Privacy
Privacy notice
Draft, October 2026. To be reviewed before the site goes live.
Who we are
This website is run by Gabriel Siemionek trading as Nearside Digital (“we”, “us”). We are the controller of the personal information described here. Contact: agency@nearsidedigital.com. Postal address: to be added.
What we collect and why
- Free audit requests: your name, business name, trade, area, website, email, phone (optional) and any notes. We use them to prepare your audit and contact you about it. Our lawful basis is taking steps at your request before entering into a contract, and our legitimate interest in replying to enquiries.
- Free website previews: if you run a local business, we may make a free preview of a website for you even if you haven’t asked us to, using only what your business publishes about itself: your business name, what you do and where, phone number, opening hours, services and prices, your own description, and photos from your own website or social pages. We don’t use information from Google’s map listings to build it. Our lawful basis is our legitimate interest in showing local businesses what we can do for them; the preview is private, hidden from search engines and clearly marked as a preview. We only tell you about it by post, by phone (after checking the Telephone Preference Service), in person, or by email if you’re a limited company. Seeyour free website preview.
- Emails you send us: to reply and keep a record of our conversation (legitimate interests).
- Clients: contact and billing details to deliver and invoice our services (contract), and to meet our legal and accounting duties (legal obligation). Data we handle on a client’s behalf is covered by a separate data processing agreement.
We don’t sell personal information, and we don’t use it for anything you wouldn’t expect from the above.
Who else handles it
We use a small number of trusted providers to run our business:
- Google (Google Workspace: email and documents)
- Cloudflare (website hosting and security)
- GitHub (where our website code is stored; no audit request or preview data is kept there)
- Anthropic (an AI writing assistant that drafts the wording of free website previews from the details above)
Some of these providers are based in, or use staff in, the United States. Where personal information leaves the UK, it’s protected by the UK’s adequacy arrangements or approved contract terms.
How long we keep it
Audit requests: up to 12 months after our last contact, unless you become a client. Free website previews: deleted automatically on the date shown on the preview (at most 60 days after we make it), or straight away if you ask; after that we keep only your business name, the date and whether you wanted it, for up to 2 years, so we don’t contact you about it again. Client records: for as long as you’re a client and then 6 years, for tax and accounting.
Your rights
You can ask us for a copy of your information, ask us to correct or delete it, or object to how we use it. Emailagency@nearsidedigital.com. You can delete a free website preview yourself, straight away, at nearsidedigital.com/previews. If you’re unhappy with how we’ve handled your information, you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ico.org.uk).
Cookies
See our cookies page.