Privacy Policy
This policy explains how DesignWebb collects, uses and protects personal information when you visit designwebb.com, send us an enquiry, or hire us to build a website. We keep it short and in plain English.
1. Who we are
DesignWebb is a small UK web-design business run by Jack Southall-Webb, a sole trader. For the purposes of UK data protection law, Jack Southall-Webb, trading as DesignWebb, is the "controller" of the personal information described in this policy. Our services are for businesses and organisations, and this website is not aimed at children.
- Trading name
- DesignWebb
- Operated by
- Jack Southall-Webb, sole trader
- Address
- 3 Azalea Road, CV37 7DH
2. What information we collect
When you send an enquiry through our form
You give us the following, and we receive it exactly as you type it:
- your name and your business name;
- your email address and, if you choose to give it, your phone number;
- a description of your business and whether you already have a website;
- what you are looking for and, if you choose to give it, your approximate budget;
- your message, and anything else you decide to write in it.
The name, business name, email address, business description, website answer, what you are looking for and message are needed so we can reply to you properly. Your phone number and budget are optional. You don't have to use the form, but we can't reply to or quote for you without the required details. Please don't put anything sensitive in your message, such as health details or payment card numbers. We don't need it.
If we contact you first
We hold the business contact details we found in public sources (for example your business name, a contact name if one is shown, and your email address or other contact details), a record of when we contacted you, and any reply you send. See section 4.
When you email or call us
We keep what you send us, along with your contact details and any replies.
If you become a client
We also hold the information needed to do the work and run the business: details about your business and website, the text, images and other content you send us, our correspondence with you, and invoicing and payment records.
Technical information
When you visit the site, the service that hosts it (see section 5) receives the technical information that any web host receives when your browser asks for a page, such as your IP address. This is how every website works. We do not run analytics on this site.
3. How we use it, and why
UK data protection law requires us to have a "lawful basis" for each use of your information. Ours are:
| What we do | Lawful basis |
|---|---|
| Read your enquiry, reply to you and prepare a quote, including with the help of an AI assistant (see section 5) | Taking steps at your request before entering a contract (Article 6(1)(b)); and our legitimate interest in answering people who contact us (Article 6(1)(f)) |
| Design, build, launch and support your website if you hire us | Performing our contract with you (Article 6(1)(b)) |
| Keep accounting, tax and other records we are required to keep | Legal obligation (Article 6(1)(c)) |
| Contact businesses that may want a website (see section 4) | Our legitimate interest in promoting our services to businesses (Article 6(1)(f)). The separate rules on electronic marketing (PECR) also apply. |
| Keep a list of people who ask us not to contact them, so that we don't | Our legitimate interest in respecting your right to object (Article 6(1)(f)) |
| Protect the site and our form from spam and misuse | Our legitimate interest in keeping the service secure (Article 6(1)(f)) |
| Deal with your questions, requests and complaints about your data | Legal obligation (Article 6(1)(c)) |
| Establish, exercise or defend legal claims | Our legitimate interest (Article 6(1)(f)) |
Where we rely on legitimate interests, we have considered whether they are outweighed by your rights and expectations. You can ask us about this at any time.
We do not use your information to make automated decisions about you, and we do not build profiles of you. Decisions about your enquiry are made by a person, and an AI assistant only helps us to understand enquiries and draft replies. We do not sell your information. We do not add enquiry details to a mailing list, and we use them only for the purposes in this section.
4. If we contact you first
We sometimes contact businesses that we think could benefit from a website. When we do, we use business contact details that are publicly available, for example on the business's own website, social media page or a business listing. We use them only to tell you briefly about DesignWebb and to ask whether you'd like to hear more. Our first message tells you who we are.
Who we contact. The rules on marketing by email, text and social-media message are different for limited companies and for individuals, including sole traders. From now on we only send this kind of first message to clearly identifiable UK limited companies and other corporate bodies, and we check that before we send. We do not rely on an email address alone to tell us.
Our earlier messages. Before we put these practices in place, some of our earlier messages may have gone to sole traders or to businesses whose status we had not checked, and some may not have included a clear way to opt out. If you received one and would like us to stop, or would like to know what we hold about you, email contact@designwebb.com.
Our lawful basis and your rights. Our lawful basis for holding and using your business contact details in this way is legitimate interests (Article 6(1)(f)): promoting our services to businesses that may find them useful. You have an absolute right to object to your details being used for direct marketing. Tell us by replying to any message or by emailing contact@designwebb.com. We will stop straight away. We will keep just enough information (your name, business name, email address and the date you asked) on a separate list so that we don't contact you again, and we check that list before we contact anyone.
6. Transfers outside the UK
Some of the providers we use may handle personal information outside the UK. Where personal information is transferred outside the UK, we will make sure appropriate safeguards required by UK data protection law are in place. If you would like more information, contact us.
7. How long we keep it
We only keep personal information for as long as we need it for the reason we collected it. We delete it sooner if there is no good reason to keep it. In practice:
| Information | How long we keep it |
|---|---|
| Enquiries that don't lead to any work | 12 months after our last contact with you, then we delete them. |
| Client and project records, and financial records | Up to 6 years after our client relationship ends, where we need them for legal, accounting or tax reasons, or to deal with a claim. After that we delete them. |
| Details of businesses we contacted first who haven't replied | 12 months after our last message to them, then we delete them. |
| Records of people who asked us not to contact them | Kept separately from our other records, and limited to your name, business name, email address and the date you asked. Kept for as long as needed to make sure we respect that request. |
| Technical hosting logs | Kept by our hosting provider under its own retention periods. |
When we delete an enquiry, we also delete the copies in our email account, and we remove the submission from our Formspree account where its tools allow. Our retention periods apply to the copies we hold ourselves. How long Formspree, or any other provider, keeps information under its own rules is separate and is not controlled by us. If you ask us to delete your information sooner, we will, unless the law requires us to keep it. We do not control how long an AI provider keeps information under its own terms.
9. Security
We take reasonable steps to keep your information secure, and we only share it with the providers listed in section 5. No system is completely secure, so please don't send us anything sensitive that we don't need.
10. Your rights
Under UK data protection law you have the right to:
- be told what we do with your information (this policy);
- ask for a copy of the information we hold about you;
- ask us to correct information that is wrong or incomplete;
- ask us to delete your information;
- ask us to restrict how we use it;
- object to us using it where we rely on legitimate interests, and object at any time, without giving a reason, to us using it for direct marketing (this right is absolute);
- ask for information you gave us in a portable format, where we use it under a contract with you;
- withdraw consent at any time, if we ever rely on it.
To use any of these rights, email contact@designwebb.com. We may need to check who you are first. We normally reply within one month. There is no fee unless a request is clearly unreasonable or repeated. Some rights have limits, and we will explain if one applies.
11. Questions and complaints
If you have a question or concern about your information, please contact us first at contact@designwebb.com. We will acknowledge your complaint within 30 days, look into it, keep you updated and tell you the outcome without undue delay.
You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), the UK's data protection regulator, at any time. You can do so at ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint or by calling 0303 123 1113.
12. Changes to this policy
We may update this policy from time to time, for example if we start using a new service. The date at the top shows when it was last changed.