Privacy Policy

1. Introduction and Scope

This Privacy Policy explains how Yazhi Engineering LLC collects, uses, stores, shares and protects personal information in connection with this website and with the geotechnical, retaining structure and foundation engineering services that the firm provides. The policy is issued by the developer and practice known as Yazhi Engineering, operating through the company Yazhi Engineering LLC, with its main address at 7533 S Center View Ct, West Jordan - 84084-5526, United States (US).

We are a small technical practice. Most of the information we hold arrives because a client, a contractor or an owner has asked us to look at a wall, a slope or a foundation. We therefore collect only the information that a professional engineering engagement actually requires, and we try to explain each item in plain language below. If any part of this policy is unclear, you are welcome to write to enquiries@yazhiengineering.buzz and ask us to explain it in more detail.

This policy applies to visitors of https://www.yazhiengineering.buzz, to people who contact us by email, telephone or the contact form, and to clients, contractors, consultants and property managers who engage the firm. It does not govern third party websites that may be linked from this site, because those operators are responsible for their own privacy practices and their own legal notices.

By using this website you acknowledge that you have read this policy. Where the law requires consent for a particular activity, we will ask for that consent separately and you may withdraw it at any time. Nothing in this policy limits rights that you hold under applicable privacy law, and nothing in it forms a contract for engineering services, which is governed by our Terms of Service and by a separate written proposal where work is commissioned.

2. Who Is Responsible for Your Information

The entity responsible for the personal information described in this policy is Yazhi Engineering LLC. The company determines why information is collected and how it is used, and it is the first point of contact for any question, request or complaint about privacy.

Because the practice is compact, privacy questions are handled directly by the people who manage client files rather than by an outsourced service. This means a request is answered by someone who can see the actual record and can say precisely what is held and why. It also means we ask you to allow a reasonable period for a reply, particularly where a request requires us to consult an archive or a subcontractor file.

3. Information We Collect

We group the information we hold into three broad categories: information you give us, information created during a professional engagement, and technical information generated when you visit this website.

Information you give us directly

• Your name and, where relevant, your role or job title.
• Your email address and telephone number.
• The postal address of a site, property or business that is the subject of an enquiry.
• The content of a message you send through the contact form, by email or by telephone.
• Photographs, drawings, soil reports or other documents that you choose to share with us.
• Billing and payment details where an engagement has been agreed.

Information created during an engagement

• Site notes, measurements, photographs and field readings taken by our engineers.
• Design calculations, drawings, specifications and review comments.
• Test records from anchor proof tests, load tests or monitoring instruments.
• Correspondence with contractors, consultants and authorities about a project.
• Reports and correspondence that record the decisions taken and the reasons for them.

Technical information generated by the website

This website is deliberately simple. It does not run advertising trackers, it does not build behavioural profiles and it does not sell visitor information. It may, however, be served by a hosting provider that records standard technical data for security and operational purposes. That data can include the internet protocol address of a visitor, the browser type and version, the pages requested, the date and time of a request and the referring page. We use this information only to keep the site available, to diagnose faults and to protect the site against abuse.

4. Sensitive and Special Category Information

Engineering work does not normally require sensitive personal information. We ask you not to send health data, financial account numbers, government identification numbers, biometric data or information about a person who is not involved in the engagement. If such information arrives unexpectedly, we will either delete it or, where it is genuinely needed for a safety matter, restrict access to the smallest possible group and explain why it is being retained.

Where a site inspection brings an engineer into contact with a building that is occupied, our field notes record the condition of the structure, not the circumstances of the occupants. Photographs are framed to show the engineering features, and we ask owners to remove personal belongings from the area of work before a visit where that is practical.

5. Why We Use Your Information

We use personal information for specific and limited purposes. The main purposes are set out below, together with a short note on the legal basis on which we rely where the applicable law requires one.

• To respond to enquiries. When you send a message we need your details to reply. The basis is our legitimate interest in answering a request that you have made.
• To prepare proposals and deliver services. Design, inspection, testing and reporting all depend on accurate project information. The basis is the performance of a contract with you or your organisation.
• To keep professional records. Engineering files are retained so that a design or test result can be explained years after completion. The basis is our legitimate interest in professional accountability and, where relevant, a legal obligation to retain records.
• To issue invoices and manage accounts. Billing information is used to collect payment and to meet tax and accounting duties.
• To protect the website. Technical logs are used to detect abuse, intrusion attempts and service faults.
• To meet legal requirements. Information may be used where a court order, regulator or statute requires it.

We do not use personal information for automated decision making that produces legal effects, and we do not use it to train general purpose machine learning models.

6. Legal Bases for Processing

Where the General Data Protection Regulation or a similar framework applies, we rely on one or more of the following bases: consent, where you have agreed to a specific use such as receiving a newsletter that we do not in fact operate; performance of a contract, where the processing is needed to prepare or deliver an engagement; compliance with a legal obligation, such as tax retention rules; and legitimate interests, where we pursue a purpose that is necessary for the practice to operate and that is balanced against your rights.

Where we rely on legitimate interests, we keep the purpose narrow and we apply safeguards such as access restriction and retention limits. You may object to processing based on legitimate interests at any time, and we will stop unless we can demonstrate compelling grounds that override your rights or that are needed for a legal claim.

7. Cookies and Similar Technologies

This website does not set advertising cookies and does not run third party analytics scripts that follow visitors across other sites. Any cookie that is used is strictly functional, for example a short lived session cookie that a hosting provider may set to distribute requests across servers or to protect a form against automated abuse.

You can control cookies through your browser settings, and you can clear stored cookies at any time. Blocking functional cookies may affect the behaviour of the contact form or of a security filter operated by the hosting provider, but it will not prevent you from reading the site or from contacting us by email or telephone.

If in future the site adopts a measurement tool that requires consent, we will update this policy, present a consent choice before the tool loads and record the choice so that it can be respected on later visits.

8. How We Share Information

We do not sell personal information. We do not rent contact lists and we do not trade information with marketing companies. Sharing happens only where it is necessary for the engagement or where the law requires it, and the categories are as follows.

• Project team members. A structural engineer, architect, surveyor, contractor or testing laboratory may need project information to carry out their part of the work. We share the minimum necessary and, where possible, we notify the client first.
• Service providers. Hosting, email, accounting and document storage providers process information on our instructions. They are chosen for reliability and are not permitted to use the information for their own purposes.
• Authorities. A building department, regulator, court or law enforcement agency may require information. We respond within the limits of the law and, unless prohibited, we tell the client that a request has been received.
• Successors. If the practice is reorganised, merged or transferred, client records may form part of the transferred assets. Any successor would be bound by this policy until an updated notice is issued.

Where information leaves the United States to a provider located elsewhere, we take reasonable steps to ensure that the transfer is protected by appropriate safeguards, including contractual terms that require confidentiality and security.

9. How Long We Keep Information

Retention periods are set with the purpose in mind. Enquiry correspondence that does not lead to an engagement is normally cleared within twenty four months. Project files, including design calculations, drawings, test records and final reports, are retained for the longer of the period required by professional practice, the period required by any applicable statute of limitations or the period requested by the client. This is typically ten years and can be longer where a structure remains under monitoring.

Billing and tax records are retained for the period required by accounting law. Website technical logs are kept only as long as is needed to investigate a security event and are then discarded on a rolling basis. When a retention period ends, records are deleted or, where deletion is impractical because of backup architecture, they are placed beyond routine access and allowed to expire through the normal backup cycle.

10. How We Protect Information

We apply technical and organisational measures that are proportionate to a small engineering practice handling project data. Access to client files is limited to the people who need it, accounts are protected by strong authentication, devices are encrypted and kept updated, and paper field records are stored in a locked cabinet at the West Jordan premises.

Email is not a perfectly secure channel. We ask clients to avoid sending sensitive identifiers by ordinary email and to use a secure transfer link where a large or confidential document must be shared. Anchors, field readings and report drafts are stored in a structured folder per project, which allows us to remove a file cleanly if a client asks for it and to demonstrate what was held at a given date.

No system is immune to failure. If a security incident affects personal information, we will investigate promptly, notify affected clients without undue delay and report to a regulator where the law requires it. We will describe what happened, what information was involved and what steps we have taken to reduce harm.

11. Your Rights

Depending on where you live, you may have some or all of the following rights in relation to your personal information.

• Access. You may ask for a copy of the information we hold about you.
• Correction. You may ask us to correct information that is inaccurate or incomplete.
• Deletion. You may ask us to delete information that is no longer needed, subject to professional and legal retention duties.
• Restriction. You may ask us to limit how information is used while a question is resolved.
• Objection. You may object to processing based on legitimate interests.
• Portability. You may ask for certain information in a structured, commonly used format.
• Withdrawal of consent. Where processing relies on consent, you may withdraw it without affecting earlier lawful processing.
• Complaint. You may complain to a data protection authority in your place of residence or work.

To exercise a right, write to enquiries@yazhiengineering.buzz with enough detail for us to identify the record. We may ask for proof of identity where the request concerns sensitive information. We normally respond within thirty days, and where a request is complex we will explain the reason for any extension.

12. Notices for California Residents

Residents of California may have additional rights under state privacy law. In the twelve months preceding the date of this policy, the categories of personal information we have collected are identifiers such as name and contact details, commercial information such as project and billing records, internet activity such as server logs, and professional information such as job title and employer. We collect these categories for the purposes described in section five and we disclose them only to the categories of recipients described in section eight.

We do not sell personal information and we do not share it for cross context behavioural advertising. We do not knowingly collect personal information from a consumer under the age of sixteen for sale or sharing. California residents may request access, deletion, correction and information about the categories collected and disclosed, and may designate an authorised agent to act on their behalf. Requests are handled through the contact details in section two and are not treated differently because a right has been exercised.

We will not discriminate against a person for exercising a privacy right. A request will not lead to a refusal of service, a different price or a reduced quality of work. Where a request concerns a claim or a professional obligation, we may retain the parts of a record that the law requires us to keep and we will explain the reason.

13. Privacy for Children

This website and our services are intended for adults and for organisations. We do not knowingly collect personal information from a child under the age of thirteen, and we do not market to children. If a parent or guardian believes that a child has provided information to us, they may contact enquiries@yazhiengineering.buzz and we will delete the information promptly unless a legal duty requires retention.

Where a school or community project involves a site visit by young people, the organising adult is responsible for consent and supervision, and our field notes record only the condition of the structure and the scope of the inspection.

14. Third Party Websites and Links

This website may link to external resources such as a mapping service, a professional body or a technical standard publisher. Those sites operate under their own privacy notices and may set their own cookies. We do not control their practices and we encourage you to read the notice of any site before submitting information to it.

Where we embed a third party tool, such as a map for locating the West Jordan yard, the tool may receive technical information about your browser. We choose tools that are necessary for the purpose and we avoid embedding social media widgets that are designed to track visitors across sites.

15. Marketing Communications

We do not run a bulk marketing programme. We may send a direct email about a project, a follow up on a proposal or a practical note about a maintenance issue we observed during an inspection. These messages are part of the professional relationship and are not a newsletter.

If you receive a message that you do not wish to receive, reply with a short request to stop and we will remove your address from the relevant list. We will keep a minimal record of the request so that it continues to be respected, and that record is retained only for that purpose.

16. International Transfers

Our office is in the United States, so information submitted through this website is processed in the United States. Some service providers may operate infrastructure in other countries. Where a transfer is necessary, we rely on contractual safeguards and on the provider commitments that apply to the service, and we restrict access to the personnel who need it for the engagement.

If you are contacting us from outside the United States, the local law of your country may give you rights that differ from those described here. We will honour those rights where they apply, and we will explain any limitation that arises from a conflicting legal duty.

17. Changes to This Policy

We review this policy when the website changes, when a new service is introduced or when the law requires an update. The date at the top of the page records the most recent revision. Where a change materially affects how information is used, we will describe the change in a clear notice on the site or in a direct message to clients whose records are affected.

Continued use of the website after a revised policy is published indicates acceptance of the revised notice. If you do not agree with a revision, you may stop using the site and ask us to delete enquiry correspondence that is not subject to a retention duty.

18. Complaints and Contact

If you are unhappy with how we have handled personal information, please tell us first. Write to enquiries@yazhiengineering.buzz with a short description of the issue and any reference number from earlier correspondence. We will investigate, explain what we found and, where a correction is needed, carry it out and confirm it in writing.

You also have the right to complain to a supervisory authority. In the United States, this may be a state attorney general or a consumer protection office, depending on the issue and your location. We will cooperate with a regulator that investigates a complaint and will provide the records that the investigation requires.