Privacy Policy

Who is responsible

The controller for this site is Shainin LLC, 41820 Six Mile Road, Suite 103, Northville, Michigan 48168, USA. Email: privacy@shainin.com.

Our data protection officer is Rylan Sharpe, reachable at the same addresses.

What happens when you visit the site

When you open a page or download a file, your browser sends technical data to our web server: your IP address, the date and time of the request, the page or file requested, the website you came from, and your browser and operating system. The server records these data in log files.

We use these data only to deliver the site, keep it secure — for example, to detect and block attacks — and fix errors. The legal basis is our legitimate interest in a secure, working website (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR).

Log files are deleted as soon as they are no longer needed for these purposes, unless a security incident requires us to keep specific entries longer.

Our hosting provider processes these data on our behalf and only on our instructions (Art. 28 GDPR).

The online 5 Whys worksheet

The online worksheet at https://5whystemplate.com/form/ runs entirely in your browser. What you type — including any names, contact details or company information you enter — is kept in your browser’s local storage so that the worksheet survives a page reload. It is never transmitted to us or to anyone else, and we cannot see it. Printing, saving as PDF and copying as text also happen on your device.

You delete the stored worksheet with the “Clear the worksheet” button or by clearing your browser’s site data. Because the data never leave your device, you are responsible for them: if you enter personal data of other people, such as team members, make sure your organization permits this.

Downloads

The Excel, PowerPoint and PDF files are served from our own server. Downloading a file is an ordinary request and is logged like a page view (see above). No sign-up or email address is needed, and we do not track who downloads a file.

Counting visits, downloads and clicks

To learn how often the site is visited, which template formats are used and how often visitors want to talk to an expert, our server counts page views, downloads of the template files and clicks on the “Talk to an expert” buttons. When a page opens, your browser sends our server a short message with the page’s address and the address of the page you came from, without its query part. When you click such a button, the message names the button and the page it is on. A download is counted when the file is requested.

The counter keeps only daily totals: the page, file or button and, for a visit or download that started on another website, that website’s domain name, such as google.com. It stores no IP address, no cookie and no other identifier, so it cannot tell visitors apart or recognize you: it counts visits, not people. It works the same whether or not you accept analytics. The legal basis is our legitimate interest in knowing how the site is used (Art. 6(1)(f) GDPR).

No accounts

You do not have to give us any personal information to use this site. It has no user accounts, no contact forms and no comment functions.

Cookies and analytics

This site sets no cookies unless you agree. If you click “Accept” in the cookie banner, we load Google Analytics 4 to understand how the site is used — for example, which pages are read, which files are downloaded and which links are followed. The legal basis is your consent (Art. 6(1)(a) GDPR and Section 25(1) TDDDG). If you click “Reject”, or make no choice, Google Analytics is not loaded. Analytics never sees what you type into the online worksheet.

Google Analytics is provided by Google Ireland Limited, Gordon House, Barrow Street, Dublin 4, Ireland, and Google LLC, USA. It sets the cookies _ga and _ga_<ID>, which expire after two years. Google Analytics 4 does not log or store IP addresses. Analytics data are kept for 14 months. Data may be transferred to the United States; Google LLC is certified under the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework. See Google’s privacy policy.

Your choice is saved in your browser’s local storage, so we do not ask again on every visit. You can change it at any time with the “Cookie settings” link at the bottom of every page. Apart from Google Analytics after your consent, the site loads nothing from third-party servers: fonts and graphics come from our own server.

Each cookie and local storage entry, its purpose and its lifetime are listed in our Cookie Policy.

Links to shainin.com

Buttons such as “Talk to an expert” lead to shainin.com. When you follow such a link, we add campaign parameters to it (for example utm_source=5whystemplate.com) so that Shainin can see the visit came from this site. These parameters do not identify you. Clicks on these buttons are also counted as totals, as described under “Counting visits, downloads and clicks”.

Anything you enter on shainin.com — for example in its contact form — is processed under the shainin.com privacy policy. If this site links to other websites, their operators are responsible for their own data processing.

Who receives data

We do not sell or rent personal data, and we do not use it for advertising or profiling. We disclose data only to the service providers described in this policy, which process them on our behalf, or where the law requires us to.

Shainin LLC is based in the United States, so data may be processed there. Where data protection law requires it, we protect such transfers with appropriate safeguards, such as the EU Standard Contractual Clauses.

Your rights

Depending on the law that applies to you — for example the GDPR, the UK GDPR or Brazil’s LGPD — you have the right to:

• access the personal data we hold about you;
• have them corrected or deleted;
• restrict or object to their processing;
• receive them in a portable format;
• withdraw your consent at any time, with effect for the future;
• lodge a complaint with a data protection supervisory authority, in particular in the country where you live or work.

To exercise your rights, write to privacy@shainin.com. We may ask you to confirm your identity.

Children

This site is not directed at children. We do not knowingly process personal data of anyone under 16.

Security

The site is served only over an encrypted connection (HTTPS), and we use technical and organizational measures to protect the data we process.

Changes to this policy

We update this policy when the site or the law changes. The date at the top shows the current version.

Contact

Questions about this policy or your data: privacy@shainin.com, or Shainin LLC, 41820 Six Mile Road, Suite 103, Northville, Michigan 48168, USA.