Who operates this website
TechManPat Compare is operated by Patryk Lazarz, publishing as TechManPat, in Western Australia. Privacy questions can be sent to patryk@techmanpat.com.
Information you choose to provide
If you use the contact form, we receive the enquiry type, your name, email address, message and any company, product, brand or supporting-source information you choose to add. A battery enquiry may also include your phone number, installation postcode, property relationship, timing, solar status, supply phase, indicative budget and a small summary of battery-planner targets.
The forms do not ask for payment details, government identifiers or account passwords. Please do not submit sensitive personal information or confidential material that is unnecessary for your enquiry.
Technical and analytics information
When you visit, hosting, security and analytics services may process technical information such as the requested page, date and time, referrer, browser and device type, approximate region, IP address and operational logs. This helps deliver the website, detect abuse, diagnose errors and understand which pages are useful.
TechManPat Compare uses Google Analytics for Firebase, PostHog and privacy-limited first-party events to understand page visits and actions such as starting a finder, completing a recommendation or opening a retailer link. PostHog session replay is enabled to help identify confusing navigation, broken layouts and abandoned steps. Page content, questionnaire prompts and interface actions may be visible in recordings so that usability issues can be understood. Values typed into form fields and content explicitly marked as private are masked in the visitor's browser before transmission. Administration pages are not recorded, automatic click capture and surveys remain disabled, and visitors are not identified by TechManPat Compare. Recordings use PostHog's 30-day retention setting. The first-party commerce log records only the offer, product, retailer, link type, page path and time. Contact-form names, email addresses, message contents, raw IP addresses, destination URLs, electricity CSV contents and detailed household energy data are not included in these custom analytics events.
How information is used
Information is used to respond to enquiries, assess product corrections, route an expressly requested battery lead, maintain delivery and consent records, operate and secure the website, investigate failures, improve comparisons and understand general website usage.
We do not sell or rent personal information for general advertising or marketing, and form details are not used to add you to a marketing list. When you deliberately submit a brand-specific quote request, the clearly named brand or its authorised Australian installation partner receives those details so it can contact you. A general TechManPat battery enquiry remains with TechManPat unless you later agree to a named referral.
Service providers and overseas processing
The website relies on specialist providers for hosting, AI responses, web research, proxy delivery, analytics and email delivery. These currently include OpenAI Sites, the OpenAI API, Google Firebase and Google Analytics, PostHog, Cloudflare infrastructure and Resend. They may process technical, chat or enquiry information on our behalf and may store or process it outside Australia under their own security and privacy arrangements.
External retailer, manufacturer, YouTube and TechManPat Vault links lead to separate services with their own privacy practices.
Storage and retention
Contact enquiries may be retained in TechManPat email records for as long as reasonably needed to respond, verify a correction, maintain an editorial record, resolve a dispute or meet legal obligations. Battery leads and their consent and delivery history are stored in the secured Compare Australia database and are reviewed for deletion or de-identification after 24 months unless they remain necessary for an active enquiry, commercial reconciliation, a dispute or a legal obligation.
Hosting, security, delivery and analytics logs are retained according to provider settings and operational needs. We aim to remove or de-identify personal information when it is no longer reasonably required.
Security and spam prevention
Reasonable safeguards are used, including encrypted HTTPS delivery, server-side email credentials, request validation, a hidden spam field, origin checks, rate limiting and operational failure logs. No internet service can promise absolute security, so avoid sending information that is not needed.
Access, correction and deletion requests
You may ask what personal information we hold about you, request a correction or ask us to delete an enquiry where it is reasonable and lawful to do so. Email patryk@techmanpat.com with enough information to identify the relevant message. We may need to confirm your identity before acting.
Children
TechManPat Compare is a general product-research website and is not designed to collect personal information from children. A parent or guardian should contact us if they believe a child has submitted personal information.
Questions, concerns and policy changes
For a privacy concern, contact patryk@techmanpat.com. We will review the issue and respond as soon as reasonably practical. You can also find general Australian privacy information from the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner ↗.
This policy may be updated when the website, providers or legal requirements change. The latest version and its update date will remain on this page.
Electricity CSV verification and local processing
The manual electricity calculator does not ask for an email or account. An email is collected only when a visitor chooses CSV analysis, to send a short-lived code, reduce automated abuse and issue temporary browser access. Verification does not create a website account and never grants administration access.
Verification metadata may include the normalised email, verification dates and counts, temporary hashed-session records, consent wording version, optional marketing choice, blocked status and a rotating hashed abuse signal. Verification codes, raw IP addresses, CSV filenames, bill data, addresses, NMI, meter numbers and interval readings are not retained in the verification database.
The raw CSV is parsed inside the browser and is not uploaded to TechManPat Compare, Supabase, analytics, error tracking or an AI service. Closing or refreshing the page discards it. Security challenges are intended to be removed after 30 days and expired sessions after 90 days; email verification records are kept only while reasonably needed for abuse prevention and service security. Email patryk@techmanpat.com to request deletion.
The optional TechManPat updates checkbox is unticked by default. Verification works without marketing consent, and verified emails are not automatically added to a newsletter or advertising audience.
Battery leads and commercial partners
Product quote forms are available across the battery catalogue. Every request is received and stored by TechManPat first. With the consent shown on the form, TechManPat may manually forward a product enquiry to the named battery brand or its authorised Australian installer. A brand receives lead details only when TechManPat chooses to forward them under an appropriate commercial arrangement.
Payment for lead access does not change catalogue inclusion, finder compatibility checks, recommendation scores or ranking order. Lead records are protected by row-level security and are not readable directly from the public website. Operational analytics record only that a form was opened or completed, the product or category and the lead type; they do not receive your name, email, phone number, postcode or message.
NBN Deal Plan reports and reminders
New NBN PDF requests use the verified finder-report process described below. You can view your results without an email address; receiving a PDF requires email verification. Requesting a PDF does not schedule a reminder.
Previously saved NBN reports and separately requested reminders may still contain first name, email address, postcode, questionnaire answers, recommendations and consent records. Those legacy reports expire after 18 months. Existing reminders include a cancellation link; reminder consent is not marketing consent.
Plan records and moderated community-feedback themes are stored separately from report recipients. Public feedback summaries do not display forum usernames.
Home battery planner and optional PDF bill reading
Household answers are shared between the battery tools in the current tab. Reloading, closing the page or leaving the battery category clears bill figures, quote details and uploaded-file drafts. The optional “Remember setup on this device” setting saves a first-party cookie for up to seven days with supply phase, solar and roof settings, coverage, battery features and budget. The cookie contains no bill figures, postcode, contact details, quotes or files. These preferences are used to prefill the battery tools. Use “Clear battery answers” or “End session” to remove both the current draft and the setup cookie. Older saved battery drafts are removed when the site loads. You can type bill figures without using AI. If you explicitly consent and select Analyse PDF, the bill is sent through our server to OpenAI for field extraction. It may contain names, addresses, meter or account information, so you may redact these first. The original PDF is not saved to our database, object storage or application logs and is not sent to installers. Provider processing remains subject to OpenAI’s API data-use and retention terms; disabling response storage does not mean zero provider retention.
Your bill and the information read from it are not used for marketing. Uploading a bill does not subscribe you to a newsletter or advertising audience. We do not extract names, contact details or account identifiers into the comparison fields or use the bill to build marketing profiles.
Only supported energy fields are returned, and you must review them before continuing. When you choose Show my plan, structured energy selections and eligible catalogue packages may be sent to OpenAI for a match review. That request omits the original PDF, postcode, billing dates, custom appliance name and contact information. The site does not retain the review or document contents in its AI chat logs. Battery-tool pages and bill fields are excluded from session replay, and anonymous analytics events do not contain PDF files, filenames, bill figures, tariffs, postcodes or household answers. Home-battery Ask Patty conversations are also excluded from our saved conversation logs. Abuse controls keep a hashed client signal and request counters. If AI is unavailable, manual inputs and catalogue-based matching remain available.
A quote request separately shares and saves the reviewed energy answers, requested features, chosen package and contact details in our existing enquiry pipeline, under the consent shown on that form. Requesting an emailed report separately sends and temporarily stores the answers and recommendations you explicitly submit under the verified finder-report process below. Neither action sends the original PDF bill to an installer or report recipient. Exported PDFs are downloaded to your device. Savings are estimates based on stated assumptions, not guaranteed financial outcomes.
System Blueprint and Quote Checker
You can enter figures without uploading anything. If you opt in, Compare sends the file to OpenAI to read the supported fields. Redact names, addresses, account and meter numbers, and payment details first. Compare does not save the original file or use it or its contents for marketing. OpenAI processing is subject to its API data-use and retention terms; turning off response storage does not promise zero retention.
Reviewed figures are sent to Compare to calculate the report and are not sent to OpenAI for the calculation. Quote details and results stay in the current tab. Household answers are shared with the other battery tools in that tab. See the battery planner section above for the optional setup cookie. Private answers do not appear in URLs or session replay. Any PDF you download stays on your device. Uploading or checking a quote does not contact an installer or subscribe you to anything.
Ask Patty AI assistant
Ask Patty shows a small number of category tips using rules in your browser. Those local tips do not contact OpenAI. The AI service is contacted only after you choose to send a message or select one of the suggested questions.
When you engage Ask Patty, the message, recent chat turns, the current comparison category and a short structured summary of relevant finder selections may be sent to the OpenAI API. The assistant does not send the raw page or read contact forms. Please do not type names, contact details, account information, health information, payment details or other sensitive personal information into the chat.
Ask Patty may use OpenAI web search automatically to check current technical or market context and return source links. Product and plan suggestions remain restricted to entries in the TechManPat Compare catalogue. Web sources cannot add an outside product to the recommendation set.
Home-battery conversations are not saved in our conversation database; their current-tab messages and context are cleared when the battery session ends. OpenAI response storage is disabled for these requests, and web-search tools are not enabled for this category. For other categories, and for quality assurance, safety, training evaluation, compliance review and diagnosing failures, TechManPat Compare stores each question and answer together with the comparison category, page path, relevant structured finder selections, model or fallback mode, response time, referenced catalogue product IDs and returned source links. A server-side filter automatically replaces common email addresses, Australian phone numbers, street addresses, labelled postcodes, long payment-card-like numbers and credentials before the record is saved. The log does not store a raw IP address or the random browser identifier; that identifier is converted to a one-way hash. Automated redaction reduces risk but may not identify every form of personal information, which is why sensitive information should not be entered.
The redacted operational log is available only to allowlisted administrators and is automatically deleted after 30 days. An administrator may separately keep a useful example for training or evaluation; that curated copy is further de-identified and excludes the browser hash, page path, structured finder selections and full source URLs. It retains only the category, redacted question and answer, catalogue product IDs and source hostnames. Administrative access, curation and early deletion actions are audited. You may request deletion by emailing patryk@techmanpat.com with the approximate date, time, page and question so the record can be located where reasonably possible.
Anonymous events may also record that the assistant was opened, a message was sent, a response was returned, a product action was selected or an error occurred. Those analytics events do not include the question, answer or contact details. OpenAI may process API inputs and outputs under its own API data-use and retention terms.
Article comments
You can comment on an article without creating an account or providing an email address. A display name is optional and defaults to “Anonymous”. The display name, comment, submission time and moderation status are stored so the contribution can be reviewed and, if approved, displayed publicly.
To limit spam and repeated abuse, the service creates a rotating one-way hash from the connection address. The raw IP address is not stored in the comments table. Comments are reviewed before publication and may be approved, rejected or deleted. Do not include contact details, sensitive information or anything you do not want published. You may request removal by emailing patryk@techmanpat.com with the article and approximate comment time.
Personalised finder PDF reports
When you request a finder PDF, we collect your email address and the answers, notes and recommendations included in the report. We send a verification code first, then email the PDF after you confirm the code. Cloudflare stores the request and Resend delivers the email and attachment. For electricity reports, this can include usage totals derived from your CSV when you explicitly request the PDF; raw CSV files, filenames and interval rows remain in your browser.
Marketing consent is a separate, optional checkbox, unticked by default. We retain verified email addresses and consent records; only addresses that explicitly opted in and have not unsubscribed are included in the marketing contact list. Marketing opt-ins receive an unsubscribe link. You can also request access or deletion by contacting us.
Verification codes expire after 10 minutes. We store hashed codes and a hashed connection address for abuse prevention. Report contents are removed from the request record after successful delivery; expired contents are cleared when another request is processed. Request records older than 30 days are also cleared when requests are processed. Email delivery providers may retain delivery records under their own retention policies. Verified contact and consent records are retained separately while needed for delivery, your subscription and recording your preferences.