Privacy Notice

Sending you The Wayfinder

What

Your email address.

Lawful basis

Consent, which you give by subscribing and can withdraw at any time.

How long

We send to you until you unsubscribe. Unsubscribing stops the emails but does not by itself delete the record: our email provider retains it, suppressed, so that you are not added back by mistake and so a later resubscribe works. Email us if you want it erased outright, and we will delete it.

Understanding which writing brings people to the site

What

Signup attribution: campaign parameters in the link you followed, the address of the site you arrived from (its domain, not the page), any referral code, and the path of the page you were on when you subscribed. We also record which form you used, so we can tell the newsletter box on an article apart from the one at the end of the Map - and, if you asked to join the operator waiting list, that you did, since that is how we judge whether to build it. Held in the memory of the page you are looking at and not saved to your device, so it does not outlast that page, and it is sent only if you subscribe.

Lawful basis

Our legitimate interests in knowing which pieces of writing earn their keep. Those interests are why we keep it to the referring domain rather than the full address.

How long

Held alongside your subscription record, and kept for as long as that record is, which outlasts unsubscribing. Ask us to erase it and we will.

Keeping your Map result with your email address

What

Only if you take the Map and give your email: the figures and result listed under our newsletter provider above, each in a band or from a fixed list rather than as an exact count, price or pay figure, the date you took the Map, and a link to your result. The link opens your map again, so the answers and figures you gave travel inside it, with any pay figure you gave carried only as an hourly cost to the nearest pound; it is kept against your email address and not shared. Giving your email on the Map also subscribes you to The Wayfinder; unsubscribe anytime.

Lawful basis

Our legitimate interests in understanding the businesses that take the Map, and in having your result to hand if you come back to us. Taking the Map is not required to subscribe.

How long

Kept against your email address for up to 24 months from when you took the Map, then deleted: we clear older results from our mailing list at least every three months. Ask us to erase it sooner and we will.

Emailing you about your Map result

What

Your email address and your result, and only if you ticked “It is fine to email me about my result”. Without the tick we send the report you asked for and nothing further about your map.

Lawful basis

Consent, which you give with that tick and can withdraw at any time by replying or unsubscribing.

How long

For as long as we keep your result, up to 24 months, or until you withdraw.

Sending you your Map report

What

Your email address and your result as the Map worked it out: the band, each area and how it came out, the time cost, the work and cash within reach, which of our three suggested next steps it gave you, and a link back to your full result.

Lawful basis

Consent, given by entering your email address on the Map to receive it.

How long

Sent once and retained by our email provider under their own data-retention policy.

Calling you back about your map

What

Only if you ask us to call you: your phone number, the time of day that suits you, the email address you gave on the Map if you gave one, and a short summary of your result (its band, which of our three suggested next steps it gave you, the area to deal with first, the time cost and the work within reach) with the link to it, sent to us in a single email. The number is not added to our mailing list or to our analytics, and is not written to our logs. Asking for a call changes nothing on our mailing list, whether or not you are on it.

Lawful basis

Taking steps at your request before entering into a contract. We use the number only to call you about your map.

How long

Kept in our mailbox while we arrange and make the call, and for a reasonable period afterwards so that we have a record of it. Ask us and we will delete it sooner.

Booking a call with us

What

Only if you choose to open the booking calendar: your IP address and browser details reach our scheduling provider, along with whatever you enter to book, which is typically your name, your email address and any note you add.

Lawful basis

Taking steps at your request before entering into a contract. Nothing is sent unless you open the calendar yourself.

How long

For as long as we need the booking, and thereafter under our scheduling provider’s own retention. Ask us and we will delete it sooner.

Keeping the forms usable and free of abuse

What

Your IP address, used to verify a bot-protection challenge and to count submissions against a limit. The challenge loads with any page carrying a form, so this happens whether or not you go on to submit one.

Lawful basis

Legitimate interests. A public form with no rate limit and no challenge becomes a spam relay within days.

How long

The rate-limit counter expires by itself a little over two hours after your last submission, and the duplicate-signup key after one hour. The challenge token is not retained by us at all.

Not acting twice on the same notification

What

When our email provider notifies us of a new subscription or a published post, we briefly store whichever reference that message carried. Depending on the message that is its own id, a subscription id, a post id, or a one-way fingerprint of the message itself. A subscription id identifies a subscriber to that provider, so it is treated as personal data here even though it names nobody.

Lawful basis

Legitimate interests in processing each notification once. Acting on a duplicate would mean re-sending or re-recording something that already happened.

How long

One hour, after which the key expires by itself.

Answering you when you email us

What

Your email address, whatever you write, and anything you attach.

Lawful basis

Legitimate interests in replying to correspondence, and a legal obligation where you are exercising a data protection right.

How long

Kept while we deal with your message and for a reasonable period afterwards, so that we have a record of what was asked and what we did. Requests about your data are kept as evidence that we handled them.

Running and securing the website

What

Server logs recording page requests, IP addresses and user-agents.

Lawful basis

Legitimate interests in operating a working, secure site.

How long

Held briefly by our hosting provider under their standard log retention.

Detecting and resolving errors on this site

What

When something goes wrong: the error type, a sanitised call stack showing where in the code the failure occurred, and a small set of diagnostic tags describing which component failed and what kind of failure it was. No email addresses, form inputs, error message text, browser details or device identifiers.

Lawful basis

Legitimate interests in keeping a working site and fixing failures before they affect more visitors.

How long

Kept under our error-monitoring provider’s own retention policy.

Seeing how the site is used

What

Analytics tied to a random device identifier stored in your browser: the pages viewed, the named events listed under our analytics provider above, and, because the requests are relayed through our own domain, the details any web request carries - your IP address, from which an approximate location is derived, and your browser’s user-agent, from which browser, operating system and device type are derived. The Map’s events record which screens you finished and which area each covered and, when you finish, the overall band, which of our three suggested next steps it gave you, and how many areas came out patchy or costing you - not the answers you gave, not any figure you typed, and not alongside your email address. We do not know who that identifier belongs to, but it is still personal data and you have the same rights over it as anything else here.

Lawful basis

Consent, asked for before any non-essential cookie is set. If you decline, no analytics are collected and the site works exactly as it did.

How long

Kept under our analytics provider’s own retention policy.

Contacting businesses about our services

What

Your name, job title, company and work email address, from public company records and business contact data providers. If you accept analytics on this site, also whether a link in one of our emails brought you here, and, if you went on to take the Map in the same browser, the band, which of our three suggested next steps it gave you and how many areas came out patchy or costing you, which can be linked to that visit through the device identifier described under our analytics provider.

Lawful basis

Our legitimate interests in telling businesses about relevant services.

How long

Deleted if you have not replied within two years. If you ask us to stop, we keep a note of that so you are not contacted again.

Vercel

Website hosting and delivery

Requests for pages on this site, including your IP address and browser user-agent, which appear in short-lived server logs. Anything you submit through a form is also processed here on its way to us, since the form handlers run on this host: that includes your email address, your Map result if you took the Map, and your phone number if you ask us to call you.

Beehiiv

Newsletter subscriptions and sending

Your email address; the signup attribution described above, including the path of the page you subscribed from and which form you used, recorded both as a field and as a tag on your subscription; and, if you took the Map and gave your email, your result in bands rather than exact figures: how many people work in the business, rough bands for your enquiries, jobs and what a typical job is worth, one letter per area for how it came out, bands for the time cost and the work within reach, the overall band, the area to deal with first, which of our three suggested next steps it gave you, whether you ticked that it is fine to email you about your result, the date you took the Map, so that we know when to delete the rest, and a link to your result, recorded as fields and as tags on your subscription. The link opens your map again, so the answers and figures you gave travel inside it. Never your phone number, and nothing from a call-back request.

Resend

Sending your Map report, and passing a call-back request to us

For the report: your email address and your Map result, with a link to your full result, sent to you once when you ask for it. For a call-back: your phone number, the time of day that suits you, your email address if you gave it, a short summary of your result and its link, sent in one email to us and to nobody else. Resend retains messages under their own data-retention policy.

Cloudflare

Bot protection on forms (Turnstile)

The challenge loads as soon as a page carrying a form does, not when you submit one, so Cloudflare receives your IP address and browser details even if you never fill anything in. If you do submit, it also receives the one-time token it issued, so we can confirm you are not a bot.

Upstash

Rate limiting, and not processing the same signup twice

Two short-lived keys. One is a counter derived from your IP address, used to hold the subscribe and call-back forms, together, to five submissions an hour. The other is written whenever our email provider notifies us of something, a new subscription or a published post: it holds whichever reference that message carried, which may be the message’s own id, the subscription’s, the post’s, or, failing all three, a one-way fingerprint of the message, so that a notification delivered twice is not acted on twice. Neither key contains your email address.

Google

Booking a call and answering correspondence

If you open the booking calendar on our Talk to us page, Google receives your IP address and browser details along with whatever you enter to book: typically your name, your email address and any note you add. Google Workspace also receives your email address, message and any attachments when you write to our published contact address.

PostHog

Website analytics, on their European servers

A random device identifier stored in your browser, the pages you viewed, and a short list of named events: subscribing, clicking a book-a-call button or opening the booking page, and, on the Map, starting it, finishing each screen (which kind of screen and which area it covered, not what you answered), finishing the Map (with the overall band, which of our three suggested next steps it gave you, and how many areas came out patchy or costing you), saying whether it was useful, and asking for a call (that you asked, not your number). Analytics requests are relayed through our own domain rather than sent to them directly, which means each one arrives carrying the ordinary details any web request carries: your IP address, from which an approximate location is derived, and your browser’s user-agent, from which browser, operating system and device type are derived. We do not send them your email address, your name, your phone number, or any answer or figure you gave on the Map. If you arrived from a link in one of our emails, the short reference that link carries is recorded with the page you arrive on and the pages you go on to from it; it tells them nothing about who you are. The Map’s events are recorded against the same device identifier, so if you take the Map in the same browser, the reference can be linked to the band, which of our three suggested next steps it gave you and how many areas came out patchy or costing you. The reference itself is not sent with the Map’s events, and is not stored with your result, your result link or your subscription.

Sentry

Operational error monitoring, on their European servers

When something goes wrong on this site, a stripped-down error report is sent to Sentry’s European servers. The report carries only the error type, a sanitised call stack showing where in the code the failure occurred, and a small set of diagnostic tags describing which component failed and what kind of failure it was. It does not carry your email address, form inputs, the text of the error message itself, browser details beyond operating system and browser type, or the content of any page. All of those are removed before the report leaves. The error-tracking code loads with the page but creates no cookies, no session storage and no device identifier. IP address storage is disabled in our Sentry project configuration.