Privacy Notice

Who we are

This website, samcat.uk, is operated by Mark Easter Consulting Ltd, trading as SAMCAT.

Company number: 17433533
Registered office: 20 Wenlock Road, London, England, N1 7GU
Contact for data protection matters: mark@samcat.uk, or by post at the registered office above

Mark Easter Consulting Ltd is the data controller for the personal data described in this notice. That means we decide what personal data is collected through this website and what happens to it.

What this notice covers - and what it does not

This notice covers personal data collected through the samcat.uk website: enquiries submitted through the contact form, and technical information generated when you visit.

It does not cover personal data processed in the course of commissioned work - safeguarding adults reviews, independent investigations, Mental Capacity Act consultancy or training delivery. Where SAMCAT is engaged by an NHS body, local authority, safeguarding adults board or care provider, that organisation is ordinarily the data controller for the personal data involved, and processing is governed by the agreement in place for that engagement rather than by this notice. If you are an individual affected by a review or investigation and want to know how your information is being handled, please contact the commissioning organisation, or contact us and we will direct you.

What we collect and why

Enquiries

If you use the contact form, we collect your first name, last name, organisation or authority, email address, the area of interest you select, the content of your message, and your telephone number if you choose to provide it.

We use this to respond to your enquiry and, where it leads to a piece of work, to correspond with you about it.

Please do not include personal information about service users, patients, or the subjects of a review in an enquiry. The form is not a secure channel for case material, and we will ask you to use an appropriate secure route before any such information is shared. If you send us case material through the form, we will delete it and tell you we have done so.

Lawful basis: our legitimate interests, and yours, in responding to a business enquiry (UK GDPR Article 6(1)(f)). We consider this proportionate because you have chosen to contact us and the information is used only to reply.

Technical information about your visit

Our hosting provider records standard technical information when pages are served, including IP addresses, which is used to operate the site securely and diagnose faults.

We use privacy-focused analytics to understand how the site is used in aggregate - which pages are visited and which links are followed. This does not use cookies, does not track you across other websites, and does not build a profile of you.

Lawful basis: our legitimate interests in maintaining a secure, working website and understanding in general terms how it is used.

Fonts

This site loads typefaces from Google Fonts. When a page loads, your browser requests those font files from Google's servers, which discloses your IP address to Google. This happens on most websites that use web fonts, but you should be aware of it. Google's handling of that data is governed by its own privacy policy.

Cookies

This website does not set cookies for advertising, tracking or profiling. If that changes, this notice will be updated and consent will be sought where the law requires it.

Who else handles your information

We keep the number of third parties involved as small as we reasonably can. Currently:

• Web3Forms, which delivers contact form submissions to our email. Your submission passes through their service on the way to us.
• Our email provider, where enquiries are received and stored.
• Our hosting provider, which serves the website.
• Google, which serves the fonts used on this site, as described above.

Some of these providers may process or store data outside the United Kingdom. Where that is the case we rely on the transfer safeguards those providers have in place. You can ask us for more detail about any of this.

We do not sell your information, and we do not share it with anyone for marketing purposes.

How long we keep it

Enquiries that do not lead to a piece of work are kept for twelve months from the date of your last contact with us, and then deleted. We keep them for that period so that we can pick up a conversation if you come back to us.

Enquiries that lead to an engagement are retained under the terms of that engagement, which will normally reflect the commissioning organisation's own retention requirements.

Technical and analytics information is kept only in aggregate and is not linked to you.

Your rights

Under UK data protection law you have the right to:

• ask for a copy of the personal data we hold about you
• ask us to correct it if it is wrong
• ask us to delete it
• ask us to restrict how we use it
• object to our use of it where we rely on legitimate interests
• ask us to transfer it to you or another organisation in a portable form

To exercise any of these, email mark@samcat.uk. We will respond within one month. We may need to confirm your identity first.

Complaints

If you are unhappy with how we have handled your personal data, please tell us first - we would rather put it right directly. You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at any time:

Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF
Helpline: 0303 123 1113
ico.org.uk

Changes to this notice

We will update this notice if what we do with personal data changes. The date at the top shows when the current version was prepared.