Privacy Policy

This policy explains how Freelance Information Company Ltd ("FIC", "we", "us"), registered in England and Wales, company number 15550258, collects and uses personal data: on this website, in the Client Workspace, when you book a call or take our free health check, and when we contact businesses about our services. It describes what we do now. We handle personal data in line with UK data protection law: the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018.

Who we are and how to contact us

Freelance Information Company Ltd is the controller of the personal data described here. Our company details, including our registered office, are on the Companies House register. For any question about your data, or to use your rights, e-mail FreelanceInformationCompany@Gmail.com or use our contact page. We have not appointed a data protection officer; these contact details reach the people who handle your data.

In short

• We collect what we need to answer you, provide our services, take payment and keep our records.
• We do not sell, rent or trade personal data, and we do not run analytics or advertising trackers on this website.
• The website, its database and the Client Workspace are hosted by Amazon Web Services in its London region.
• Card payments are handled by Stripe; we never see or store your full card number.
• You can see, download and delete the data in your account under My account, and you can ask us about any of it.

What we collect and why

Visiting the website

• What we collect: your IP address, the type of browser and device, the pages you visit, the page you came from, and the date and time. The shop software records each visit in its statistics, and the web server keeps its own access records.
• Why: to run the website, keep it secure, stop misuse and see which pages are used.
• Lawful basis: our legitimate interests (UK GDPR Article 6(1)(f)).
• How long we keep it: the visit records in the shop's statistics are not yet deleted automatically; we do not use them to identify or profile you.

Your customer account

• What we collect: your name, e-mail address and password (stored only in a scrambled form we cannot read back), and anything else you add to your account, such as addresses.
• Why: to let you sign in, place orders and use the Client Workspace.
• Lawful basis: to provide what you have asked for under a contract with you, or to take the steps you ask for before one (Article 6(1)(b)).
• How long we keep it: until you delete your account (My account) or ask us to; we keep order records as described below.

Orders, invoices and payment

• What we collect: your name, company, billing address, VAT number if you give one, phone number, what you ordered, the amounts and the payment status. Card details are entered into Stripe's secure form and go directly to Stripe.
• Why: to take and confirm your order, take payment, issue invoices and keep our accounts.
• Lawful basis: to provide what you have asked for under a contract with you, or to take the steps you ask for before one (Article 6(1)(b)); and to meet our legal obligations, such as keeping tax records (Article 6(1)(c)).
• How long we keep it: six years, as UK tax law requires.

The Client Workspace (your projects)

• What we collect: the files you upload, the brief and the choices you confirm in each project step, messages and project history, and, when files are uploaded or downloaded, the IP address and browser used.
• Why: to carry out your project, show you its progress and keep a record of what was agreed and delivered.
• Lawful basis: to provide what you have asked for under a contract with you, or to take the steps you ask for before one (Article 6(1)(b)).
• How long we keep it: project files for up to 24 months after your project closes, unless you ask us to delete them sooner; project and order records as described above.

Booking a call

• What we collect: your name, e-mail address, company, the topic, the time you choose, your agreement that we use these details to arrange the call, and the IP address used to book. Calls take place by video in Jitsi Meet in your browser, joined from your booking page.
• Why: to arrange and hold the call, and send you the confirmation and reminder.
• Lawful basis: your consent (Article 6(1)(a)), which you can withdraw at any time: you agree to this on the booking form.
• How long we keep it: with our record of your enquiry; we delete them when you ask.

The free Supply Chain Health Check

• What we collect: your name, e-mail address, company, role, sector, company size, your answers and scores, and the IP address used (to limit how often the check can be submitted from one address).
• Why: to show and e-mail you your result, and to contact you about it.
• Lawful basis: your consent (Article 6(1)(a)), which you can withdraw at any time: you agree to this on the form.
• How long we keep it: 24 months, then deleted automatically.

Contacting us

• What we collect: what you write in the contact form or e-mail, your name and e-mail address, and any file you attach.
• Why: to answer you.
• Lawful basis: our legitimate interests (UK GDPR Article 6(1)(f)), or the steps you ask for before a contract.
• How long we keep it: as long as we need it to deal with your message; we delete it when you ask.

Our newsletter

• What we collect: your e-mail address, the date you subscribed, and the IP address and page you subscribed from.
• Why: to send you the newsletter.
• Lawful basis: your consent (Article 6(1)(a)), which you can withdraw at any time.
• How long we keep it: until you unsubscribe (in My account, or by asking us).

Reviews and "send to a friend"

• What we collect: for a review: the name you give, your rating and your comment, which are shown on the product page. For "send to a friend": your name and e-mail address, your friend's name and e-mail address, and the message, which the shop keeps a copy of.
• Why: to publish your review; to send the message you asked us to send.
• Lawful basis: your consent (Article 6(1)(a)), which you can withdraw at any time for reviews; our legitimate interests (UK GDPR Article 6(1)(f)) for the message you ask us to send.
• How long we keep it: until you ask us to remove them.

Business contacts found in public records

To find businesses that may need our procurement and supply chain services, we search public business records and keep a list of businesses we may contact. This section gives the information that UK GDPR Article 14 requires when data does not come from you.

• Where it comes from: the Companies House register (company name, number, status, type, registered office address and industry codes; Crown copyright, Open Government Licence v3.0), OpenStreetMap (businesses mapped by its contributors, with the name, address, type of business and any website or telephone number they recorded; © OpenStreetMap contributors, Open Database Licence), and the company's own website. Our system reads a small number of a website's pages (home, contact, about and legal pages), slowly and only where the site's robots.txt allows, for the contact details the company publishes: general e-mail addresses (for example info@ or sales@, or a webmail address in the company's own name), telephone numbers, its contact page and its LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram and X pages. If a company has no website on record, we try the usual web addresses for its name and use one only if the site shows the company's registered number, or its name with its postcode or town.
• What we keep: company information, not information about individuals. We do not record the names of directors or other people. We do not keep personal e-mail addresses (such as a named person's address). If a company publishes a free webmail address in its own name as its contact address (for example yourcompany@hotmail.co.uk), we keep it as a business contact, but we do not send marketing e-mails to it. Where a business is a sole trader or a very small firm, some of these details can still identify a person, and this section applies to them.
• Why, and the lawful basis: our legitimate interests (UK GDPR Article 6(1)(f)) in offering our services to businesses that may need them.
• How we contact businesses: individual e-mails, a limited number each day, only to a general address on the company's own web domain, and only to limited companies and similar organisations, never to sole traders or partnerships unless they have agreed. Each e-mail says who we are, where we found the details and how to stop further contact, and has an unsubscribe link.
• How long we keep it: businesses we do not take further are deleted 12 months after they were last found or updated, with the copy of their website's contact details; our records of e-mails sent and of changes are kept for 24 months, and records of problems reading websites for 90 days.
• Your right to object: you can ask us to stop at any time, using the unsubscribe link or by contacting us. We then delete the business's details and keep only a minimal record (its company number, website address and a name and postcode reference) so that it is not added again.

Who we share it with

We use these providers to run our business. They process personal data for us, or, where they act as controllers themselves, under their own privacy notices. We share only what each one needs.

We also give information to HM Revenue & Customs and other authorities when the law requires it.

Transfers outside the UK

Some of these providers process data outside the UK, mainly in the USA. They protect it with safeguards that UK law recognises, such as the UK extension to the EU–US Data Privacy Framework (the "UK–US data bridge") or the Information Commissioner's international data transfer agreement and addendum, as set out in their terms. You can ask us for details.

Cookies

This website uses only the cookies it needs to work. It sets no analytics or advertising cookies.

The cookie notice remembers your choice. On pages with a reCAPTCHA check (account, contact and newsletter forms), Google may store its own data in your browser to tell people from automated programs. You can delete cookies in your browser at any time; if you block them, signing in and the basket will not work.

How we keep it safe

• The whole website uses an encrypted connection (HTTPS).
• Passwords are stored only in a scrambled form; card details are handled by Stripe.
• Your project files are in your private Client Workspace, which only you and we can see.
• Access to the shop's back office is limited to the people who need it, and the website and its data are backed up so that they can be restored after a fault.

Your rights

You have the right to:

• ask for a copy of your personal data;
• have it corrected if it is wrong;
• have it deleted;
• ask us to limit how we use it;
• receive it in a format you can take elsewhere;
• object to how we use it, and in particular to stop direct marketing at any time;
• withdraw your consent where we rely on it.

Signed in, you can see, download and ask to delete the data in your account under My account. For anything else, contact us using the details above. We reply within one month, and there is normally no charge. Some rights have limits: for example, we must keep invoices for six years.

If you are unhappy with how we have handled your data, please tell us first. You can also complain to the Information Commissioner's Office: ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint, telephone 0303 123 1113.

Automated decisions

We do not make decisions about you by automated means that have legal or similarly significant effects. The health check works out a score from your answers to show you where you stand, and we rank the businesses on our contact list to decide whom to contact first; neither decides anything about you.

Changes to this policy

We will update this page when the way we use personal data changes, and change the date below. Our services are for businesses; this website is not aimed at children.

Last updated: 1 November 2026. Freelance Information Company Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15550258.