Privacy notice

This site is built to know as little about you as possible. There are no accounts, no forms and no cookies. If you never email us, we hold nothing that identifies you.

Who is responsible

The data controller for this site is the retainfo.co.uk editorial team. You can reach us at the address on the about page. We do not have a data protection officer because the size and nature of the site do not require one.

What we collect, and what we do not

Nothing, by default. The site is a set of static pages. There is no login, no comment system and no contact form. Reading a page does not create a record about you.

Search runs in your browser. The search box uses Pagefind, which downloads a small index and matches your query on your own device. Your search terms are never sent to us or to anyone else.

Analytics, if switched on, are cookieless. The site may use Plausible or Umami, self-hosted on our own server. These tools count page views without cookies, without tracking you across other sites, and without storing anything that identifies you. They record the page visited, the referring site if any, and a rough country and device type. No personal data is collected. If analytics are not enabled, nothing is collected at all.

Server logs. Like every web server, ours records the IP address, the page requested, the time, and the browser type of each request. We keep these logs briefly, for security and to diagnose faults, and then delete them. We do not analyse them to identify individuals. Our lawful basis is our legitimate interest in keeping the site running and secure.

Email. If you write to us, we hold your email address and what you sent for as long as we need it to deal with your message and, for correction requests, to keep a record of what was changed and why. We do not add you to any list, share your address with anyone, or use it for any other purpose. Our lawful basis is our legitimate interest in answering you and maintaining the accuracy of the site.

Please do not send us health information

We do not collect health data, and we do not want it. Please do not email us details of your medical history, medicines, symptoms, or anything you have used. We cannot give advice about your health, and we would rather not hold information that sensitive. If you do send it, we will delete it once we have replied, and our reply will point you to your GP, NHS 111 or 999.

Third parties

We do not use advertising networks, social-media buttons, embedded video, or fonts loaded from other companies. Our pages link to external sites such as GOV.UK, NHS, ClinicalTrials.gov and journal publishers. Once you follow a link, that site's own privacy notice applies.

Your rights

Under UK data protection law you can ask us what we hold about you, ask for it to be corrected or deleted, object to our processing, or ask for a copy. Because we hold so little, the answer will usually be "nothing", or your own email. Email us and we will respond within one month. If you are not happy with how we handle your data, you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office.^[1]

Changes

If we change how the site handles data, for example by enabling analytics, we will update this page and its last-reviewed date. The cookies page describes browser storage, and the terms of use cover everything else.