How we handle your information

Who is responsible

Wakefield Tech Help is run by Neil McRae, a sole trader, who is the data controller for the information described here. Data-protection questions and requests can be sent to hello@wakefieldtechhelp.co.uk.

What this site collects

We do not use analytics, and there are no third-party embeds on this site. The one optional thing the site can do is described in the next section, and it does nothing until you say so.

The site is hosted for us by a hosting provider, which may process basic technical information needed to deliver and secure the website — typically your IP address, browser information and request logs. That is an ordinary part of running a website rather than something we use to follow you around, and we rely on our legitimate interest in keeping the site available and secure.

Fonts are served from this site rather than from a third-party font host, so loading a page does not tell a font provider that you visited.

Cookies and advertising measurement

Wakefield Tech Help may use Meta’s advertising measurement, known as the Meta Pixel. Meta is the company behind Facebook and Instagram. It is optional, and it does not load, contact Meta, or set any cookie until you have chosen “Allow advertising” in the cookie question the site shows, or switched it on in Cookie settings. If you reject it or ignore the question, nothing from Meta runs, and the site works exactly the same.

If you allow it, it helps us measure whether our Facebook adverts are worth paying for: it tells Meta that a page here was viewed, and whether the WhatsApp, telephone or email link was tapped, along with which of the three it was. We do not add your name, your number, your address or anything you write to us to any of it, and we do not put anything you type into the enquiry form into it either. If you send an enquiry we tell it that one was sent, and nothing about the enquiry itself — not what you asked about, not when you said you were free, not a word you typed. What every one of these events does carry is the Meta cookies described below and the address of the page you were on — and, as with any request your browser makes to another company’s server, your IP address and basic browser information reach Meta with it. If you did not allow advertising measurement, or have not answered the question, the form works exactly the same and nothing is sent to Meta at all. Meta receives that information in its own right and handles it under its own terms — see Meta’s privacy policy and cookie policy. If you are logged in to Facebook or Instagram in the same browser, Meta may be able to connect the visit to your account; that is its doing, not ours, and its policies explain the controls it offers.

What is stored on your device:

• wth_consent — set by this site, and only once you have answered the cookie question. Until then nothing is stored. It remembers the choice you made, and the date, for 6 months so you are not asked again on every visit. It holds nothing else, and it is not used for anything else. Remembering a cookie choice is something UK law lets a site do without asking first.
• _fbp — set by Meta, and only after you have allowed advertising measurement. It tells Meta apart one browser from another so it can count visits and enquiries against its adverts. Lasts 90 days.
• _fbc — set by Meta, and only after you have allowed advertising measurement. It remembers that you arrived from a Meta advert, if the link you followed carried an advert reference. Lasts 90 days.

You can change your mind at any time. Open Cookie settings — it is also in the footer of every page — and switch advertising measurement off. When you do, we stop Meta’s tracking, remove the Meta cookies listed above from this site, and reload the page so nothing from Meta is left running. We cannot remove cookies Meta holds on its own websites; its cookie policy explains how to manage those.

We will ask again after 6 months, or sooner if what we ask you to agree to changes.

What we collect when you get in touch

When you send a message by WhatsApp, telephone or email, we receive whatever you choose to send: typically your name, your contact details, roughly where you live and a description of the problem. We use it to reply to you, to arrange a visit and to carry out the work. The lawful basis is that it is necessary to take steps at your request before entering into a contract, and to perform it.

If you use the enquiry form

The form on our contact page asks for your name, roughly where you are, what you need help with, what is happening, how you would like us to reply, and the one contact detail that answer needs — a telephone number or an email address, not both. You can also tell us when generally suits — daytime, evening, weekend, or no preference — which is optional.

Some of what arrives with an enquiry you did not type, and the next few paragraphs go through it. The first is which page you were on when you sent it. That reaches us with the enquiry, and we use it for the same purpose and on the same basis as a message sent any other way — to reply to you and to arrange a visit.

The form also measures roughly how long it was open before you pressed send. That number is sent along with your enquiry and checked the moment it arrives, purely to tell someone filling the form in from a script submitting it instantly. It goes no further: it is not put into the email we read, and it is not stored anywhere. We rely on our legitimate interest in keeping the form usable rather than drowned in automated submissions.

Sending the form does not book anything. It reaches us as an email and we answer it.

If you arrived from one of our adverts, the enquiry may also carry the campaign labels from the link you followed. We pick up five ordinary campaign fields and nothing else from the address — in particular, no advertising click identifiers. Those labels are there to name the advert and the campaign rather than the person, but what they actually say is decided when the advert’s link is written, so we would rather tell you which fields we take than promise what is inside them.

We do not add those campaign labels to anything we send Meta. One thing we should be straight about, though: if you allowed advertising measurement, Meta’s own code reads the address of the page you are on, and campaign labels are part of that address. That is true of any address you arrive on while it is running. We could strip those labels out of the address after reading them, and have chosen not to: it would mean rewriting the address in your browser as the page opens, which we would rather not do quietly to a page you asked for.

We do not store enquiries on this website. Nothing you type is saved here, and there is no database behind the form. The enquiry does reach us as an email, so it then sits in our inbox and with the email delivery service described below, in the same way a message you sent us any other way would. Which companies handle it on the way, and what each of them does, is set out under “Who else sees it”.

If we arrange a visit we will also hold the address and any notes needed to do the job properly.

Who else sees it

We do not sell your information and we do not pass it to anyone for marketing, and we will not use your details to market to you unless you separately ask us to. The services that carry your message to us — your telephone network, WhatsApp, or the email provider — handle it under their own privacy terms, as does the hosting provider for the technical information described above. Payments are handled through the bank or payment provider you use, under their terms.

An enquiry sent through the form reaches us in two steps, and a different company handles each. It arrives first at our hosting provider, which runs the site and the small part of it that receives the form, so everything you wrote passes through their systems on its way to us — not only the technical information described above. It is then delivered to our inbox by Resend, an email delivery service. Both act for us as processors: they carry the enquiry and do not use it for anything of their own.

If you have allowed advertising measurement, Meta receives the visit, contact-tap and enquiry-sent information described above. Nothing you type into the form is added to any of it. The one thing that can reach both us and Meta is a campaign label in the address you arrived on: we put it in the enquiry, and Meta’s code reads the address, for the reason set out above.

How long we keep it

Enquiries that do not lead to work are kept only as long as they are useful, and then deleted.

Where work has been carried out, the records relating to it — the job, the invoice and the payment — are kept for as long as they are needed for accounting and tax purposes and as ordinary business records. That is longer than a simple enquiry is kept, and it is a legal obligation rather than a preference.

Technical logs held by the hosting provider are kept under that provider’s own arrangements rather than ours.

Your rights

Under UK data protection law you can ask what we hold about you, ask for it to be corrected, or ask for it to be deleted. Email hello@wakefieldtechhelp.co.uk and we will sort it out. If you are not satisfied with how we have handled it, you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office at ico.org.uk.

Changes

If this notice changes, the updated version will appear on this page.