Privacy Policy
Last updated: 29 August 2026
1. Overview
How to Austria ("we", "us", "our") operates the website howtoaustria.com. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, store, and protect your personal data when you visit our website, in compliance with the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Austrian Data Protection Act (Datenschutzgesetz, DSG).
2. Data Controller
The data controller responsible for processing your personal data is listed in our Imprint (Impressum). For data protection inquiries, please contact us at privacy@howtoaustria.com.
3. Data We Collect
3.1 Data you provide
- Name, email address, and message content when you use our contact form
- Email address when you subscribe to our newsletter
3.2 Data collected automatically
- IP address (anonymised)
- Browser type and version
- Operating system
- Referring URL
- Pages visited, time and date of visit
- Time spent on pages
3.3 Cookies and browser storage
We use cookies and similar browser storage for the technical operation of the site and for analytics. The analytics tools described in section 7 set their own cookies and local storage entries so that a returning browser can be recognised within a visit. We do not sell your data. You can block or delete these in your browser at any time and the site will continue to work.
4. Purpose and Legal Basis
| Purpose | Legal Basis (GDPR) |
|---|---|
| Responding to contact form inquiries | Art. 6(1)(b) – contractual/pre-contractual |
| Sending newsletter emails | Art. 6(1)(a) – consent |
| Website analytics, error tracking and session replay | Art. 6(1)(f) – legitimate interest |
| Technical website operation | Art. 6(1)(f) – legitimate interest |
5. Data Retention
Contact form data is retained for 12 months after your last interaction. Newsletter subscriber data is retained until you unsubscribe. Analytics events and session recordings are retained for the period configured in our analytics tool and no longer than is necessary for the purposes described in section 7. We delete your data when it is no longer necessary for the purposes for which it was collected.
6. Your Rights
Under the GDPR, you have the right to:
- Access your personal data (Art. 15)
- Rectify inaccurate data (Art. 16)
- Erase your data (Art. 17)
- Restrict processing (Art. 18)
- Data portability (Art. 20)
- Object to processing (Art. 21)
- Withdraw consent at any time (Art. 7(3))
- Lodge a complaintwith the Austrian Data Protection Authority (Datenschutzbehörde, dsb.gv.at)
To exercise any of these rights, contact us at privacy@howtoaustria.com.
7. Analytics and Session Replay
We use two analytics tools to understand how visitors use the site and to find pages that are broken or hard to use:
- Google Analytics 4 (Google Ireland Limited), for traffic reporting.
- PostHog(PostHog, Inc.), for product analytics, error tracking and session replay. Our PostHog data is stored in PostHog's European Union region.
Session replay reconstructs how a visitor moved through a page, including clicks, scrolling and navigation, as a video-like playback. Anything you type into a form is masked before the recording leaves your browser, so the contents of the contact form, the email signup and the question widget are never recorded. The contents of network requests are not recorded either.
Both tools set cookies or browser storage entries. You can prevent either from running by blocking them in your browser or with a content blocker.
8. Affiliate Links
Our site contains affiliate links to third-party services. When you click these links, the third party may set their own cookies and collect data according to their own privacy policies. We encourage you to review their policies before using their services. We do not share any of your personal data with our affiliate partners.
9. Data Transfers
Our website is hosted within the European Union, and our PostHog analytics data is stored in PostHog's European Union region. Google Analytics is provided by Google Ireland Limited and may involve transfers to the United States. For those transfers we rely on Google's certification under the EU-US Data Privacy Framework together with Standard Contractual Clauses. Where any other processing involves non-EU providers, we ensure appropriate safeguards are in place.
10. Changes to This Policy
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. Changes will be posted on this page with an updated revision date. We encourage you to review this policy periodically.
11. Contact
For any questions regarding this Privacy Policy or your personal data, please contact us at privacy@howtoaustria.com or through our contact form.