Privacy Policy

What We Collect

We only collect what's necessary to provide the service:

Why We Collect It

Account and paid-alert delivery are needed to provide the service. Analytics cookies and the Meta pixel run only with your consent, which you give or refuse in our cookie banner and can withdraw at any time from "Cookie settings" in the footer. Our server's reports to Meta rely on our legitimate interest in measuring which adverts bring us customers; Global Privacy Control, Do Not Track or "Don't count my visits" stop them, and you can object at any time by emailing hello@planwatch.co.uk. Anonymous visit statistics rely on the statistical-purposes exemption in the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (regulation 6 and Schedule A1, as amended by the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025) and on our legitimate interest in improving the site; you can object at any time with "Don't count my visits" on our Cookie Policy, or with Global Privacy Control or Do Not Track. Contact us if you want to object to anything else or ask about a particular processing activity.

Where We Store Your Data

Your account and application data are stored in a SQLite database on an Oracle-hosted server. Oracle provides the hosting environment used by PlanWatch. Some providers may process data outside the UK, subject to their own terms and the safeguards applicable to the transfer. AI Planning Advisor questions are processed by DeepSeek in the People's Republic of China (see AI Planning Advisor).

We use reasonable technical measures to protect your data, including encrypted connections (HTTPS) and restricted server access.

Who We Share Data With

We do not sell or rent your personal data. We use service providers where needed to operate PlanWatch: Oracle for hosting, Cloudflare for delivering and protecting the website, Stripe for payment checkout and subscription billing, an email-delivery provider for service emails, and DeepSeek to write AI Planning Advisor answers from the questions you ask (see AI Planning Advisor). Only if you accept them in the cookie banner: Google Analytics 4 and Microsoft Clarity (analytics), and the Meta pixel (advertising measurement). Meta also receives reports from our server, as described below.

With analytics accepted, Google Analytics 4 and Microsoft Clarity receive page views, device and browser information, referrer, interaction events and their own identifiers. With marketing accepted, Meta receives page views and sign-ups from its pixel, with its own browser and click ids. Whatever you choose in the cookie banner, our server also sends Meta, through its Conversions API, page views, sign-ups, enquiries, checkouts, trial starts, subscriptions and payments. These carry your IP address and browser user agent, an advert click id if the page address has one, and, where we have them, your email address, phone number, council area, region and our customer and visitor ids, hashed as Meta's protocol requires, together with the value of the sign-up or purchase and the broad postcode area (for example "SW"). We never send Meta your name, address, full postcode or any planning reference, and our server reads Meta's cookies only if you accepted marketing. We do this to measure which adverts bring us customers and to show our adverts to people likely to find PlanWatch useful (our legitimate interests); Meta processes this data under its own terms as well. If your browser sends Global Privacy Control or Do Not Track, or you choose "Don't count my visits" in Cookie settings, our server sends Meta nothing about you; you can also object at any time by emailing hello@planwatch.co.uk. Without consent, Google and Microsoft receive nothing from PlanWatch pages. Stripe receives the payment and billing information you enter into its checkout; PlanWatch does not store full card details.

postcodes.io: When you search a postcode, we send that postcode (and only the postcode) to the postcodes.io API to get geographic coordinates. No personal data is sent to this service.

AI Planning Advisor

Our AI Planning Advisor answers planning questions using our planning guides and public planning data. This is what happens to what you type into it.

DeepSeek writes the answers. To write an answer, we send DeepSeek (Hangzhou DeepSeek Artificial Intelligence Co., Ltd.) your question, your previous question if it's a follow-up, extracts from our planning guides and the public planning data for any postcode in it. We don't send your email address, name, cookie id or IP address. DeepSeek processes and stores data in the People's Republic of China, under its own terms. Those terms don't say how long it keeps what we send, and they don't rule out DeepSeek using it to improve its models. That's another reason not to put personal details in a question.

Answers are written automatically. They are general information, not a decision about you, and nothing about you is decided automatically.

Updates. We only send PlanWatch updates if you ticked the box. It is never ticked for you. Ticking it is a sign-up, which our server reports to Meta as described under Who We Share Data With. A plain "email me this answer" is not reported to Meta. To stop updates, or to withdraw your consent, email hello@planwatch.co.uk.

How long we keep it. We keep each answer on our server for one hour so you can ask for it by email, then delete it. The advisor cookie lasts one year. Your questions, their outcomes and the email addresses people ask us to send answers to are kept for as long as we need them for the purposes above; we don't yet delete them on a fixed schedule. Your consent to updates lasts until you withdraw it. You can ask us to delete your advisor questions or your email address at any time at hello@planwatch.co.uk. If you asked without signing in, we can only find your questions from the cookie on your browser; clearing your cookies breaks that link.

Cookies

Our cookie banner offers Essential only, Manage and Accept all, with nothing optional switched on or pre-ticked until you choose. Essential cookies keep you signed in, protect forms and payments and remember your choice. Analytics (Google Analytics 4, Microsoft Clarity and our persistent visitor id) and marketing (the Meta pixel and advert click ids kept on your browser) each run only if you accept that category. Our server's reports to Meta are described under Who We Share Data With. You can change your mind at any time from "Cookie settings" in the footer.

Whatever you choose, unless you object we count visits anonymously on our own server: pages, source, clicks, scroll depth and form submissions (never their contents), tied only to an id that is deleted when you close the tab, with no advertising click ids stored. Our server also reports page views to Meta without cookies, as described above. Our Cookie Policy lists every cookie and storage item, how long each lasts, and how to stop the anonymous counting. Server-side postcode-search logs may retain the searched postcode, radius, result count, referrer, user agent and a hashed IP for reporting and abuse prevention.

How Long We Keep Your Data

Your Rights

Under the UK GDPR, you have the following rights. To exercise any of them, email us at hello@planwatch.co.uk.

We aim to respond to all requests within 30 days. There is no fee for exercising your rights.

Children's Privacy

PlanWatch is not directed at children under 13. We do not knowingly collect data from children. If you believe a child has provided us with personal data, please contact us and we will delete it promptly.

Complaints

If you're unhappy with how we handle your data, please contact us first at hello@planwatch.co.uk and we'll do our best to resolve it.

You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO):

Changes to This Policy

We may update this policy from time to time. If we make significant changes, we'll notify subscribers by email. The "Last updated" date at the top of this page will always reflect the latest version.