Privacy Policy

1Introduction

Japan Energy Market Intelligence ("the Application") provides tools for gathering, processing, and analysing information relevant to Japanese electricity markets, including renewable energy and battery energy storage systems. It is offered as a website with public pages and a members' area containing datasets, a news feed and analytical articles.

This Privacy Policy explains what information the Application collects from members and visitors, and how it accesses, uses, stores, and protects information obtained through Google services, including Gmail.

2Information we collect

Member accounts

When you create an account or sign in, we collect your email address, password (stored only in hashed form) and, if you choose "Continue with Google", your name and email address from your Google profile. Signing in with Google does not give the Application access to your Gmail.

Cookies and preferences

We use a small number of cookies needed to run the site: a session cookie to keep you signed in, your language preference (English or Japanese), and, for administrators, whether the admin sidebar is open or closed. We do not use advertising cookies.

Gmail data

The Application connects to the operator's own Gmail account through Google OAuth 2.0 to read Google Alerts emails about battery storage. It searches only for messages sent by Google Alerts and may access:

• Email metadata of those messages: message ID, sender, subject and timestamp.
• The message contents needed to read each alert: the linked article titles, URLs, snippets and publisher names.
• OAuth authorization credentials needed to maintain the authorized connection.

The Application requests read-only Gmail access (gmail.readonly). It cannot send, modify, or delete emails, and it does not read attachments or messages other than Google Alerts.

3How information is used

Account information is used to sign you in, provide access to members-only datasets and tools, and contact you about your account.

Gmail information is accessed solely to provide the Application's authorized functionality:

• Finding new articles about battery storage projects in Japan from Google Alerts.
• Fetching those public articles and extracting energy-market information, such as project capacity, location and companies.
• Generating summaries and translations for the public battery storage news feed and the project registry.

Google user data is not sold or used for advertising, profiling for advertising, or determining creditworthiness. It is not used to train AI models.

4Storage and retention

Account information is kept for as long as your account is active and deleted on request, subject to applicable legal obligations.

From Gmail, the Application stores only the metadata of each Google Alerts message (message ID, sender, subject, date) and the article links it contains. Full email bodies are processed in memory and not stored. The public articles behind those links, and the summaries and facts extracted from them, are stored as follows:

• Battery storage stories and the projects they describe are kept permanently as part of the registry.
• Other news items are deleted after 30 days.
• OAuth credentials are kept only as long as needed to maintain authorized Google API access and are removed when access is revoked.

Access to stored information is restricted to authorized application processes and administrators.

5Sharing and third-party processing

Personal information and Google user data are not sold to third parties.

The Application runs on its own server, with its own database and job scheduler. To extract and summarize information, the text of public news articles (not emails, and not account information) is sent to AI processing providers: OpenAI, Anthropic and Google (Gemini). They receive it only to return the extraction or summary, under their API terms.

Any transfer of Google user data complies with the Google API Services User Data Policy, including its Limited Use requirements.

6Data security

The Application uses reasonable technical and organizational safeguards designed to protect information from unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration, or loss. Connections use HTTPS, passwords are hashed, and OAuth tokens and other credentials are kept on the server, out of public access.

7Your choices and revocation

Access to a Google Account can be revoked at any time at myaccount.google.com/connections. Revoking access prevents further retrieval of Gmail data using that authorization.

You may also contact us, using the contact form, to access, correct, or delete your account and any information retained by the Application, subject to applicable legal obligations. You can clear cookies in your browser at any time; doing so will sign you out.

8Google API Services User Data Policy

The Application's use and transfer of information received from Google APIs adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements.

9Changes to this policy

This policy may be updated to reflect changes to the Application, its functionality, or applicable legal requirements. The effective date above will change with each update, and material changes to the handling of Google user data will be disclosed as required.