Privacy policy
Last updated 29 October 2026
This policy explains what JDE Global Consulting Ltd. ("we") collects when you use UnfoldPDF, why, and what happens to it. In short: we collect only what we need to convert your documents and run your account, and your files are deleted automatically.
What we collect
- Your documents. The PDFs and images you upload, the Word documents you upload for translation, and the Word and text files we create from them, including translations. An image is turned into a one-page PDF on our server as soon as it arrives; we keep that PDF, not the original image file.
- Account details. Your email address and a securely hashed version of your password (we never store the password itself).
- Conversion, translation and credit records. File names, page counts, character counts, target languages, dates, and the credits added to or used from your balance.
- Your feedback (optional). Your answer to "Did this come out right?" on a conversion, and any note you add.
- Two-step sign-in (optional). If you turn it on, the key your authenticator app uses, stored encrypted, and your recovery codes, stored only in a form that can't be read back.
- Payment records. What you bought and when. Card details are entered on Stripe's own checkout page and never reach our servers.
- Billing details (optional). The name, address and tax ID you enter on the Billing page, kept by Stripe (not on our servers) and printed on your invoices.
- Technical data. Your IP address, used to prevent abuse and enforce rate limits on sign-in, uploads and the free demo.
- Site usage (only if you accept analytics cookies). Which pages of our website you visit, where you came from, and basic device and browser details, collected by Google Analytics. See Cookies.
- Free-trial records. When you verify your email, a one-way code made from your email address and a one-way code made from the network address (IP address) you verified from, so that the free trial is given once per person. Neither code can be turned back into the address.
Why we use it
- To convert and translate your documents and let you download the results.
- To run your account: sign-in, two-step sign-in, email verification, password resets and your credit balance.
- To find and fix conversions that don't come out right, using the feedback you choose to send.
- To take payments and keep the records the law requires.
- To keep the service secure and stop abuse.
- If you agree, to see how visitors use our website so we can improve it.
We don't sell your data, we don't show ads, and we don't use your documents for anything except converting and translating them.
Legal bases
Where data-protection law such as the GDPR asks us to name a legal basis for using your data, these are ours:
- To provide the service you asked for (performing our contract with you): converting and translating your documents, running your account and two-step sign-in, sending verification and password-reset emails, keeping your credit balance and taking payments.
- To meet legal obligations: keeping payment, invoice and tax records for as long as the law requires.
- For our legitimate interests in keeping the service secure and fair and in improving it: rate limits and abuse checks using your IP address, the free-trial records, the check that a free demo request comes from a person, and the feedback you choose to send about a conversion. You can object to these uses by writing to us; we will stop unless we have a strong reason to continue, such as stopping abuse.
- With your consent: analytics cookies. You can withdraw your consent at any time with Cookie settings at the bottom of each page.
Organizations
If you join an organization on UnfoldPDF, its owner and admins can see your email address, your role, how many pages you convert and when (also as a downloadable report), any monthly credit limit they set for you, and an activity log of membership changes and purchases. They can never open, download or read your documents. Conversions you make while working in the organization use its shared credits and belong to it: if you leave or are removed, you lose access to them and they are deleted when the organization's retention period ends. Your personal account, its credits and its files stay yours.
Who else processes your data
We use a small number of service providers, each only for the job described:
- Microsoft reads the pages you choose to convert when they are scanned or contain tables, images or columns. Pages that contain only plain digital text are read on our own server and are not sent to Microsoft.
- Anthropic receives the text of the documents you choose to translate, in parts, and returns the translation. Only documents you ask to translate are sent, and only after you confirm the price.
- Google stores your uploaded, converted and translated files privately.
- Stripe processes payments, keeps your billing details and issues your invoices.
- Google Analytics measures visits to our website, only if you accept analytics cookies. It receives the address of each page without its query string (so no links from our emails and no search text), the referring page, and basic device and browser details. Google signals and ad personalisation are turned off. Your documents and file names are never sent.
- Google may also check that a free demo request comes from a person, not a bot.
- Our email provider delivers verification and password-reset emails.
These providers process your data outside Canada. Microsoft reads your pages in its data centres in the eastern United States, and Google, Anthropic and Stripe may process data in the United States and other countries where they operate. Data held in another country is subject to that country’s laws, and its courts and government authorities may be able to access it. Each provider handles your data under its own data-processing terms, which include the safeguards that data-protection law requires for transfers between countries.
How long we keep it
- Free demo conversions (no account): the uploaded PDF (or the PDF made from your image) and the converted files are deleted 24 hours after you convert. If you sign in from the same browser before then, you can save the conversion to one of your projects, where it is kept like your other conversions. A PDF you upload but don't convert is deleted within about 3 hours.
- Free demo records: the browser session and IP address we use to enforce the demo's limits, and the file name of a deleted demo conversion, are removed after 30 days. After that we keep only a record that a demo conversion happened (its date and pages), with no file name or content.
- Account files (conversions, Word documents uploaded for translation, and translations): deleted 14–180 days after they are finished (for an uploaded Word document, after it is uploaded), depending on your plan. Each project shows the exact date for each file. While a translation is in progress its text is held on our server so the work can resume; it is deleted as soon as the translation finishes or fails.
- Account, credit balance and payment records: kept while your account is open, and afterwards for as long as tax and accounting law requires.
- Free-trial records: the code made from your network address is deleted 30 days after you verify your email. The code made from your email address is kept, also after you delete your account, so the same address can't receive the free trial again.
Cookies
We use three cookies that the service needs to work:
- PDFUNFOLD_SESSID, a session cookie that keeps you signed in and protects forms against forgery. It ends when you sign out or close your browser.
- UNFOLDPDF_DEVICE, set when you sign in, so that this browser can keep signing in even while someone elsewhere is making failed attempts on your account. It holds a code that only our server can check, contains no personal details and lasts 180 days.
- PDFUNFOLD_ANONSESS, set only if you try the free demo, so that only your browser can open your free conversion. It lasts at most 24 hours.
Your browser also stores, on your device only, your colour theme choice, whether you have dismissed the page-picker tip, and (for that browser tab only) the conversion in progress, so a reload can pick it up again.
Security
Connections are encrypted, files are kept in private storage that only our server can read, downloads require your session, and administrator access requires a second sign-in factor. You can turn on two-step sign-in for your own account, and sign out of every other device, under Settings.
Your choices and rights
You can delete your account yourself at any time under Settings: your subscription is cancelled, your files are deleted and your email address is removed (we keep only the one-way free-trial code described above). Records of purchases and invoices are kept, without your email, for as long as tax law requires. You can also ask us for a copy of your data, or to correct it, by writing to unfoldpdf@jdeglobal.com. Depending on where you live you may also have the right to complain to your local data-protection authority.
Changes
If we change this policy we'll update the date at the top, and tell account holders by email about any significant change.