A privacy notice in plain English, in three minutes.

Your privacy notice

A starting point, not legal advice. This is generated from your answers and written for a small UK business with simple data use. Read it, make it true for your business, and take professional advice if you are unsure. The ICO also has its own free privacy notice generator for small organisations, which is worth a look.

Take professional advice before you publish. Health information and children’s information carry extra legal requirements (special category data, a separate condition for processing, and often a data protection impact assessment). This generator does not cover them, and the notice below is not complete for your business.

Privacy notice for [Your business name]
Last updated: [date]

This notice explains what personal information we collect, why we collect it, who we share it with, how long we keep it and what your rights are. We keep it short and in plain English. If anything is unclear, ask us.

1. WHO WE ARE
[Your business name] is run by a sole trader. We are the controller of the personal information described in this notice, which means we decide how it is used and we are responsible for looking after it.
Email: [your email address]

2. WHAT WE COLLECT AND WHY
We only collect what we need. For each thing we use your information for, the law requires a "lawful basis", which we list alongside it.

Enquiries and quotes
• What: your name, contact details, address or postcode if relevant, and what you tell us about the job or request. Received through our website contact or quote form, phone calls, email, WhatsApp or text messages.
• Why: to reply to you, give you a quote and arrange the work.
• Lawful basis: taking steps at your request before entering into a contract, and our legitimate interest in answering enquiries.

Customer and financial records
• What: invoices, quotes, payments and the details of work we have done for you.
• Why: to run our business, deal with any warranty or complaint, and meet our tax and accounting duties.
• Lawful basis: performing our contract with you, and our legal obligation to keep records for HMRC.

Our website
• What: the information you type into forms, and technical information such as your IP address and browser, which our website host records in server logs to keep the site secure and working.
• Lawful basis: our legitimate interest in running a secure website. See our cookie notice for anything stored on your device.

3. WHO WE SHARE IT WITH
We never sell your information. We share it only where we need to, with:
• our accountant or bookkeeper, to keep our accounts and file tax returns
• our email and office software provider, which stores our messages and files
• our website host, which runs our website and its forms
• HMRC and other authorities where the law requires us to
These organisations may only use your information to provide their service to us, and must keep it secure.

4. TRANSFERS OUTSIDE THE UK
Some of our service providers may store information outside the UK. Where they do, we make sure it is protected, for example because the country has UK "adequacy" status or because the provider has signed the UK’s approved data transfer terms.

5. HOW LONG WE KEEP IT
• Enquiries that do not go ahead: 12 months, then deleted.
• Customer and financial records: 6 years after the end of the tax year they relate to, because HMRC requires us to keep business records.

6. YOUR RIGHTS
You have the right to:
• ask for a copy of the personal information we hold about you
• ask us to correct anything that is wrong or incomplete
• ask us to delete your information, where we no longer have a good reason to keep it
• ask us to restrict how we use it, or object to us using it for our legitimate interests
• ask for information you gave us to be sent to you or another organisation in a common format
• withdraw consent at any time, where we rely on consent
To use any of these rights, email [your email address]. We will reply within one month. There is no charge.

7. COMPLAINTS
If you are unhappy with how we have handled your information, please tell us first so we can put it right. You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK regulator: ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint or 0303 123 1113.

8. CHANGES TO THIS NOTICE
We will update this notice if what we do changes. The date at the top shows when it last changed.

Your cookie notice

Cookie notice for [Your business name]
Last updated: [date]

Cookies are small files a website stores on your device. Some are essential for the site to work. Others, such as analytics or advertising cookies, are not essential, and we only set those if you agree.

ESSENTIAL COOKIES
These are needed for the website to work, for example to remember your cookie choice or keep a form secure. They do not need your consent, and you cannot switch them off on our site, though you can block them in your browser settings.

ANALYTICS
We do not use analytics cookies.

ADVERTISING AND SOCIAL MEDIA
We do not use advertising or tracking cookies.

YOUR CHOICES
Because we only use essential cookies, we do not need to ask for your consent. You can still block or delete cookies in your browser settings.

Questions? Email [your email address].

If you use Google Analytics, the Meta Pixel or embedded videos, your website also needs a cookie banner that sets nothing non-essential until the visitor says yes. A notice alone is not enough.