This policy explains what personal information Whitespace Digital collects through this website, why we collect it, what we do with it and what rights you have. It is written to be read, rather than to be technically unarguable, and we have tried to keep it free of legal padding.

Who we are

Whitespace Digital is a web design and development studio based near Farnham, Surrey, England. For the purposes of UK data protection law we are the data controller for the information described in this policy.

You can contact us about anything in this policy by telephone on 01420 446331. If you would prefer to write to us, call and we will give you the correct postal address. We deliberately do not publish an email address on this website, because published addresses attract so much automated spam that genuine messages get lost.

What this policy covers

This policy covers information collected through whitespacedigital.co.uk. It does not cover:

Websites we have built for our clients. Those are operated by the client, who is the data controller for them and publishes their own policy.
Third-party services you might reach from a link on this site. Their own policies apply.

What information we collect

Information you give us

If you complete the enquiry form, we collect the information you enter:

Your name
Your company or trading name
Your email address
Your telephone number, if you provide one (optional)
The address of your current website, if you provide one (optional)
A description of what you need help with
Your approximate timescale
Confirmation that you are happy for us to reply

If you telephone us, we make a note of what was discussed so we can follow it up properly.

We ask for the minimum needed to give you a useful answer. Please do not include sensitive personal information — health details, financial details, anything about a third party — in an enquiry form; it is not the right place for it.

Information collected automatically

We do not use analytics on this website. There is no Google Analytics, no Microsoft Clarity, no heat-mapping and no advertising pixels. We do not build a profile of you, we do not track you across other websites, and we do not sell or share data with advertisers.

Our hosting provider keeps standard server logs (IP address, request time, page requested, browser type) for a short period for security and diagnostic purposes. That is a normal and necessary function of operating a website.

Anti-spam protection on the enquiry form is provided by Google reCAPTCHA, which collects some technical and behavioural information in order to distinguish people from automated scripts. This is described in the "Who we share information with" section below.

Why we use it, and our lawful basis

What we use it for	Lawful basis
Replying to your enquiry and discussing your project	Consent, which you give by ticking the box on the form; and legitimate interests where you contact us by telephone
Preparing quotations and proposals	Legitimate interests — responding to a request from a prospective client
Delivering work you have engaged us for	Performance of a contract
Keeping records of work, invoices and correspondence	Legal obligation (tax and accounting) and legitimate interests
Protecting the website and the enquiry form from abuse	Legitimate interests — keeping our systems secure

We do not send marketing email. You will not be added to a mailing list, and we will not contact you about anything other than the enquiry you made unless you ask us to.

We do not sell personal information and we do not share it for advertising. We do use a small number of service providers, each of which processes information on our behalf under a contract:

Vercel Inc. — hosting for this website. Processes server logs and serves pages. Data may be processed outside the UK under an appropriate transfer mechanism.
Zoho Corporation — the customer relationship management system where enquiries are recorded so we can follow them up. We use Zoho's European data centre, so enquiry data is stored within the EU.
Google Ireland Limited — reCAPTCHA, which protects the enquiry form from automated abuse. Google collects technical and interaction information for that purpose, described in the Google privacy policy.
Cybot A/S (Cookiebot) — consent management, if and when non-essential cookies are used. Records your consent choice.
GitHub, Inc. — where the website's content and code are stored. This contains the published content of the site, not enquiry data.

We may also disclose information where we are legally required to, or to obtain professional advice.

Where your information is stored

Enquiry records are held in Zoho's European data centre. Website hosting is provided by Vercel, whose infrastructure may process data outside the UK and the EEA. Where personal data is transferred internationally we rely on the UK's international data transfer agreement or addendum, or on adequacy regulations, as appropriate.

How long we keep it

Enquiries that do not become projects: up to 24 months, after which they are deleted. Prospective clients often come back a year later, and we would rather have the context than ask you to explain it again.
Client records, correspondence and project files: for the duration of the relationship and then for six years, to meet accounting and legal obligations.
Invoices and financial records: six years, as required by HMRC.
Server logs: a short rolling period set by our hosting provider, typically no more than 30 days.

Your rights

Under UK GDPR you have the right to:

Be informed about how your data is used — that is what this policy is for
Access a copy of the personal data we hold about you
Rectification of anything inaccurate
Erasure of your data where there is no overriding reason for us to keep it
Restrict processing in certain circumstances
Data portability — receive your data in a machine-readable format
Object to processing based on legitimate interests
Withdraw consent at any time, where consent is the basis we rely on

To exercise any of these, telephone us on 01420 446331. We will respond within one month. There is no charge, and we will not ask you to justify the request.

Automated decision-making

We do not carry out automated decision-making or profiling that has legal or similarly significant effects. The reCAPTCHA score on the enquiry form is an automated assessment of whether a submission is likely to be from a person; if a genuine submission is rejected you can simply telephone us instead, and we say so on the form.

Children

This website is aimed at businesses and we do not knowingly collect information about anyone under 18. If you believe we hold information about a child, please tell us and we will delete it.

Cookies

This website uses no tracking cookies. A small amount of information is stored in your browser to remember your light or dark theme preference, and consent and anti-spam services may set cookies as described in our cookie policy.

Changes to this policy

If we change how we handle personal information we will update this page and change the "last updated" date at the top. Material changes will be flagged clearly rather than made quietly.

Complaints

If you are unhappy with how we have handled your information, please tell us first — we would much rather put it right. If you remain dissatisfied you have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office:

Information Commissioner's Office Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF Telephone: 0303 123 1113 ico.org.uk

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