Legal

Privacy and cookies

What I collect when you use this website or get in touch, why I keep it, and what you can ask me to do with it.

Last updated

Who I am

Joe Algem, trading as Digital Rehearsals, a sole trader in the United Kingdom. I decide how the details you send me are used, so under UK data protection law I am the controller of them.

For anything in this notice, email joe@digitalrehearsals.com. My postal address is on the business information page.

What I collect

  • The enquiry form: your name, work email, company, role (optional), the project country, the service, the timing, your preferred call times and time zone (optional), a link to your files (optional) and your message.
  • Emails: what you write to me, any attachments, and the details in your email signature.
  • Calls: what you tell me about the project on a call, and my notes of it.
  • Files you share through a link: programmes, models, drawings and anything else you point me to. They can include the names of people on a project. I download only what I need to prepare for the call and the proposal, or to do the work.
  • Spam control: when the form is sent, the server stores a salted, one-way hash of your IP address (not the address itself) with the time, so that one connection can send at most 5 enquiries an hour. It deletes them after 24 hours.
  • Server logs: like any web host, Hostinger records each request to this site: the IP address, the date and time, the page asked for, the browser type and the page you came from.

Nothing else. There are no cookies, no analytics, no tracking and no advertising on this site.

You do not have to give me any of this. The form needs your name, work email, company, project country, service, timing and message before it will send; if you email me instead, your message is enough.

Why I use it, and the lawful basis

  • To answer your enquiry, arrange a call and prepare a proposal. My legitimate interest in answering business enquiries. If you ask for a proposal for yourself, for example as a sole trader, it is also a step you asked me to take before a contract.
  • To do the work you hire me for, and to invoice it. The contract between you and me.
  • To keep accounts and tax records. A legal obligation: HMRC requires them.
  • To keep this website and the form safe from spam and misuse. My legitimate interest in running a secure website. This covers the hashed IP address and the server logs.

I do not use your details for marketing, I do not sell them, and I make no automated decisions about you.

Who else handles it

  • Hostinger hosts this website and my business email. Its servers pass the form on to my mailbox, store my emails and form messages, and keep the server logs.

Hostinger acts only on my instructions, under its data processing terms. If the law requires it, for example in a tax enquiry, I share the relevant records with HMRC. The files you link stay with the file sharing service you chose, under your own account's terms.

Transfers outside the UK

Hostinger may process data outside the UK, for example in its data centres in the European Union. Transfers to countries in the European Economic Area are covered by UK adequacy regulations. For any other transfer, Hostinger's data processing agreement uses the EU standard contractual clauses with the UK International Data Transfer Addendum.

How long I keep it

  • Enquiries that do not lead to work: 12 months from your last message. Then I delete them, with any copies of your files.
  • Client and tax records (proposals, contracts, invoices and payments): for as long as HMRC requires, which is at least 5 years after the 31 January Self Assessment deadline for the tax year they belong to (gov.uk: how long to keep your records). Then I delete them.
  • Files from a project: while the work and any agreed support are running, then deleted within 12 months of handover, unless you and I agree otherwise.
  • Spam control hashes: 24 hours.
  • Server logs: for the short period Hostinger sets. I do not copy them.

Your rights

You can ask me to:

  • give you a copy of the personal data I hold about you;
  • correct it if it is wrong or incomplete;
  • delete it, unless I have to keep it, as with tax records;
  • limit how I use it while a question about it is settled;
  • stop using it, where I rely on legitimate interests and your reasons outweigh mine;
  • send the data you gave me under a contract to you, or to another organisation, in a common format.

To use any of these, email joe@digitalrehearsals.com. It is free, I reply within one month, and I may ask you to confirm who you are first.

Complaints

If you are unhappy with how I have handled your data, please tell me first and I will try to put it right. You can also complain to the Information Commissioner's Office, the UK regulator, at ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint.

Cookies

This website sets no cookies and stores nothing in your browser. It uses no analytics, no tracking and no third-party embeds, and it loads no scripts or fonts from other companies. That is why there is no cookie banner.

One exception is outside my control. If Hostinger's network suspects that a visit is automated, it can show its own short "checking your browser" page before this site loads. That page is Hostinger's: it can set a security cookie and load fonts from Google.

The contact form has a short script that notes how long the form was open, to help stop spam. That time goes with your enquiry when you send it; nothing is saved on your device.

Links to other sites take you to pages with their own privacy and cookie rules.

Changes to this notice

When anything here changes, I update this page and the date at the top.