Privacy policy

Brunel Web is a sole trader based in Swindon, Wiltshire, United Kingdom. That makes me the data controller for the information described on this page, which means I am the person responsible for it. You can reach me at stewart@brunelweb.co.uk.

Brunel Web is registered with the Information Commissioner's Office, the UK data protection regulator, under registration number ZC229734. That entry is on the ICO's public register, so you can check it independently rather than taking this page's word for it.

The only place this site asks you for personal information is the contact form. When you submit it, I receive:

• your name;
• your email address;
• the budget range you selected, if you chose one;
• the message you wrote.

The form also carries a hidden field that only automated spam bots fill in. If it is filled in, the submission is discarded and nothing is sent to me.

Separately, when you send the form, your IP address is used for a short time to limit how many messages can be sent at once. That is what stops the form being used to flood my inbox. It is held in the server's memory only. It is never written to a database, and it is thrown away once the time limit passes or the server restarts.

Separately again, the web server that sends you these pages keeps its own records, as every web server does. For each page you open it notes the IP address, which page it was, the time, and which browser you used. This happens whether or not you ever use the contact form. My hosting company keeps those records to protect the site and to fix faults. They decide how long to keep them, not me. I do not read them, and I do not use them to work out who anyone is.

I use what you send solely to read your enquiry and reply to it, and to carry out any work we go on to agree. I do not use it for marketing, I do not build a profile from it, and I do not sell or share it with anyone for their own purposes.

The law requires me to name a reason for holding your data. Under UK GDPR my reason for your enquiry is Article 6(1)(b): taking steps you asked for, before we agree to work together. For the IP address used to limit messages, the reason is Article 6(1)(f), my legitimate interest in stopping the form being abused.

For the visitor statistics described below, the reason is Article 6(1)(a): your consent, which is why you are asked before anything loads rather than told afterwards. Regulation 6 of the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations requires that consent to be given first, and it can be withdrawn at any time without affecting anything else on this page.

Your enquiry is sent to me as an email and lands in a mailbox. There is no database behind this site, no customer relationship management system and no mailing list. The message exists as an email and nothing more.

The site and that mailbox are hosted by Hostinger, who process the data on my behalf as part of providing hosting and email, under their data processing agreement.

The only other company involved is Google, and only if you agree to it. If you accept the visitor statistics described below, Google Analytics is run by Google Ireland Limited on my behalf, and Google may transfer that data to the United States under the UK extension to the EU–US Data Privacy Framework, which the UK government has decided protects it adequately. Nothing at all is loaded from Google until you accept, and nothing ever is if you decline, so no other company sees that you visited. The fonts, images and code are served from this domain either way.

The servers holding the site and the mailbox are in the European Union. The UK accepts that this region protects your data to the same standard as UK law does, so your information is as well protected there as it would be here. I do not send it anywhere else.

This site sets one cookie of its own, and only if you send the contact form. It is named brunelweb_enquiry_pass, it holds no information about you, and it exists so the confirmation page can tell that you arrived there by sending the form rather than by typing the address. It is deleted as soon as that page is shown, and expires by itself within five minutes either way. Nothing else is set until you say yes to the question at the bottom of the screen. There is no advertising anywhere on this site, nothing follows you to other websites, and nothing is loaded from Google unless you accept.

If you do accept, Google Analytics tells me how many people visit, which pages they read, roughly which part of the world they arrived from and what brought them here, whether that was a search, a link, or typing the address in. I use it to work out which pages are worth writing more of. It sets two cookies, named _ga and one beginning _ga_, which hold a random number so that three pages read in one sitting count as one visit rather than three. They last up to two years. They hold no name, no email address and nothing you typed into the contact form, and I cannot use them to work out who you are.

On that analytics property Google's advertising features are switched off: no ad personalisation, no Google Signals, no sharing with advertisers. Google keeps the measurement data for 2 months, after which it is deleted.

Saying no costs you nothing. Every page works exactly the same, and the only thing stored on your device is a note of the fact that you said no, so you are not asked again on every page. The contact form cookie described above is unaffected either way: it is needed to deliver something you asked for, so it is not something you are asked to agree to.

Enquiry emails are kept while we are still writing to each other, and for up to 12 months afterwards, so I can pick up a conversation if you come back to me. After that they are deleted. If we go on to work together, the records of that work (contracts, invoices and the emails behind them) are kept for five years after the 31 January filing deadline for the tax year they relate to. That is how long HMRC requires a sole trader to keep business records.

You can ask me to delete your enquiry sooner, and I will.

Under UK data protection law you have the right to:

• ask what personal data I hold about you, and get a copy of it;
• have anything inaccurate corrected;
• have it deleted;
• ask me to restrict how I use it, or object to my using it;
• get a copy in a format you can take somewhere else.

Email me at stewart@brunelweb.co.uk and I will respond within one month. There is no charge.

Nothing about you is decided automatically, and I do not build a profile of you. The site is not aimed at children, and I do not knowingly collect their data.

If you think I have handled your data badly, please tell me first. I would rather fix it. You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office, the UK regulator, at ico.org.uk or on 0303 123 1113.

If how I handle your data changes, this page changes with it and the date at the top is updated. This version is dated 24 September 2026.