Privacy notice
1. Who we are
This website is run by Mitch-TechWorks, the trading name of Paul Mitchell, a sole trader based in the UK.
For this notice, we are the "controller" of your personal data. That means we decide how and why it is used.
- Contact for privacy and data requests: info@mitchtechworks.co.uk
- Postal address: Paul Mitchell, trading as Mitch-TechWorks, 8 Lambert Terrace, Horsforth, Leeds, West Yorkshire, LS18 5DF
Please contact us by email at info@mitchtechworks.co.uk.
2. What this notice covers
This notice explains what personal data we collect when you visit mitchtechworks.co.uk (including qr.mitchtechworks.co.uk), use our contact form or email us. It also explains what we do with that data and your rights. It applies to everyone who contacts us, whether you are a business or an individual.
3. Information we collect
3.1 When you use the contact form
- your name
- your email address
- your message, and anything you choose to put in it
Please do not include sensitive information, such as health details, in your message.
3.2 Technical information used to protect the form
When you submit the form, our server briefly uses:
- your IP address, and
- a one-way scrambled version (hash) of your email address
to stop spam and repeated submissions. This is limited to 5 submissions per hour. These are held only in the server's temporary memory for up to one hour and are not saved anywhere. The form also contains a hidden timer field that checks the form was not filled in by a bot. That field contains no information about you.
3.3 When you visit any page
Like all websites, our hosting provider automatically receives technical details from your browser when you load a page: your IP address, browser type, the page requested and the date and time. These are used to deliver the page, keep the service secure and fix faults. Our hosting provider keeps these records for a limited period set by its own retention rules.
3.4 When you email us directly
If you email info@mitchtechworks.co.uk, paul@mitchtechworks.co.uk or any other address of ours, we receive your email address, your name if you include it, and whatever you write.
3.5 What we do not collect
We do not use analytics, advertising or tracking tools, and this website does not set any cookies of its own. Our Cookie policy explains the security cookie our hosting provider may set.
3.6 Our own published contact details
Our digital business card (at mitchtechworks.co.uk/qr and qr.mitchtechworks.co.uk, plus a downloadable contact card) deliberately publishes the owner's name, business mobile number, email address (paul@mitchtechworks.co.uk) and photo, so that people can get in touch. This page is not listed in our site menus or search engines, but it is public.
4. Why we use it and our lawful basis
| Purpose | Data | Lawful basis (UK GDPR Art. 6) |
|---|---|---|
| Reply to your enquiry and send an automatic "thank you" email | Name, email, message | Legitimate interests: answering people who contact us. Where you are asking about our services, also steps at your request before entering a contract (Art. 6(1)(b)) |
| Protect the form from spam and abuse | IP address, hashed email | Legitimate interests: keeping our website and inbox secure |
| Deliver and secure the website | Server log data | Legitimate interests: running a working, secure website |
| Keep records if an enquiry becomes work | Enquiry emails | Contract and legal obligation (e.g. tax records) |
We have balanced these interests against your rights. We think you would reasonably expect this use when you contact a business or visit its website.
We do not use your details for marketing, and we will not add you to a mailing list.
5. Who we share it with
We do not sell your personal data. We use these service providers, who handle data on our behalf under contract:
| Provider | What they do | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Vercel Inc. | Hosts the website and runs the contact form | USA company, with servers worldwide. See section 6 for where the contact form runs |
| Zoho (Zoho Mail) | Sends and stores our email, including form enquiries | We use Zoho Mail. Zoho's European data centre is indicated for our account |
| Cloudflare, Inc. | Runs our domain name system (DNS) only. It does not see page content | USA company, with servers worldwide |
| An AI assistant service working for us | Reads and sorts enquiries and our replies, and helps draft replies, in our business email inboxes | Outside the UK, including the United States |
We may also share data if the law requires it, or with professional advisers (such as an accountant) where needed.
AI assistant: enquiries and our replies (including the details you send us through the contact form or by email) may be read, sorted and drafted with the help of an AI assistant working for us. Paul Mitchell approves the replies before they are sent, and he is responsible for what we send. Our automatic thank-you message is fixed wording. The assistant does not make decisions about you that have legal or similarly significant effects. The service it runs on processes data outside the UK, including in the United States. Where that happens, we use the safeguards that UK law allows for sending personal data abroad. You can ask us for details by emailing info@mitchtechworks.co.uk.
6. Transfers outside the UK
When you submit our contact form, your name, email address and message are processed in the UK (London) by our hosting provider, Vercel Inc., a US company. The email it creates is then sent through our email provider, which stores our email in the European Economic Area. Vercel and some of our other providers may also process limited data outside the UK, for example as your request passes through their network, or for support or logging access. Where that happens, we rely on UK adequacy regulations (for the European Economic Area, and the UK-US "data bridge", under which Vercel Inc. is certified) or on the other safeguards that UK law allows. The AI assistant service we use for our email also processes data outside the UK, including in the United States, and where that happens we use the safeguards that UK law allows for sending personal data abroad. You can ask us for details by emailing info@mitchtechworks.co.uk.
7. How long we keep it
| Data | Kept for |
|---|---|
| Rate-limit IP address and email hash | Up to 1 hour, in temporary memory only |
| Enquiry emails and form submissions that do not lead to work | Kept for 12 months from our last contact with you, then deleted |
| Records for work done (for example quotes, contracts, invoices and related emails) | Kept for as long as tax law requires. For a sole trader, HMRC requires business records to be kept for at least 5 years after the 31 January Self Assessment deadline for the tax year they relate to, then deleted |
| Hosting server logs | A limited period set by our hosting provider (see section 3.3) |
Our AI assistant service may keep copies of enquiries for a short period (up to 30 days) to check for misuse, and then deletes them.
You can ask us to delete your enquiry at any time by emailing info@mitchtechworks.co.uk.
8. Your rights
You have the right to:
- access the personal data we hold about you
- have inaccurate data corrected
- have data erased, in some cases
- restrict how we use it, in some cases
- object to our use of it where we rely on legitimate interests
- data portability, in some cases
To use any of these rights, email info@mitchtechworks.co.uk. We will reply within one month. There is normally no charge.
You do not have to give us your details, but we cannot reply to a form enquiry without your name and email address.
We do not make decisions about you by automated means alone.
9. Complaints
If you are unhappy with how we have used your data, please email info@mitchtechworks.co.uk first and we will try to put it right. You can also complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), the UK data protection regulator: ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint, helpline 0303 123 1113.
10. Changes to this notice
We will update this notice if our practices change, for example if we add analytics or move where the contact form runs. The date below shows when it last changed.
Last updated: 3 November 2026