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Privacy Policy

Last Updated: 3 July 2026 · Last substantive update: 3 July 2026

AIONA Ltd, trading as AIONA ("we", "our", or "us"), is committed to protecting your privacy. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, disclose, and safeguard your information when you use our intelligent accounting software platform ("AIONA" or the "Service"). We are the data controller for the personal data described below.

AIONA Ltd is registered in England & Wales under company number 16606520, registered office 128 City Road, London, United Kingdom, EC1V 2NX.

1. Information We Collect

1.1 Information You Provide

• Account Information: Your name, email address, a hashed password, and your role (admin, accountant, or auditor) when you create or are invited to an account.
• Practice and Company Information: The name and registration details of your accounting practice and of the client companies you manage — company registration number, registered address, VAT number and scheme, SIC codes, accounting period details, and chart of accounts.
• Financial Documents: Invoices, receipts, bills, bank statements, and other financial documents you upload or forward to us, and the text and figures we extract from them.
• Contacts: Details of your suppliers and customers (who may be individuals) — name, email, phone, address, and VAT/registration numbers.
• Transaction and Ledger Data: Journal entries, bank transactions, payments, reconciliations, and the reports generated from them.
• Identity Verification (where required): Email verification is the standard gate at signup. Where enhanced identity verification (KYC/AML) is enabled for your account, we use a third-party provider (Didit) that collects your identity document and a selfie on its own hosted pages; we receive only the verification outcome (pass/fail) and a reference. We do not store identity documents or biometric data ourselves.

1.2 Information We Collect Automatically

• Security and Login Data: Each sign-in attempt records your IP address, browser/user-agent, time, and outcome, to protect your account and detect abuse. Refresh tokens are stored with the IP and user-agent that created them.
• Service Usage: Logs needed to operate, secure, and debug the Service.
• Cookies and Local Storage: See §8. We authenticate you using tokens stored in your browser's local storage (not advertising cookies), and we do not currently use third-party analytics or advertising trackers.

1.3 Information from Third Parties

• Companies House: Public company-register data (registration details, status, officers, filing history) we retrieve to verify and enrich the companies and suppliers you work with.
• HMRC (when you connect it): VAT obligations, liabilities, and submission results for Making Tax Digital.
• Xero (when you connect it): Accounts, contacts, invoices, and payments from your Xero organisation.
• Your bank (when you connect an Open Banking feed): Account details, balances, and transaction history, retrieved through our Open Banking provider with your consent. Bank feeds are provided by TrueLayer Limited, the FCA-authorised account information service provider; AIONA receives only the read-only data you instruct TrueLayer to share.

1.4 Waitlist and Pre-Launch Contact Data

If you join the waitlist on our website, we collect your work email address and, optionally, your name and business name. We use these solely to contact you about AIONA's availability, early access, and launch. The lawful basis is your consent, which you can withdraw at any time using the unsubscribe link in any email we send, or by writing to support@aionatech.com — we will then stop contacting you and delete your waitlist record. Every waitlist email we send identifies AIONA Ltd as the sender and includes a way to opt out. Waitlist records are deleted no later than 12 months after our public launch unless you have opened an account.

2. How We Use Your Information

We process your information to:

• Provide, maintain, secure, and improve the Service;
• Extract data from your documents and suggest how transactions should be coded to your chart of accounts;
• Generate accounting records and reports (trial balance, profit & loss, balance sheet, and others);
• Perform bank reconciliation, month-end processing, and (when you authorise it) VAT/MTD submissions to HMRC;
• Run integrity and assurance checks (for example, flagging a dissolved or insolvent supplier via Companies House, or a VAT figure that does not reconcile to a valid UK rate);
• Maintain an immutable, tamper-evident audit trail for compliance and security;
• Verify your email address and, where required, your identity, and meet our anti-fraud and anti-money-laundering obligations;
• Send you service, security, and administrative messages and respond to your support requests;
• Contact people who joined our waitlist about availability and early access (with consent);
• Detect, prevent, and address fraud, abuse, security incidents, and technical problems.

Our lawful bases under UK GDPR Article 6, mapped to purpose:

Purpose	Lawful basis
Providing the Service — accounts, document extraction, ledger, reports, reconciliation, and filings you initiate	Performance of a contract
Statutory record-keeping, VAT/MTD filing obligations, HMRC fraud-prevention headers (§3.5), and identity/AML checks where required	Legal obligation
Security logging, fraud and abuse prevention, debugging, and service improvement	Legitimate interests
Optional integrations you connect (bank feed, Xero, HMRC), and waitlist/launch updates	Consent

3. Automated Processing and Artificial Intelligence

3.1 Document Data Extraction (OCR)

When you upload or forward a document, we extract its text and key fields. A first pass runs on our own servers using local optical character recognition (Tesseract). For structured extraction of invoices, receipts, and statements we use Google Cloud Document AI (configured in the EU region). AWS Textract may be used as a fallback in limited circumstances. Each of these processes the document's image/PDF content to return fields such as vendor, dates, totals, VAT, and line items.

3.2 Automated Classification — Human in the Loop

We use automated techniques (including AI) to classify documents and suggest how each line maps to your chart of accounts. These are suggestions only. No document affects your ledger until a person reviews and approves it; any automatic posting is a per-supplier setting you switch on yourself. We therefore do not make decisions producing legal or similarly significant effects about you by solely automated means within the meaning of UK GDPR Article 22. We keep a log of these classification inputs and outputs (for example, the vendor name and line description sent, and the account suggested) so that coding decisions are auditable and so the system can learn from your corrections.

3.3 AI Assistant

The in-app AI Assistant is powered by large language models provided by Anthropic (the Claude family), accessed through Anthropic's API. When you ask the Assistant a question, your query and a relevant, company-scoped slice of your accounting data (which may include supplier and customer names, document text, and figures) are sent to Anthropic to generate a response. The Assistant is read-only and is restricted to the single company you are working in. We do not keep a server-side transcript of your Assistant conversations; conversation context is held in your browser session for the duration of the chat. We use these AI services under terms that prohibit them from using your data to train their models.

3.4 Other AI Analysis

Some compliance and benchmarking features analyse public company-register information (from Companies House) and aggregated financial ratios using AWS Bedrock. These features operate on public-register and aggregated data, not on your private ledger content.

3.5 HMRC Fraud Prevention Data (Making Tax Digital)

When you connect AIONA to HMRC and use Making Tax Digital features (for example retrieving VAT obligations or submitting a VAT return), HMRC requires all MTD software, by law, to send certain information about the device and connection being used alongside each API request. This helps HMRC detect and prevent fraud, is a condition of using HMRC's APIs, and cannot be switched off while using HMRC-connected features. The data transmitted with each HMRC request includes:

• a random device identifier generated by AIONA and stored in your browser (not a hardware serial number);
• your device's public IP address and the time we observed it, and — where your browser makes them available — your device's local network IP addresses;
• your browser's user-agent string, screen size, colour depth and scaling factor, window size, and timezone;
• a one-way hashed identifier for your AIONA user account (HMRC receives the hash, not your email or name);
• details of the server making the request on your behalf, including our server's public IP address and our software name and version.

This data is sent only to HMRC, only when you use HMRC-connected features, and only for HMRC's fraud-prevention purposes. The lawful basis is legal obligation. HMRC's own use of this data is described in HMRC's transaction monitoring privacy notice.

4. Data Storage and Security

4.1 Where Your Data Is Stored

• The Service is hosted on Google Cloud infrastructure in London, United Kingdom (region europe-west2). During our infrastructure transition some workloads may also run on Fly.io, also in London, United Kingdom.
• Your structured data (accounts, ledger, transactions, contacts, extracted document text) is held in a PostgreSQL database.
• Original uploaded document files are stored in Google Cloud Storage europe-west2 (London, UK).
• We take regular backups to protect against data loss.

4.2 Security Measures

• All traffic is encrypted in transit using TLS, with HTTP Strict Transport Security and a content security policy enforced.
• Data is encrypted at rest using our infrastructure providers' server-side encryption (Google Cloud Storage and the database platform). Sensitive integration tokens (for example, HMRC OAuth tokens) are additionally encrypted at the application level.
• Passwords are hashed with bcrypt; we never store them in plain text.
• Accounts are protected by sign-in rate limiting and automatic lockout after repeated failed attempts.
• Access is governed by role-based permissions (admin, accountant, read-only auditor), and each tenant's data is isolated from every other tenant — enforced both in application logic and by database row-level security.
• Posted journal entries are immutable: database triggers prevent them being altered or deleted, and every change is recorded in an append-only audit trail secured with SHA-256 integrity hashes.
• Sign-in currently uses a password plus email verification; multi-factor authentication is not yet offered.

5. Data Sharing and Sub-Processors

We do not sell your personal or financial data. We share data with the sub-processors below only for the purposes listed, and only when the relevant feature or integration is in use. All sub-processors are engaged under data-processing terms consistent with UK GDPR Article 28.

Processor	Purpose	Region	When
Fly.io	Cloud hosting of the application and database	UK (London)	Always
Google Cloud	Document storage (Cloud Storage) and document data extraction (Document AI)	EU / UK	Whenever you upload or process documents
Anthropic	AI Assistant and automated transaction-coding suggestions (Claude models)	United States	When AI features are used
Amazon Web Services (AWS)	AI analysis of public company-register data, OCR fallback, backup email delivery, and storage of public datasets	US / EU	When those features run
Resend	Transactional email (verification codes, password resets, invitations, notices)	United States	Always
Postmark	Inbound email capture (forwarding invoices/receipts to your AIONA address)	United States	When you use email-in capture
Stripe	Subscription billing and card payment processing	US / UK / EU	On paid plans
Didit	Identity verification (KYC/AML) where enhanced verification is required	EU	Only if enhanced identity verification is enabled
Sentry (Functional Software, Inc.)	Application error monitoring — crash reports, which may include your IP address, browser details, and the screen or action in use when an error occurred (configured not to capture personal data by default)	United States	When error monitoring is enabled
Xero	Accounting data sync (accounts, contacts, invoices, payments)	Global	Only when you connect Xero
HMRC	VAT and Making Tax Digital submissions and obligation tracking	UK	Only when you authorise filing
Companies House	Company-register lookups and supplier verification	UK	During onboarding and supplier checks
TrueLayer	Open Banking bank feed (account and transaction data). TrueLayer Limited is the FCA-authorised account information service provider; AIONA is not FCA-regulated and receives only the read-only data you instruct TrueLayer to share	UK / EU	Only when you connect a bank feed

5.1 Legal Requirements

We may disclose your information if required by law, court order, or government regulation, or to establish, exercise, or defend legal claims, or to protect the rights, property, or safety of AIONA, our users, or others.

5.2 Business Transfers

In the event of a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets, your information may be transferred to the acquiring entity. We will notify you in advance of any such transfer and of any resulting change to how your data is processed.

6. Data Retention

We retain your data for as long as your account is active and as needed to provide the Service. Financial records (posted journals, audit events, VAT submissions, reconciliations, and the documents that evidence them) are retained for 7 years, to satisfy the stricter of the Companies Act 2006 minimum (6 years for private companies) and HMRC's VAT evidence requirements (6 full years plus the current year).

When you close your account, personal identifiers are removed from those retained financial records — your name and email are replaced with an anonymous reference while the underlying accounting entries (debits, credits, dates) are preserved to meet our statutory obligations. Login history and refresh tokens are permanently deleted, as there is no legal obligation to retain them.

Sign-in and security logs are retained for up to 24 months from creation. Logs of automated classification inputs and outputs (§3.2) are retained for the same period as the accounting records they explain, so that coding decisions remain auditable.

7. Your Rights (UK GDPR)

Under the UK General Data Protection Regulation, you have the right to:

• Access & Portability: Obtain a copy of your personal data in a structured, machine-readable format. You can export this yourself at any time from Settings → Privacy & Data; ledger and report data can also be exported as CSV and Excel.
• Rectification: Correct inaccurate or incomplete data, via Settings → Profile or by contacting us.
• Erasure: Request deletion of your data, subject to the legal retention obligations described in §6. Use Settings → Privacy & Data → Danger Zone.
• Restriction & Objection: Limit or object to certain processing, including processing based on legitimate interests.
• Withdraw Consent: Withdraw consent for any processing that relies on it (for example, an optional integration) at any time.
• Complain: Lodge a complaint with the UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) at ico.org.uk if you believe your rights have been breached.

To exercise any of these rights, contact us at support@aionatech.com. We respond within the UK GDPR one-month window.

8. Cookies, Local Storage, and Tracking

AIONA keeps you signed in using authentication tokens stored in your browser's local storage, together with a small number of strictly necessary interface preferences. These are essential and do not require consent under the UK Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR). Full details are in our Cookie Policy.

We do not currently use advertising cookies or third-party analytics trackers. If we introduce optional analytics in the future, we will only enable them after you opt in through a consent banner, and we will add a control in the application for changing your choice at any time.

9. International Data Transfers

The Service is hosted in the United Kingdom, and we keep your data in the UK and EU wherever practicable. Some of our sub-processors are based outside the UK — in particular Anthropic, Resend, Postmark, Stripe, Sentry, and certain Amazon Web Services features are based in the United States. Where personal data is transferred outside the UK, we rely on one or more of the following safeguards:

• A UK adequacy decision, where one applies;
• The UK Extension to the EU–U.S. Data Privacy Framework, where the recipient is certified under it;
• The UK International Data Transfer Agreement (IDTA), or the EU Standard Contractual Clauses with the UK Addendum, for transfers to jurisdictions without adequacy;
• Supplementary technical and organisational measures (encryption in transit and at rest, access controls, and minimisation of the data shared).

10. Children's Privacy

AIONA is a business tool intended for use by people aged 18 or over. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children.

11. Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. Material changes will be communicated by email and surfaced in the app for at least 30 days before they take effect. Minor, clarifying updates will be reflected in the "Last Updated" date only. Your continued use of AIONA after a material change takes effect constitutes acceptance of the updated policy.

12. Contact Us

If you have questions about this Privacy Policy or our data practices, please contact us:

AIONA Ltd
Email: support@aionatech.com
Registered in England & Wales, company number 16606520
Registered office: 128 City Road, London, United Kingdom, EC1V 2NX

This Privacy Policy is effective as of 3 July 2026.