Research / Participation & data use
Your experience.
Your choices.
The adopted first-five operating policy for Valtaris, an independent PRELAUNCH research project. Not an invitation or authorization to start interviews. Updated 10 September 2026.
Preparation, not an invitation
Valtaris is a working brand, not a represented registered company or academic institution. Real participant collection has not begun. The individual owner/operator acts personally as research data controller. A complete participant-only disclosure, including the controller's actual identity and contact details, must be reviewed and supplied before real sessions. This preparation notice is not a complete statutory privacy notice, legal clearance, or a claim of owner or counsel review.
Research, not sales
We are preparing 30-minute conversations about how established US HVAC contractors handle inquiries, booking, estimates and follow-up. Workflows that already work well are equally valuable. Participation is voluntary: skip any question, decline detail or stop. Approximate ranges are welcome. Research participation and its incentive do not indicate interest in buying anything.
Please leave sensitive details out
Do not share customer or employee names, contact lists, account credentials, passwords, API keys, exact financial records or confidential documents. Describe processes without identifying individuals. We plan to retain only necessary company context, role, a pseudonymous research reference and minimized evidence; pseudonyms do not make identifiable information anonymous.
Your choices remain separate
Notes-only participation is the only planned format for the first five interviews. Before a session, you will choose whether to participate and allow the necessary research notes. Any later follow-up within the recruitment platform needs its own permission. Silence, joining a call and accepting an incentive do not grant these permissions. You can decline questions, stop or withdraw consent for future research processing.
We will not ask you to upgrade to recording, transcription or external AI analysis during this wave. Refusing those activities does not reduce the advertised incentive.
No recording, transcription or external AI analysis
The first-five policy excludes recording, transcription and external AI analysis of interview material, even if an individual would otherwise agree. Research notes and evidence will be reviewed locally by the owner, using manual and deterministic tools. That is not represented as high-effort model analysis. Any future change would require a separate policy and provider review, a revised disclosure and the appropriate separate choices before use.
A live meeting service still processes the conversation in order to connect the participants, and providers may process account, diagnostic and scheduling data. Notes-only does not mean that no provider processes personal data.
Where information may go
The recruitment platform handles screening, invitations and incentives under its own terms. Zoom or a calendar service may process necessary session information if used. Selected research notes and consent receipts are intended for restricted local Valtaris storage and encrypted backups, not a marketing contact list. Respondent participants should use Respondent messages for project coordination and follow-up; do not send personal contact information to this website.
Adopted retention targets, implementation still gated
The preparation policy calls for redundant working notes to be removed within 30 days, structured evidence to receive a necessity review after 180 days, and minimal consent and request-handling receipts to be reviewed after one year. Scheduling metadata should be reviewed within 30 days of the session and resolved correspondence after 90 days. Information should be removed sooner when no longer necessary, subject to specifically justified legal obligations.
No audio or transcript is to be created in the first-five profile. These are adopted operating targets, not a claim that every local and provider deletion mechanism has already been verified. The complete schedule and any exceptions must be explained in the participant disclosure before real collection starts.
Questions, corrections and withdrawal
For a research-platform session, use its project message channel. For general privacy questions, contact research@valtaris.site with only the minimum context. You may ask about access, correction, withdrawal of future consent, or deletion. An owner must review the request and any lawful retention requirements; we do not send automatic decisions. Withdrawal does not undo processing already lawfully completed. Truly anonymous aggregate conclusions may no longer be attributable to one person.