Who controls the data
Opus Archive, 91 Tarxien Road, Paola, Malta, is the business name and controller for personal data collected through this website, including orders, support communications and rights requests. Malta VAT number: MT1474-8305. Opus Archive is an independent research service and is not affiliated with the Government of Malta, Electoral Commission, National Archives, Planning Authority or Stripe.
Privacy enquiries, customer support and rights requests can be sent to support@opusarchive.com or submitted through the contact and privacy request form.
Data we process
- Search selections, such as locality and street.
- Order details, payment status, billing details and transaction references supplied by Stripe. We do not receive full card numbers.
- Technical and security data, including IP address, browser data, timestamps and server logs.
- Messages and identity-verification information supplied in support or data-protection requests.
- Historical names and addresses appearing in the October 1968 Government Gazette electoral register.
Purposes and legal bases
- Contract: process an order and deliver the selected scans.
- Legal obligation: tax, accounting, fraud-prevention and lawful regulatory duties.
- Legitimate interests: operate a secure historical research index, prevent misuse, answer enquiries and make official public archival material practically accessible. The Gazette can otherwise require physical-library access, appointments and travel. The public site is organised by locality and page rather than by a person's name, and access to original-resolution pages is limited.
- Consent: only for optional communications or non-essential cookies if introduced later.
Historical information may also engage the GDPR provisions concerning archiving in the public interest and historical research. Opus Archive does not claim that public availability alone removes data-protection obligations. Its legitimate-interests assessment considers the official public source, the age and research value of the records, practical access barriers, the interests of potentially living individuals and the available objection and contact process.
Recipients and international transfers
Stripe processes checkout, payment and transaction documentation. Railway provides application, database and object-storage infrastructure. Resend provides transactional email delivery. GoDaddy provides domain and DNS services, while Microsoft provides the support mailbox. Each provider receives only the information necessary for its role. Their processing terms, subprocessors and transfer mechanisms apply. Where personal data leaves the EEA, Opus Archive requires an applicable adequacy decision or approved safeguards such as the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses.
Retention
- Order and tax records: retained for the period required by Maltese law.
- Privacy and support requests: normally deleted or anonymised three years after closure, unless a dispute or legal duty requires longer.
- Transactional email content: removed from the delivery queue after successful sending; delivery records and permanently failed jobs are deleted after 90 days.
- Security and rate-limit records: normally no longer than 90 days and, for short-lived rate-limit counters, normally no longer than two days.
- Historical Gazette scans: retained as archival source material while the service operates, subject to lawful objections and applicable archival safeguards.
Your rights
Subject to applicable conditions and exemptions, you may request access, rectification, erasure, restriction, portability, or object to processing. You may withdraw consent where consent is the basis. We may need proportionate identity verification. Requests are normally answered within one month.
You may complain to Malta's Information and Data Protection Commissioner at idpc.org.mt.
Security and automated decisions
Access controls, private storage, time-limited links, encryption in transit and least-privilege administration are used where applicable. No decision producing legal or similarly significant effects is made solely by automated means.