Privacy Policy

The Texas Defense Innovation Forum (“TDIF,” “we,” “us”) is a Texas nonprofit corporation and a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization operating as a research institution under the STTR program. This policy covers texasdefenseinnovation.org (the “Site”).

It does not cover information you give us under a signed research agreement, which is governed by that agreement, or information you share with us at an event or over the phone outside the Site.

This is deliberate. The Site has no general contact form, no newsletter signup, and no account system. There is nothing to register for and no password to create. The only way to give us information through the Site is to book a call or to email us directly.

When you book a call. Our scheduler is provided by Calendly. When you book, you give Calendly your name, email address, phone number, the time you selected, and your answers to the intake questions on the booking form. Calendly passes that to us and also processes it under its own privacy policy as an independent service provider. We use it to prepare for and hold the call, and to follow up with you afterward.

When you email us. We receive whatever you put in the message, plus your email address and any signature block. Email is not a secure channel — see section 6.

Automatically, when you browse. Our hosting provider (Vercel) processes standard server request data — IP address, user agent, requested URL, timestamp, referring page — to serve the Site, protect it from abuse, and diagnose errors. This is the ordinary operation of a web server.

Analytics and session recording. We use Microsoft Clarity to understand how people actually use this Site. You should know what that involves, because it is more than counting page views. Clarity records session replays — it captures mouse movement, scrolling, clicks, and the sequence of pages visited during a visit, and it can play that back to us as a recording. It also builds heatmaps showing where visitors click and how far down a page they read.

We use this to find out where the Site is confusing — a section nobody scrolls to, a button people click that isn't a button. We are interested in patterns, not in identifying you. We do not attempt to link recordings to a named individual, we do not run advertising pixels, we do not operate remarketing or ad-targeting tags, and we do not build advertising profiles.

Two limits worth stating plainly. Clarity masks text typed into form fields by default, so we do not see what you type. And the booking scheduler on our Book a Call page is a third-party page embedded inside this one — Clarity cannot see inside it, so nothing you enter into the booking form is captured in a session recording. That information goes to Calendly, as described below.

If you would rather not be recorded, most browsers offer a “Do Not Track” setting, and browser privacy modes and tracker-blocking extensions will generally prevent Clarity from loading at all. Nothing on this Site requires it to function.

What we never collect on this Site. We do not collect payment information, government-issued identifiers, security-clearance details, biometric data, precise geolocation, or any special category of sensitive personal data.

• Vercel — hosting and content delivery. Processes request data as described above.
• Calendly — scheduling. Receives the booking information you enter.
• YouTube (Google) — video hosting. We embed videos in privacy-enhanced mode (youtube-nocookie.com), which means YouTube does not set tracking cookies for personalized advertising unless you actually play the video. Once you press play, YouTube's own terms and privacy policy apply to that interaction.
• Microsoft Clarity — site measurement and session recording. Receives the interaction data described in §3, including replays of on-page activity. Microsoft's own privacy terms govern what it does with that data.
• Email provider — for messages you send us and our replies.

These providers act on our behalf and are not permitted to use your information for their own unrelated purposes.

We use what we collect to respond to you, hold and follow up on scheduled calls, evaluate whether TDIF is the right research institution for your topic, operate and secure the Site, understand aggregate site usage, and meet our legal and recordkeeping obligations.

We do not sell personal information. We do not share it for cross-context behavioral advertising. We do not rent, trade, or otherwise disclose it for anyone else's marketing.

We keep booking and correspondence records for as long as needed for the relationship and then for a reasonable period afterward for business records — and longer where a contract, grant, or law requires it. Server logs and aggregate analytics are retained on a short rolling basis.

We may disclose information when required by law, subpoena, or valid government request; to protect our rights, safety, or property; or in connection with a merger, acquisition, or transfer of assets — in which case we will say so.

Neither this Site nor ordinary email is an appropriate channel for classified information, Controlled Unclassified Information, export-controlled technical data (ITAR or EAR), or unprotected trade secrets. Please do not send those through the booking form or by email. Tell us you need a protected channel and we will set one up first. This is also covered in our Terms & Conditions, section 5.

We do not use cookies for advertising, and we do not sell or share cookie data. Cookies that may be set fall into two groups: those strictly necessary to serve and secure the Site, and those set by the third-party scheduler and video player described in section 4 when you interact with them.

You can block or delete cookies in your browser settings. Blocking them may affect the scheduler and the video player; the rest of the Site will work normally. We also honor Global Privacy Control (GPC) signals where they apply.

Depending on where you live, you may have the right to request access to the personal information we hold about you, to have it corrected or deleted, to obtain a portable copy, to opt out of sale or targeted advertising (we do neither), and to be free from discrimination for exercising these rights.

To make a request, email info@texasdefenseinnovation.org. We will respond within the timeframe required by applicable law. We may need to verify your identity first, and we will not charge you for a reasonable request. If we deny a request, you may appeal by replying to our decision.

You can also cancel or reschedule a booking using the links in your Calendly confirmation email, and ask us at any time to stop contacting you.

The Site is served over HTTPS. We apply reasonable administrative and technical safeguards appropriate to the limited information the Site handles, and we hold a NIST SP 800-171 self-assessment score on file with the government's Supplier Performance Risk System for our contracted work — see our security page. No method of transmission or storage is perfectly secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.

The Site is directed to businesses and professionals. It is not intended for children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect their personal information. If you believe a child has provided us information, contact us and we will delete it.

We operate in the United States, and information we collect is processed here. If you access the Site from outside the U.S., you understand that your information will be transferred to and processed in the United States, where privacy laws may differ from those in your country.

We may update this policy. The “Last updated” date above reflects the current version, and material changes will be flagged on this page. Questions: info@texasdefenseinnovation.org.