How we use business contact details

If you contact us through our website

What we keep

What you type into the form: your name, email address, business name and trade if you give them, and your message, with the wording you agreed to and the time you sent it. To stop automated spam we also keep a coded (hashed) form of your connection, never your IP address itself, and we check that your email address’s domain can receive email.

Why, and our lawful basis

To reply to you, and if you ask us to, to set up your website and free month. Our lawful basis is taking steps you asked for before a contract (UK GDPR Article 6(1)(b)) and, for keeping a record of the conversation and stopping spam, legitimate interests (Article 6(1)(f)). Sending us a message does not put you on any marketing list.

Who handles it

Your message is stored in our own database with our hosting provider, Railway, in the Netherlands, and emailed to our team through Google Workspace (Google). A person at our company reads it and replies.

How long we keep it

If you become a customer, it becomes part of your customer record (see our privacy notice for customers (being finalised)). If you do not, we delete your name, email address, business name and message from the enquiry 12 months after you sent it, and the lead record we made from it 12 months after our conversation ends.

You have the same rights as anyone else this notice covers: see Your rights and How to make a request.

If your business is in Australia

This section is for Australian businesses we contact, such as child care centres. We handle this information in line with the Australian Privacy Principles in the Privacy Act 1988 (Cth), and we email Australian businesses only as the Spam Act 2003 (Cth) allows. The UK sections above do not apply to you.

What we collect and where from

Business contact details that your centre publishes itself: the centre’s name, address and phone number, the business email address shown on your own website, and the names and roles of people your website lists (for example a centre director). We also read the public wording of your website and your public Google listing (address, phone, opening hours and rating). We do not buy lists, and we do not collect anything about the children or families at your centre.

Why we use it

To send your centre a small number of emails about a website and office software for your centre, and to prepare a private sample website for you to look at. A person at our company reads and approves every email before it is sent.

When we email you

We only email an address that your centre publishes on its own website, about your business, and only when the page it is published on does not say that you do not want sales or marketing emails. Every email says who we are and has a free way to unsubscribe.

Where your information is stored and sent (overseas)

We do not store anything in Australia. Your information is stored with our hosting provider, Railway, in the Netherlands, and handled by our company in the United Kingdom. Our email runs on Google Workspace (Google). To research your website and write our emails we use AI providers in the United States (Anthropic, OpenAI and Google), sending them only public website content and business details, and an AI server we run ourselves. So your information is likely to be disclosed to recipients in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and the United States.

How long we keep it

If your centre does not respond, we delete its record after 12 months. If you ask us to stop, we keep only a minimal record of your address so that we never contact you again.

How to opt out

Use the unsubscribe link in any email we send, or reply STOP. We stop straight away, and always within 5 working days. Opting out costs nothing.

Seeing or correcting what we hold

You can ask for a copy of the information we hold about you or your centre, ask us to correct it, or ask us to delete it. Use our privacy request form, email edward@onshoresystems.com, or reply to any email we sent you.

How to complain

Please complain to us first, using the form or email above, and tell us what went wrong. We will reply within 30 days. If you are not happy with our answer, or we have not replied within 30 days, you can complain to the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner (OAIC) at oaic.gov.au. Complaints about unwanted emails can also go to the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) at acma.gov.au.

Connected accounts

A business that uses Onshore Systems can connect accounts it already holds with other companies. A connection is always the business’s own choice, made by signing in with the other company and agreeing to what it asks. We only use a connection for the business that made it, and only to do what that business has asked us to do.

What is true of every connection

• We ask only for the access we need for the feature the business turned on.
• We never sell information received through a connection, never use it to target advertising, and never use it to train or improve artificial intelligence or machine learning models.
• Sign-in tokens and passwords are encrypted at rest. They are readable only by our systems when we act on the business’s behalf.
• The information is visible to the business’s own staff, and to our support team only when the business asks for help.
• It is stored with our hosting provider, Railway, in the Netherlands, and handled by our company in the United Kingdom.
• We keep it while the connection is live. When the business disconnects, we delete the stored tokens straight away and delete the information we copied from that platform within 30 days. The business’s own invoices, bookings and similar records, which we keep for it as part of the service, are covered by our privacy notice for customers.
• We never ask for, read or store clinical or health information through any connection. Appointments, bookings, invoices and contact details may pass through; medical records, clinical notes and free-text health information never do.

Google

Google Calendar: we read and write events on the calendars the user picks, so that we can show the business’s bookings and add new ones. Google Business Profile: we read and update the business’s own listing, its posts and its replies to reviews, only when the business asks us to. Google Ads: we create and manage the business’s own campaigns on its instruction, through our manager account. Google Analytics: we read reports for the business’s own property, read-only. We store the calendar events, listing details, campaign settings and report figures we need to show these features, and the sign-in tokens.

Onshore Systems’ use and transfer of information received from Google APIs to any other app will adhere to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements.

Meta (Facebook and Instagram)

The business chooses which Facebook Pages and Instagram business accounts to connect. We list those pages, read their engagement figures and insights, and publish posts that the business has approved. We store the page names and identifiers, the figures we read, the posts we published and the sign-in tokens. To remove the connection and your data, follow the data deletion instructions.

Intuit QuickBooks and Xero

For the company the business connects, we read and write invoices, customers, payments and items, so that the business’s books stay in step with its orders and bookings in Onshore Systems. We store copies of those records and the sign-in tokens, encrypted at rest.

Microsoft 365 / Outlook and Apple iCloud

We read and write calendar events only. For Microsoft we use the Microsoft Graph calendar. For Apple iCloud we use CalDAV with an app-specific password that the user creates for us; we store it encrypted, and we never ask for the real Apple ID password. Revoking the app-specific password at Apple cuts our access at once.

Sending email from the business’s own address

A business can choose to have the emails it sends its own customers through Onshore Systems, such as quotes, invoices and booking confirmations, go out from its own mailbox. With Gmail or Google Workspace we ask only for permission to send email (the Gmail send permission); with Microsoft 365 or Outlook, only to send mail as the user (Mail.Send). Neither lets us read, search or delete the mailbox. With any other email provider the business creates an app password, a separate password its provider issues for one app, and types it into its own admin; we store it encrypted and never ask for the real mailbox password. Revoking that app password at the provider cuts our access at once. We keep the messages the business sends, as part of its own records, and the sign-in tokens or app password while the connection is live.

How to disconnect and delete

The business can disconnect any account at any time from the connected accounts settings in its Onshore Systems admin, or by removing Onshore Systems in the other company’s own security or apps settings (for example Google account permissions). Either way our access stops. To have the information we hold deleted as well, use our data deletion page, our privacy request form, or email edward@onshoresystems.com. We delete within 30 days.