Privacy policy

Who we are

Skillops Limited is the data controller for the personal data described in this policy. We are a company registered in England and Wales under company number 16595934, with a registered office at 129 Mile End Road, London E1 4BG.

If you have any question about this policy or about how we handle your information, contact us at [email protected] and we will respond.

The short version

This website is deliberately low-collection. We want you to be able to read everything here without being measured. In plain terms:

• We do not set any cookies on this website.
• We do not run analytics, advertising pixels or visitor tracking.
• Fonts are served from our own domain, so reading a page does not call a third-party font service.
• The enquiry forms send what you type to us, so that we can reply. Nothing else about your visit is collected.
• Our hosting provider keeps standard server logs, which include IP addresses, for security and reliability.

The sections below explain each of these in full, along with your rights and how to exercise them.

Information you give us directly

The website includes enquiry, project brief and candidate forms. These ask for details such as your name, email address, the type of work you are interested in, an indicative budget or timescale, and whatever you choose to write in the free-text field.

When you submit one of these forms, the details you entered are sent to us so that we can reply. Where a form-handling provider is configured, your submission passes through that provider as our processor; otherwise the form opens your own email application with the details filled in, and nothing is sent until you press send yourself.

We use what you send to respond to your enquiry and, if we go on to work together, to deliver and administer that work. We do not add you to a marketing list because you contacted us about a project.

If you do email us, we hold that correspondence in order to answer you and to keep a record of what was agreed. We use it for that purpose and not for unrelated marketing.

Cookies and similar technologies

This website does not set cookies. We do not use cookie-based analytics, session cookies, advertising cookies or third-party tracking of any kind, so there is no cookie banner and nothing for you to consent to or reject.

We do use local storage in your browser, as described above, to hold form content on your own device. Local storage is not shared with us or with anyone else. You can clear it at any time through your browser's settings for site data.

Information collected automatically by our host

This website is hosted on Firebase Hosting, a service provided by Google. As with essentially all web hosting, the service records standard technical request logs when a page or file is served. These typically include your IP address, the time of the request, the page requested, and basic information about your browser and device.

We rely on this processing for our legitimate interests in keeping the site available, diagnosing faults and protecting it against abuse. We do not combine these logs with any other information to build a profile of you, and we do not use them for marketing.

Google acts as our processor for hosting. This can involve transferring data outside the UK. Where that happens, the transfer is governed by the safeguards in Google's data processing terms. You can review Google's privacy documentation for details of how they handle data on behalf of customers.

Why we are allowed to use your data

UK data protection law requires a lawful basis for each use of personal data. Ours are as follows:

• Legitimate interests — operating and securing the website, and responding to enquiries you send us. We have considered your rights and do not believe this processing is intrusive or unexpected.
• Contract — where you become a client, we process the data needed to deliver the work and administer the engagement.
• Legal obligation — where we must retain records for tax, accounting or company law purposes.
• Consent — for any optional marketing communications. We will ask separately and clearly, and you can withdraw consent at any time.

An enquiry is not a subscription. We do not add you to a mailing list because you contacted us about a project.

Who we share information with

We do not sell personal data, and we do not share it with advertisers or data brokers. We share information only where it is necessary to run the business:

• Service providers who process data on our behalf, such as our website host, email provider and accounting software.
• Professional advisers, such as accountants or legal advisers, where they need the information to advise us.
• Authorities or regulators, where we are legally required to disclose information.

Where a provider processes personal data for us, we put a contract in place requiring them to act only on our instructions and to keep the data secure.

How long we keep information

We keep personal data only as long as we have a reason to. Enquiry correspondence that does not lead to work is deleted once it is clearly no longer relevant. Records relating to clients and to our accounts are kept for the periods required by UK tax and company law, after which they are deleted or anonymised.

Form content stored in your own browser is not under our control. It remains on your device until you clear your browser's site data.

Keeping information secure

The website is served over HTTPS, so traffic between your browser and the site is encrypted in transit. We limit access to personal data to people who need it, use reputable providers for the systems we rely on, and collect as little as we reasonably can — which remains the most effective protection available to a small organisation.

No system can be guaranteed completely secure. If a breach occurs that is likely to result in a risk to your rights and freedoms, we will report it to the Information Commissioner's Office within the statutory timeframe and tell you where we are required to.

Your rights

Under UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018 you have the following rights over your personal data:

• Access — to be told whether we hold data about you and to receive a copy of it.
• Rectification — to have inaccurate or incomplete data corrected.
• Erasure — to ask us to delete data where there is no continuing reason for us to hold it.
• Restriction — to ask us to limit how we use your data while a concern is resolved.
• Objection — to object to processing carried out on the basis of legitimate interests, and to object to direct marketing at any time.
• Portability — to receive certain data in a portable format, or have it transferred to another controller.
• Withdrawal of consent — where we rely on consent, to withdraw it at any time without affecting earlier processing.

To exercise any of these, email [email protected]. We will respond within one month. There is no charge, and we may ask you to confirm your identity before we release information.

Complaints

If you are unhappy with how we have handled your personal data, please tell us first so we have the chance to put it right. You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office, the UK supervisory authority for data protection, at ico.org.uk, or by calling their helpline.

Changes to this policy

We update this policy when our practices change — in particular, we will revise it when the enquiry forms begin delivering submissions to us. The date below records the current version. Where a change materially affects how we use data you have already given us, we will take reasonable steps to bring it to your attention rather than relying on this page alone.