, billing address, and transaction records) directly during checkout. We do not receive, store, or have access to your payment card details. You can review Paddle's privacy policy at https://www.paddle.com/legal/privacy.

How we use your information

We use your name and email address to deliver the Hidden Authority Brief and Intelligence publications to your inbox, communicate with you about your subscription or account, and analyze subscriber engagement information to improve our publications.

We do not use your personal information for advertising, sponsorship targeting, affiliate marketing, or data monetization.

Legal basis for processing

Where data protection law requires a lawful basis, we rely on:

  • Consent, when you subscribe to receive email publications.
  • Contract or steps related to a contract, when you purchase or manage a paid subscription.
  • Legitimate interests, where we use limited subscriber and engagement information to operate, secure, support, and improve Hidden Authority.
  • Legal obligation, where information must be retained or handled for tax, accounting, fraud prevention, or regulatory reasons.

Payments and Paddle

Our paid subscription process is conducted by our online reseller Paddle.com. Paddle is the Merchant of Record for paid subscriptions to Hidden Authority. This means Paddle conducts the checkout, acts as the seller for the transaction, processes payment, handles applicable taxes, issues invoices, and manages order-related billing support and refunds.

Paddle provides us with limited subscriber information — such as name, email address, country, and subscription status — so we can provide access to paid content and support subscribers.

For payment support, refund requests, or billing questions, you can contact Paddle directly at https://paddle.net or contact us at simon@hiddenauthority.com and we will help resolve the issue.

AI tools and your data

We use AI tools to help produce, research, edit, and organize Hidden Authority content. We do not provide subscriber personal information — including names, email addresses, payment information, support requests, or other identifying subscriber data — to AI tools. Subscriber data is stored in Ghost and, for paid subscribers, in Paddle. We do not export subscriber lists, member records, payment records, support requests, or identifying subscriber information into AI tools for analysis, profiling, segmentation, or content generation.

Hosting and data processing

This website is hosted by Ghost (https://ghost.org). Ghost processes subscriber data on our behalf as our publishing, membership, and newsletter platform. You can review Ghost's privacy policy at https://ghost.org/privacy and their GDPR documentation at https://ghost.org/help/ghost-gdpr-compliance.

Newsletter analytics

Ghost provides newsletter analytics such as open rates, click rates, and subscriber engagement information. We use this to understand whether publications are useful and to improve future issues. We do not use third-party analytics, advertising pixels, or social media tracking scripts.

Cookies

We use Ghost-native cookies required for site functionality, member sessions, and subscription access. We do not use advertising cookies, third-party tracking pixels, or social media tracking scripts.

Data sharing

We do not share subscriber personal information with advertisers, sponsors, affiliates, data brokers, or AI tools. We use service providers only where needed to operate the publication, paid subscriptions, support, and legal or accounting obligations.

The main service providers that process subscriber data are Ghost and Paddle. If you contact us by email, your message may also be processed by our email provider for the purpose of receiving and responding to your request.

Your rights

We offer the following rights to all subscribers, regardless of where you are located. Depending on where you live, you may also have additional rights under local privacy laws, including EU or UK data protection law.

  • Access: You may request a copy of the personal data we hold about you.
  • Correction: You may request correction of inaccurate or incomplete data.
  • Deletion: You may request deletion of your personal data from our systems.
  • Portability: You may request a copy of your data in a commonly used format.
  • Objection or restriction: You may object to or request restriction of certain processing.
  • Unsubscribe: Every email includes an unsubscribe link. You may unsubscribe at any time.

We may ask for information needed to verify your identity before acting on a privacy request. If a request relates to payment, tax, invoice, or card data held by Paddle, we may need to direct you to Paddle because Paddle is the Merchant of Record for paid subscriptions.

We aim to respond to privacy requests within one month. If a request is complex, we may need additional time and will let you know.

To exercise any of these rights, email simon@hiddenauthority.com. You can also manage your subscription directly from your account page at hiddenauthority.com.

Data retention

We retain your name and email address for as long as you maintain an active subscription. If you unsubscribe, we will stop sending you publication emails and remove or deactivate your membership record where reasonably possible. We may retain limited records where required for security, accounting, tax, dispute resolution, or legal compliance. Paddle retains payment, invoice, tax, and transaction records under its own policies as Merchant of Record.

Children

Hidden Authority is intended for professional audiences and is not directed at children or individuals under 18. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children.

Changes to this policy

We may update this privacy policy from time to time. Updates will be posted on this page with a revised date. If we make material changes, we will notify subscribers by email.

Contact

Hidden Authority
Operated from Bolivia
Email: simon@hiddenauthority.com