Privacy policy

1. Who we are

The Knotline (theknotline.co.uk) is run by PCO Holdings [full registered name, e.g. PCO Holdings Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales, company number 00000000, registered office: full address]. We are the "controller" of the personal data described here, which means we decide how and why it's used.

Contact us about anything in this policy at reply@theknotline.co.uk.

We are registered with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) [registration number, once PCO Holdings' registration comes through].

2. Couples and anyone browsing the site

Enquiries you send to suppliers

When you use the enquiry form on a supplier's page, we collect your name, email address, your wedding date if you give it, and your message.

We use it to send your enquiry to that supplier, and we keep a copy in our system so the supplier can read it in their account. Our own team can also see enquiries, to run the service and deal with any problems or complaints.

Our legal basis is legitimate interests: you've asked us to put you in touch with a supplier, and doing that is the point of the site.

Once the supplier has your enquiry, they are responsible for how they use your details, under their own privacy obligations. Our supplier terms require them to use your details only to reply to you about your enquiry.

Counting page views

We count how many people view each supplier's page, so suppliers can see how their listing is doing. We do this without cookies and without storing your IP address.

When you open a supplier's page, our server briefly combines your IP address and browser details with the date and a secret key into a one-way code. Only that code is stored. It can't be turned back into your IP address, and it changes every day, so it can't be used to follow you from one day to the next. Its only use is to count each visitor once per page per day.

Views aren't counted for people who are logged in, or for automated traffic such as search engine crawlers. Our legal basis is legitimate interests: understanding how the directory is used, and showing suppliers what they're getting for their subscription.

Emailing us

If you email us, we use your details to reply and keep the conversation for as long as we need it to deal with what you asked. Our legal basis is legitimate interests.

Technical information

Like any website, our hosting provider automatically processes technical information when you visit, such as your IP address and browser type, to deliver pages and protect the site from attack. This is kept briefly in their system logs.

3. Suppliers who list their business

What we hold

• Your account: the email address you log in with, and when you joined.
• Your listing: business name, description, town, postcode, photos, prices, links to your website and social media, and your review link, rating and review count. Your postcode is used to place you in the right area and to show your district on a map. The full postcode is not shown publicly.
• Your contact details: the email address enquiries are sent to, and your phone number if you give it. These are never shown publicly.
• Your subscription: your plan, whether it's active, and when it renews, plus the reference numbers Stripe uses for your account. Payments are taken by Stripe; we never see or store your full card details.
• How your listing is doing: view counts (see above) and the enquiries you receive.
• Our own notes: occasionally our team records private notes about a listing, for example if we receive a complaint.

Why, and on what basis

We use this information to provide the listing you've paid for, to take payments, to let you manage your listing, and to keep the directory accurate and trustworthy. Our legal basis is contract: we need it to provide the service you signed up for. For our private notes and for fraud prevention, the basis is legitimate interests.

What's public

Everything in your listing apart from your postcode, contact email and phone number appears on your public page while your subscription is active. You choose what goes in it, and can change it any time from your account.

Your page also shows a map of the postcode district you're in, such as BH23, rather than your address. If you're listed as a venue, the map shows your venue's postcode, since venues are public places.

4. Who we share data with

We don't sell personal data. We use a small number of trusted providers to run the site, who process data on our behalf and only as we instruct:

• Vercel, which hosts the website.
• Supabase, which stores our database, logins and supplier photos. Our database is held in [Supabase region, e.g. London (UK) or Frankfurt (EU)].
• Stripe, which takes supplier payments. Stripe is also responsible in its own right for some of the payment information it handles; see Stripe's privacy policy.
• Email services we use to send login links and pass enquiries to suppliers.
• OpenStreetMap, which provides the map on supplier pages. The map only loads when you scroll to it. When it does, your browser fetches map images from OpenStreetMap's servers, which see your IP address.
• postcodes.io, a free public service we use to find where a postcode district, or a venue's postcode, is on the map. Only that district or venue postcode is sent, never anything about visitors.

We also share a couple's enquiry with the supplier it was sent to, as described above, and we may share information if the law requires it.

Some of these providers are based in, or use servers in, the United States. Where personal data leaves the UK, we rely on the safeguards UK law allows, such as the UK Extension to the EU-US Data Privacy Framework or the UK International Data Transfer Addendum.

5. Cookies and similar technology

We don't use advertising, analytics or tracking cookies, which is why you won't see a cookie banner on our site.

If you save suppliers to your shortlist, the list is stored in your own browser. It never reaches us, and you can clear it at any time by removing suppliers from it or clearing your browser's data for our site.

If you're a supplier and log in, your browser stores a login token so you stay logged in. This is strictly necessary for the service you've asked for, and is removed when you log out. The payment pages are run by Stripe, which sets its own cookies to prevent fraud.

6. How long we keep data

• Enquiries: up to two years from when they're sent.
• View counts: up to 25 months, so suppliers can compare with the same time last year. These can't identify anyone.
• Supplier accounts and listings: while your subscription is active, and for up to 12 months after it ends in case you return. After that we delete them, or sooner if you ask.
• Payment and invoice records: six years, because UK tax law requires it. These are held by Stripe.
• Emails to us: as long as needed to deal with your query, and no more than two years.

7. Your rights

Under UK data protection law you have the right to:

• ask for a copy of the personal data we hold about you
• have inaccurate data corrected
• have your data deleted
• object to us using your data, or ask us to restrict how we use it
• receive data you gave us in a format you can take elsewhere

Email reply@theknotline.co.uk to use any of these. We'll reply within one month. It's free, unless a request is clearly unfounded or excessive.

If you're unhappy with how we've handled your data, please tell us first so we can put it right. You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk or on 0303 123 1113.

8. Children

The Knotline is for adults planning weddings and for businesses. It isn't aimed at anyone under 18, and we don't knowingly collect their data.

9. Changes to this policy

If we change how we use personal data, we'll update this page and the date at the top. If a change affects suppliers significantly, we'll email them first.