Last updated: February 11, 2026
👋 Overview
Holiday Optimizer runs primarily in your browser. This policy explains what data is processed, where it lives, and which third-party services are involved.
I'm an indie developer based in Ontario, Canada. This is a side project, but I'm committed to following common-sense privacy practices (like those in PIPEDA and GDPR) to keep your data safe and be transparent about how things work.
🔒 Data Usage and Storage
Here's what happens to your data:
- Plans, preferences, and custom time-off data (company days, pre-booked days, and custom holidays) are stored in your browser's local storage
- Your selected country, state, region, and weekend preferences are stored locally
- Analytics consent is stored locally and can be cleared by clearing browser storage
- Holiday calculations run locally using the bundled date-holidays library
- No holiday requests or country codes are sent to external APIs
- The planner does not request or store your name or email unless you purchase the export
Only what's needed to run the app is processed.
🗂️ Calendar Files & Retention
When you start the optional calendar export, break data is sent to a private AWS Lambda function that creates the ICS file and stores it in a private S3 bucket under a random token. Files and download links expire after a short retention window (typically about 48 hours). To validate the export, a temporary file is generated before checkout, but the download link is only issued after payment is confirmed. The contents of your plan are used only to build the file and are not stored in a database.
💳 Payments & Polar
Payments are processed by Polar, which collects the billing information required to complete the transaction (email, payment method, and billing address where required). The download link is provided on the thanks page after checkout, and the service does not send it by email. Polar retains its copy of the data under their policies—see Polar's Privacy Policy for details. If you want Polar customer data deleted, contact support at support@waqarbinkalim.com and the maintainer can delete the Polar Customer object when possible, or contact Polar support directly. Polar may retain certain records for legal or compliance reasons.
📊 Analytics
PostHog Analytics (US region) is used for privacy-focused, anonymous usage analytics. Autocapture and session recording are disabled. PostHog stores a random identifier in local storage to distinguish visits, respects Do Not Track, and may process IP addresses to infer coarse location per PostHog's policies.
Analytics load only after you grant consent, and no marketing cookies are used.
For more information about PostHog's data practices, please refer to PostHog's Privacy Policy.
The site is hosted on Amazon Web Services (S3 and CloudFront). AWS may process IP addresses as part of content delivery. For more information, seeAWS's Privacy Notice.
🤝 Affiliate Partners
This site participates in affiliate programs, including Travelpayouts. Affiliate partners may use cookies or scripts to track referrals and measure conversions. This data is used to attribute purchases and calculate commissions.
For details on how Travelpayouts handles data, see their Privacy Policy.
🖼️ Blog Images
Blog images are self-hosted on the same infrastructure as this site (AWS S3/CloudFront). No requests are sent to third-party image services when you browse travel guides.
Original photos are sourced from Unsplash and used under the Unsplash License.
🔄 Updates
This privacy policy may be updated occasionally to reflect changes in how data is handled. Any updates will be reflected in the “Last updated” date at the top of this page. Users are encouraged to review this policy periodically.