Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy explains how Small Business Guide ("we", "us", "our") collects, uses, stores, and protects your personal data when you visit our website at www.smallbusinessguide.co.uk ("the Site"). We are committed to protecting your privacy and complying with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018.

1. Who We Are

Small Business Guide is operated as an independent editorial website providing free guides, tools, and resources for UK small business owners. For data protection purposes, we are the data controller for personal data collected through this Site.

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or how we handle your data, please contact us at: contact@smallbusinessguide.co.uk

2. What Data We Collect

2.1 Data You Provide Directly

• Email address — when you subscribe to our newsletter or free digest
• Name — if provided when subscribing or contacting us
• Message content — when you contact us via our contact form

2.2 Data Collected Automatically

• IP address — collected by our hosting provider and analytics tools
• Browser type and version
• Pages visited and time spent — via Google Analytics (anonymised)
• Referring website — the site you visited before arriving at ours
• Device type — desktop, mobile, or tablet

2.3 Calculator and Tool Data

Our free calculators and tools (such as the Tax Calculator and Startup Cost Estimator) process data entirely within your browser. We do not collect, store, or transmit any figures you enter into our calculators. All calculations are performed locally on your device.

3. How We Use Your Data

We use the data we collect for the following purposes:

• Newsletter delivery — to send you our free weekly digest of guides and resources (with your consent)
• Responding to enquiries — to reply to messages sent via our contact form
• Analytics — to understand how visitors use our Site so we can improve it
• Security — to detect and prevent fraudulent or malicious activity

4. Legal Basis for Processing

Under UK GDPR, we rely on the following legal bases for processing your personal data:

• Consent — for newsletter subscriptions and marketing communications
• Legitimate interests — for website analytics and security monitoring
• Contract performance — when responding to enquiries or providing services you have requested

5. Cookies

We use cookies to improve your experience on our Site. For full details of the cookies we use and how to manage them, please see our Cookie Policy.

6. Affiliate Links and Third Parties

Our Site contains affiliate links to third-party services (including Tide and Capital on Tap). When you click these links, you will be directed to the third party's website, which has its own privacy policy. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of third-party websites.

We may receive a commission when you sign up for a partner service via our affiliate links. This does not affect the price you pay. We clearly disclose all affiliate relationships on our Disclosure page.

7. Data Sharing

We do not sell, rent, or trade your personal data to third parties. We may share your data with:

• Email service providers — to send newsletters (e.g. Mailchimp or similar)
• Analytics providers — Google Analytics (data is anonymised)
• Hosting providers — who process data on our behalf under data processing agreements
• Legal authorities — if required by law or to protect our legal rights

8. Data Retention

• Newsletter subscribers — we retain your email until you unsubscribe
• Contact form submissions — retained for up to 12 months
• Analytics data — retained for 26 months (Google Analytics default)

9. Your Rights

Under UK GDPR, you have the following rights regarding your personal data:

• Right of access — to request a copy of the data we hold about you
• Right to rectification — to correct inaccurate data
• Right to erasure — to request deletion of your data ("right to be forgotten")
• Right to restrict processing — to limit how we use your data
• Right to data portability — to receive your data in a portable format
• Right to object — to object to processing based on legitimate interests
• Right to withdraw consent — at any time, for consent-based processing

To exercise any of these rights, please contact us at contact@smallbusinessguide.co.uk. We will respond within 30 days.

10. Data Security

We take appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect your personal data against unauthorised access, loss, or disclosure. Our Site uses HTTPS encryption for all data transmission. However, no internet transmission is 100% secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.

11. Children's Privacy

Our Site is not directed at children under the age of 16. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children. If you believe we have inadvertently collected data from a child, please contact us immediately.

12. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify you of significant changes by posting a notice on our Site. The "Last updated" date at the top of this page will always reflect the most recent version.

13. Complaints

If you are unhappy with how we have handled your personal data, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), the UK's data protection supervisory authority:

• Website: ico.org.uk
• Telephone: 0303 123 1113