Privacy Policy

Last updated: 29th June 2026

Strategic Data Services respects your privacy and is committed to protecting your personal data. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, store and protect personal information when you visit our website, contact us, request information, or use our services.

1. Who we are

Strategic Data Services provides IT consultancy, AI enablement, cyber security, cloud and digital transformation support to small and medium-sized businesses.

Our details are:

Strategic Data Services
Email: [email protected]
Phone: 0118 391 3456
Website: https://strategicdata.co.uk 

For the purposes of UK data protection law, Strategic Data Services is the data controller for the personal data described in this Privacy Policy.

2. What personal data we collect

We may collect and use the following types of personal data:

Information you provide to us

This may include:

• Your name.
• Business name.
• Job title.
• Email address.
• Telephone number.
• Postal or business address.
• Details of your enquiry.
• Information you provide through our contact forms.
• Information shared during calls, meetings, emails or consultancy discussions.
• Billing and payment information, where you become a client.

Website and technical information

When you visit our website, we may collect:

• IP address.
• Browser type and version.
• Device type.
• Pages visited.
• Date and time of visit.
• Referral source.
• Approximate location based on IP address.
• Cookie and analytics data, where enabled.

Client service information

If you become a client, we may also process information relating to:

• Your IT systems and business processes.
• Cloud services, software platforms or technology environments.
• Cyber security risks, assessments or recommendations.
• Project requirements and service delivery.
• User or employee contact details where needed to provide agreed services.

We only collect personal data that is relevant to the services we provide. We do not intentionally collect special category personal data, such as health, religion, ethnicity or political opinions, unless you choose to provide it and it is relevant to a specific matter.

3. How we collect personal data

We may collect personal data when you:

• Visit our website.
• Complete a contact form.
• Email, phone or message us.
• Book a consultation or readiness assessment.
• Request a quote or proposal.
• Become a client or supplier.
• Connect with us through LinkedIn, Facebook or other business platforms.
• Interact with our marketing or website content.

We may also receive personal data from third parties, such as referral partners, professional contacts, software providers, public business directories, or platforms you use to contact us.

4. How we use your personal data

We use personal data for the following purposes:

• To respond to enquiries.
• To provide quotes, proposals and consultations.
• To deliver IT, AI, cloud, cyber security and consultancy services.
• To manage client relationships.
• To arrange meetings, calls and assessments.
• To provide support and service updates.
• To manage billing, payments and accounting.
• To improve our website and services.
• To maintain website security.
• To comply with legal and regulatory obligations.
• To send relevant business communications, where permitted.

We will not sell your personal data. Because apparently some businesses need to be told that treating people’s details like confetti is frowned upon.

5. Our lawful basis for using your personal data

Under UK GDPR, we must have a lawful basis for using your personal data. The ICO explains that organisations should identify and explain the lawful basis for processing personal data.

We usually rely on one or more of the following lawful bases:

Contract

We use your personal data where necessary to provide services to you, respond to service requests, prepare proposals, manage projects, or fulfil our contractual obligations.

Legitimate interests

We may use your personal data where we have a legitimate business interest, provided your rights and interests do not override those interests.

This may include:

• Responding to business enquiries.
• Managing client relationships.
• Improving our services.
• Securing our website and systems.
• Keeping business records.
• Sending relevant business-to-business communications.

Legal obligation

We may use your personal data where required to comply with legal, tax, accounting or regulatory obligations.

Consent

We may rely on consent where required, such as for certain marketing activities or non-essential cookies. Where we rely on consent, you can withdraw it at any time.

6. Marketing communications

We may contact business contacts with relevant information about our services where permitted by law.

You can ask us to stop sending marketing communications at any time by contacting us at: [email protected]

We will not send you unrelated spam. The internet has enough of that tragic nonsense already.

7. Cookies, Google Analytics and Website Measurement

Our website uses cookies and similar technologies to help the site work correctly, improve performance, understand how visitors use the website and protect the website from spam or abuse.

We use Google Analytics to collect information about how visitors interact with our website. This may include information such as pages visited, time spent on the site, browser type, device type, approximate location, referral source and interactions with website content.

Google Analytics may use cookies and similar technologies to collect and report this information. We use this information to understand website performance, improve our services and make our website more useful to visitors.

Google Analytics does not provide us with information that directly identifies individual visitors. However, analytics data may still be treated as personal data where it relates to an identifiable individual or device.

Where required by law, we will only use Google Analytics after you have given consent through our cookie banner or cookie preferences tool.

You can also control or delete cookies through your browser settings.

reCAPTCHA Protection

Our website uses reCAPTCHA protection to help prevent spam, automated abuse and malicious activity on our contact forms and other website features.

reCAPTCHA may analyse technical and interaction data to determine whether website activity appears to be from a genuine user or an automated system. This may include information such as IP address, browser and device information, operating system, date and time of access, page interactions and other technical signals.

We use reCAPTCHA for the legitimate purpose of protecting our website, forms, systems and users from spam, fraud, abuse and security risks.

Where required, reCAPTCHA-related cookies or similar technologies will be handled through our cookie banner or cookie preferences tool.

Third-party service providers

We use selected third-party providers to help operate, protect and improve our website and services. These may include:

• Google Analytics, for website measurement and performance analysis.
• Google reCAPTCHA, for spam prevention and website security.
• Website hosting providers.
• Contact form or WordPress plugin providers.
• Email, cloud and IT service providers.

These providers may process personal data on our behalf where necessary to provide their services. We expect third-party providers to protect personal data appropriately and only process it in accordance with applicable data protection laws and contractual obligations.

The ICO says websites must tell people if cookies are used, explain what they do and why, and get clear consent unless the cookies are strictly necessary.

Where required, we will ask for your consent before placing non-essential cookies on your device.

You can control cookies through your browser settings and, where available, through our website cookie banner or preferences tool.

For more information, please see our Cookie Policy: https://strategicdata.co.uk/cookie-policy/

8. Who we share personal data with

We may share personal data with trusted third parties where necessary to operate our business and provide our services.

This may include:

• Website hosting providers.
• Email and cloud service providers.
• IT support and security providers.
• Accounting and bookkeeping providers.
• Payment processors.
• CRM or project management systems.
• Professional advisers, such as accountants or legal advisers.
• Regulators, law enforcement or public authorities where legally required.

We only share personal data where necessary and expect third-party providers to protect it appropriately.

9. International transfers

Some of our service providers, including Google, may process personal data outside the UK.

Where personal data is transferred outside the UK, we will take
reasonable steps to ensure that appropriate safeguards are in place,
such as adequacy regulations, approved contractual safeguards, data
processing terms or other lawful transfer mechanisms.

Cookies may include:

• Essential cookies needed for the website to work.
• Analytics cookies, such as Google Analytics, if enabled.
• Security cookies.
• Embedded content cookies, such as YouTube, Google Maps, reCAPTCHA or social media features, if used.

10. How long we keep personal data

We only keep personal data for as long as necessary for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy.

Typical retention periods are: 

• General enquiries: up to 24 months after the last contact.
• Client records: for the duration of the client relationship and up to 7 years afterwards for legal, tax and accounting purposes.
• Marketing contacts: until you unsubscribe or ask us to remove your details.
• Website analytics data: according to the retention settings of the analytics platform used.
• Supplier and financial records: up to 7 years for tax and accounting purposes. 

Where we no longer need your personal data, we will securely delete, anonymise or archive it.

The ICO says privacy information should explain retention periods or the criteria used to decide how long personal data is kept.

11. How we protect your personal data

We use appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect personal data against loss, misuse, unauthorised access, disclosure, alteration or destruction.

These may include:

• Secure cloud services.
• Access controls.
• Password protection and multi-factor authentication where appropriate.
• Encryption where suitable.
• Regular software updates.
• Malware and security controls.
• Data minimisation.
• Secure deletion practices.
• Limited access to personal data on a need-to-know basis.

No system is completely secure, because technology was apparently designed to keep everyone humble. However, we take reasonable steps to protect the data we process.

12. Your data protection rights

Under UK data protection law, you have rights in relation to your personal data.

These may include the right to:

• Access the personal data we hold about you.
• Ask us to correct inaccurate or incomplete data.
• Ask us to delete your personal data.
• Ask us to restrict how we use your data.
• Object to certain uses of your data.
• Request transfer of your data to another provider.
• Withdraw consent where we rely on consent.
• Complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office.

The ICO lists these individual rights as part of the information organisations should provide in privacy notices.

To exercise your rights, contact us at: [email protected] 

We may need to verify your identity before responding.

13. Complaints

If you are unhappy with how we use your personal data, please contact us first so we can try to resolve the issue.

You can also complain to the UK regulator, the Information Commissioner’s Office:

Information Commissioner’s Office
Website: https://ico.org.uk
Phone: 0303 123 1113 

14. Links to other websites

Our website may contain links to third-party websites. We are not responsible for the privacy practices, content or security of those websites.

You should read the privacy policy of any external website you visit, because apparently every corner of the internet needs its own paperwork swamp.

15. Changes to this Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our business, website, services or legal obligations.

The latest version will always be published on this page.