This explains what we do with your information when you ask for a patch sample, register interest, or use PatchIQ. It's written to be read rather than to cover us, so if anything here isn't clear just ask.
Who we are
PatchIQ produces local market marketing content for UK estate and letting agents. For everything described below we are the data controller, apart from the agent lead capture described further down.
Contact us at hello@patchiq.co.uk about anything in this policy, including any request to see, correct or delete your information.
What we collect and why
If you ask for a patch sample
We collect your postcode and email address. We use them to build the sample and send it to you, and to follow up about early access.
Our basis for this is your consent, given when you submit the form. You can withdraw it at any time by replying to any email or writing to us.
If you register interest as a founding member
We collect your name, agency name, role, email, phone number and the area you cover, along with anything else you choose to put on the form.
We use this to talk to you about becoming a founding member and to hold your place and price. Our basis is again your consent.
If you become a customer
We collect and hold:
- Your account details, including name, agency, email and phone number
- Your patch and the postcodes it covers
- Your brand details, tone of voice notes and anything you send us for content, including stories from your working week
- Records of the content we produce for you
Our basis for this is performing our contract with you.
Payment is handled by Stripe. We never see or store your card details.
Information we read from public sources
To match your brand and tone of voice, we read your public website and public social media profiles. We only ever read what is already public and we never log in to anything belonging to you.
Content and artificial intelligence
We use AI, including the Anthropic API, to help produce your content. That means the following may be sent to Anthropic for processing:
- Your agency and agent name, patch and brand details
- Market data we have gathered for your area
- Any story or note you send us for a post
Anthropic processes this on our instructions to generate the content and does not use it to train their models. Don't send us anything about a client that you wouldn't be comfortable appearing in a post. We anonymise stories before publication, but the safest approach is not to include client names in the first place.
Lead capture on your valuation page
This section applies once your valuation page is live. It isn't available yet.
When a member of the public submits an enquiry through a valuation page we host for you, that person's information belongs to you. You are the data controller and we act as your processor, handling it only on your instructions.
What that means in practice:
- We pass the enquiry to you and store it in your dashboard
- We do not market to those people ourselves
- We do not share them with any other agent or any third party
- You are responsible for how you contact them and for your own obligations to them
A separate data processing agreement will cover this and forms part of our terms once the feature is live.
Who else handles your information
We use a small number of suppliers to run the service. Each one only receives what it needs.
| Supplier | What they handle |
|---|---|
| Netlify | Hosting our website and receiving form submissions |
| Stripe | Payments and subscriptions |
| Anthropic | AI processing to generate content |
| Zoho | Our business email |
Some of these operate outside the UK. Where that happens the transfer is covered by the safeguards required under UK data protection law.
We do not sell your information to anyone and we never will.
How long we keep things
- Sample requests and interest registrations: up to two years from your last contact with us, or until you ask us to delete them
- Customer accounts: for as long as you're a customer, then two years
- Billing records: six years, because we have to
- Content we produced for you: deleted with your account unless you ask us to keep it
Cookies
Our website uses no tracking or advertising cookies. Nothing follows you around the internet after you visit.
When your account area is live it will use a small number of essential cookies to keep you signed in. Those cannot be turned off without breaking the service.
Your rights
Under UK data protection law you can ask us to:
- Show you what we hold about you
- Correct anything that's wrong
- Delete it
- Stop or limit what we do with it
- Send it to you or someone else in a portable form
- Stop using it, where we're relying on legitimate interests
Email hello@patchiq.co.uk and we'll deal with it within one month. There's no charge.
If you're not happy with how we've handled something you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk or on 0303 123 1113. We'd rather you came to us first so we can put it right.
Keeping information safe
Access to what we hold is limited to those who need it to run the service. Payment details never reach our systems. No system is perfectly secure, but we take this seriously and we'll tell you promptly if anything goes wrong that affects you.
Changes to this policy
If we change anything significant we'll update the date at the top and, where it affects you materially, tell you directly. This policy will be updated when the valuation page and lead capture go live.