Terms & privacy.

01 Who you are dealing with

Latent is the trading name for restoration, digitizing and data recovery work done by Drew Springer, operating as a sole individual, contactable at drew@drewspringer.net. There is no team, no call centre, and no third party who touches your material. When you email, you get me.

02 What I promise, and what I cannot

I promise effort, honesty and care. I cannot promise outcomes. Photo restoration and data recovery both depend far more on the condition of the source than on skill or software, and anyone who guarantees a result before seeing the material is guessing or lying.

Specifically:

• I will tell you what I realistically expect before you pay anything.
• On restoration work you approve a watermarked preview before payment. If it is not good enough, you do not pay.
• On data recovery, if I recover nothing meaningful, there is no fee. You cover return postage only.
• I will not overstate what a tool did. If a result is partly reconstructed rather than genuinely recovered, I will say so plainly.

03 Your data, and what happens to it

This is the section most people actually care about, so it is the most specific.

Where it lives

Your files sit on encrypted storage that is not shared, not synced to a public cloud service, and not accessible to anyone but me. Transfers happen over encrypted links.

What I look at

On recovery jobs I open files only as far as needed to confirm they are intact and to build your file list. I am not reading your documents or browsing your photos, and I have no interest in doing so.

How long I keep it

• Restoration and digitizing: working copies deleted 90 days after delivery.
• Data recovery: images and recovered data deleted 30 days after delivery.
• Ask me to delete sooner and I will, immediately, and confirm when it is done.
• Ask me to hold it longer and I will, if you tell me before the window closes.

What I never do

• Use your material as AI training data, or feed it to any service that would.
• Sell, share or hand your files to anyone else, barring a valid legal order.
• Publish a before-and-after — anywhere, including Instagram — without asking you specifically, every single time. "No" needs no explanation and costs you nothing.

04 Physical media you send me

Your originals are yours and they come back. I log and photograph everything on arrival, and I do all work against copies or sector-level images — never the original item.

• Return postage is at cost, tracked and insured to the value you declare.
• Declare a value before posting. Carrier compensation is otherwise minimal, and I cannot cover what a courier loses in transit.
• For genuinely irreplaceable single copies, I will always suggest a handoff in person over the post. Please take that suggestion.
• Material left with me for more than 12 months after I have tried to reach you three times may be disposed of. I will make a real effort to avoid this.

05 Data recovery, specifically

Recovery carries risks that restoration does not, and you should understand them before sending anything.

• A failing drive can fail further at any moment, including while being imaged, and including if nobody does anything wrong. Imaging first is how I minimise this, but it cannot be eliminated.
• I do logical recovery only — no cleanroom, no platter work, no chip-off. If your device needs that, I will tell you and point you to someone who does it, at no charge and with no markup.
• Recovered files may be incomplete, corrupted, or missing their original names and folders. This is normal and is not a failure of the service.
• You confirm the device is yours or that you have the owner's permission. I will decline anything that looks otherwise.
• Recovery is not a substitute for a backup. Once you have your files back, back them up in two places. I will tell you how if you want.

06 Money

• Fixed-price services are payable up front. Quoted work is payable on approval of the preview or file list.
• A quote does not change after you accept it. If I find more work than expected, that is my estimating problem, not your invoice.
• Bulk upscaling: unhappy with a batch, tell me within 14 days and I will redo it or refund it.
• Restoration: you approve before you pay, so refunds rarely arise. If I got it wrong, I will fix it or refund it.
• Recovery: no meaningful data, no fee. "Meaningful" is judged against what you told me you needed.
• Digitizing is not refundable once physical media has been processed, since the work is already done, but I will re-run anything that came out badly.

07 Limits of liability

My total liability for any job is capped at what you paid me for that job. I am one person doing careful work at prices well below a commercial lab, and that pricing is only possible because I am not underwriting the replacement value of irreplaceable material.

I am not liable for consequential losses — lost income, lost opportunity, or distress — arising from data that could not be recovered or a photograph that could not be restored. If your material is worth more than that to you, and it may well be, a specialist lab with commercial insurance is the right call and I will happily say so.

08 Work I will turn down

I reserve the right to decline any job, and I will refund anything already paid if I do. In particular:

• Devices that are not yours, or that you cannot confirm you may access.
• Material that is illegal to possess. I will stop work and, where the law requires it, report it.
• Requests to alter a photograph in a way meant to deceive — fabricating people or events into a scene presented as genuine.
• Anything beyond what I can honestly do well.

09 This website

The site sets no advertising or tracking cookies and runs no third-party analytics. Fonts are served by Google Fonts, which means Google receives your IP address as part of that request. Contact forms are handled by Formspree, which processes the name, email and message you type in order to deliver it to me. Nothing else is collected.

10 Changes and disputes

If I change these terms, the version in force for your job is the one published when you booked it. Ask and I will send you a copy.

If something goes wrong, email me first. I would far rather sort it out directly than have either of us involve anybody else, and in practice that has always worked.

These terms are written in plain English for a small operation and are not legal advice. If your job involves unusually high value or a business contract, say so — I am glad to sign something drafted by your side instead.

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