Hello!

I’m going to try to keep this brief because we’ve all got stuff to do and it’ll be lunchtime soon.

If you’re reading this, that means that either you would like me to do something for you or I’ve done something for you in the recent past. This is all great – double high fives all round. However, since May 2018, new legislation has meant that the slapdash operation I have the audacity to call my business is now obligated to create this seventeen-hundred-word document of bland legalese in order to inform you of any potentially nefarious plans I have involving your data, which as we both know is quite frankly a ridiculous exercise. So let’s plough on through the nuts and bolts and then we can all go and have cake.

INTRODUCTION

This privacy policy is for your peace of mind. As one of my favourite people / companies /  person-at-a-company / potential-clients (way to go with the specifics there), this document details precisely what data I collect and what I do with it. This complies with the obligations set out in GDPR (otherwise known as ‘gee dee pee are’), PECR (‘pea eee sea are’) and similar important-sounding regulations made up of acronyms. Please don’t ask me to go into further detail about this; I seem to have printed out half the internet yet still have only a passing knowledge on the subject.

The bottom line (and I cannot stress this enough), is this:

I honestly do not have the time nor inclination to do anything untoward with your data.

It’s nothing personal; I’m sure your data is much more special than everyone else’s data out there, it’s just that I have stuff I need to get done and two small children who relentlessly talk about football. Unless you specifically request otherwise, I will simply use your data for contractual obligations and reasons of a legitimate business interest. That’s it.

WHO I AM

I’m Pete. Hello. Although if we’re already in a working relationship, you should kind of know that already. Bad form on your part, that.

I provide voiceover and presenting services via my business: PeteNottage.co.uk. I’m not a limited company, I’m not VAT registered, I don’t have a team of shareholders who vote on stuff and then scrape off the profit – I’m just one man, a sole trader, primarily working from the spare room of a standard suburban house that may or may not have a mouse infestation, depending on whether or not you’re involved in the property valuation business.

WHAT I COLLECT

I collect information about you when we connect. This information principally takes the form of your name and email address. If I’m supplying my services I’ll probably take your physical address as well, otherwise my invoices will look depressingly sparse. My website contains a contact form and a bit of Google Analytics code (see specific section below), but aside from that, it captures no data at all. Honestly. With all the love in the world, until you start offering me money to say words out loud, I do not know and could not care less about who you are.

My website also links to content hosted on third-party sites, such as YouTube and Soundcloud, but considering they both operate their own respective privacy policies, I’ll be damned if I’m expected to take responsibility for them as well.

All data is stored in the following ways:

EMAIL

I’ll be the first to admit, I’m unbelievably tardy when it comes to replying to email. Seriously. Proper hopeless. If you’ve ever got in touch for any other reason than to offer me work, you’ll know it takes me at least a solid week to reply. But that’s not to say I’m carefree with your data. Any email correspondence we have is stored so securely and tied up so tightly with a neat two-factor authentication bow, even I struggle to log in sometimes. So if you’re a data thief, good luck sunshine.

ANALYTICS

In 2014 (wow, that’s like, almost a decade ago), my crazy-talented web designer presented me with the site you’re probably looking at right now. I mean, look at it. It’s proper nice, right? It’s so good, in fact, that it resulted in him getting poached by a big web agency in New York that probably gives him three golden hovercrafts every month just for being so bloody good. Anyway, point is, at the same time as the site launched, he set me up with a Google Analytics account. Apparently it tells me how many people have visited the site and which country they’ve come from, but I personally see it more as a rolling stock of depressingly low numbers. The only information I’ve ever managed to glean from it is exactly how many times an anonymous person has made the little animated plane on the front page do a loop-the-loop. If you think that in any way constitutes sensitive data then quite frankly, you’re beyond help.

MAILCHIMP

I don’t have a mailing list. But I DO have a Mailchimp account. Yeah, I know. I think the intention was to kind of future-proof myself a bit, just on the off-chance that I might want to take myself more seriously later in life. Didn’t really work though, did it? I think the main thing that put me off using it properly was the fact that I don’t have the first clue as to how Mailchimp works. My old flatmate once told me it was really simple to use, but then again, he also used to swear blind that badgers can run at 38 miles an hour, so perhaps he wasn’t best placed to educate me on all things marketing. Point is, if I ever DO send out marketing emails, your data will remain locked up tighter than a tight thing, with everything crammed so full of ‘unsubscribe’ links that you’ll think all your Christmases have come at once.

XERO

Xero is my accounts software of choice and I use it quite a lot. I need to do this in order to gets paid. Due to its very nature, this is probably where I store the most sensitive of data, but considering I don’t collect any financial information such as credit card details or bank account numbers, any data stored within this system is pretty much worse than useless. The only person other than myself who has access to it is my accountant – and he’s far too busy and important to faff about swiping information and all that nonsense. I mean, he owns two offices! Two! And one of them’s in London! Although I think I’ve got off the point somewhat. Main thing is, your data’s secure here too. Any dormant information will be retained for six years (as required by HMRC) before being digitally taken round the back of a barn and digitally shot in the digital face.

NIMBLE

I signed up to Nimble in 2015 in the hopeless belief that a CRM system would make me get more work. Turns out that’s not the case. All it’s left me with is a recurring monthly financial drain and a slight whimper whenever I summon enough energy to log in. Upon contact between us being made, this database automatically syncs with my email to access data such as your name, email address and any recent correspondence between us. This is good and stuff.

SOCIAL MEDIA

Long story short, I don’t collect any data via social media. Not a bit. I’ve got the bare bones of a branded Facebook page, but I never use it. I don’t even think it’s live. I might get round to sorting it out one day, but I very much doubt that’ll happen in the immediate future. Hell, if we’re talking about unlikely things that might happen one day, I could go all-out and buy myself some Facebook ads at some point. Then you’ll have reason to be properly worried. Have you seen the kind of stuff Facebook can do with data? That’s some proper Black Mirror shit right there.

Moving on to Twitter: I’ve honestly no idea how this works. I have an account, as well as a fleeting knowledge on the subject, but other than occasionally retweeting particularly amusing pieces of visual political satire that usually involve puns, I hardly use the bloody thing at all. It’s probably fair to say no data is taken from here at all.

I’m not on TikTok because I am not twelve.

DATA BREACHES

I can honestly say that I will never leave unsecured copies of your data lying about anywhere. I mean, I hardly ever leave the house. My working day primarily consists of talking to myself in a room and occasionally voiding my bowels. Once that’s all done, there’s literally no time left in the day to leave your data on a train or to paint it onto the wall of the local leisure centre or to sell it to a bloke with no teeth who I met in a bar in New York in 2011. Point is, when it comes to me and your data, you don’t need to worry. I will look after it and treat it with respect and deliver it safely home by ten. All pieces of software that access your data are password protected with two-factor authentication, which is a posh way of saying that I now need to remember twice as many security things as I used to, which considering I’m getting on a bit is incredibly annoying.

RIGHT TO BE FORGOTTEN

Even after reading all of the above, you might still feel a little bit uneasy that a chump like me has access to your basic data. And you know what? That’s totally understandable. To be honest, I’d probably feel the same if I was in your shoes. So if you ever want me to remove all details of you from my records, email pete@petenottage.co.uk and tell me to piss right off. I’ll remove all traces of you within 24 hours, no questions asked. And apart from occasionally lighting a candle in your memory, or whispering your name into the cold night air, you’ll never hear from me again.

Now. Let’s have that cake.

(This policy was last updated on the 10th July 2022 – and considering the sheer amount of time taken to create and maintain it, will probably be reviewed again once Hell has frozen over.)