Privacy notice

This notice explains what personal data minisolar collects, why, and what rights you have under UK data protection law (the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018). We’ve tried to keep it short and plain.

Who we are

minisolar.co.uk is run by [to be confirmed], who is the data controller for this site.

• Address: [to be confirmed]
• ICO registration number: [to be confirmed]
• Privacy contact: [email protected] [to be set up]

The short version

• You don’t need an account, and there isn’t one.
• Your “My setup” details stay in your own browser.
• If you sign up for alerts, we keep your email address until you unsubscribe.
• When you click through to a retailer, we log the click without storing your IP address.
• We don’t set advertising or tracking cookies, and we don’t sell your data.

What we collect and why

“My setup” (stored in your browser only)

When you enter your setup (postcode district, direction, tilt or mounting, shading, daytime usage and budget), it’s saved in your browser’s local storage so every page can show your numbers. It isn’t sent to us to be stored against you. You can remove it at any time by clearing this site’s data in your browser.

We only ask for the first half of your postcode (the postcode district, such as BS3), never your full postcode. To work out your yield and region, your browser sends the postcode district to our server. The first time we see a district, our server looks it up with postcodes.io and keeps the district’s location so we don’t have to look it up again. That stored record is about the district, not about you.

Stock alert emails (when available)

If you sign up for alerts, we store your email address, what you asked to be alerted about, and when you signed up and confirmed. We use double opt-in: we send a confirmation email, and nothing else is sent until you click the link in it.

• Why: to send you the alerts you asked for.
• Lawful basis: your consent. You can withdraw it at any time with the unsubscribe link in every email.
• How long: until you unsubscribe. [Retention period for unconfirmed sign-ups to be confirmed]

Clicks to retailers (the /go/ log)

When you click a link to a retailer, it goes through our own redirect address (starting /go/). We record:

• which product and retailer you clicked, and when;
• the page on minisolar you clicked from, and the referring page address your browser sends;
• whether the request looks like it came from a bot;
• a short code made by combining your IP address and browser details with a secret value that is specific to each day, then scrambling them (a salted one-way hash).

We don’t store your IP address. The code lets us count roughly how many different people clicked on a given day, without identifying you. The same visitor gets a different code the next day, so we can’t follow you over time.

• Why: to count clicks to each retailer and product, and to show affiliate programmes how much traffic we send.
• Lawful basis: our legitimate interests in running and funding the site.
• How long: [to be confirmed]

Server logs

Like most websites, our servers and our content delivery network keep technical logs of requests, which can include your IP address, browser details, the page requested and the time.

• Why: to keep the site running, secure and free of abuse.
• Lawful basis: our legitimate interests in running a secure website.
• How long: [to be confirmed]

Analytics

If we turn on analytics, we’ll use a privacy-friendly tool that doesn’t use cookies and doesn’t store IP addresses, so visitors can’t be identified. It counts things like page views, referring sites and device types. [Tool and hosting to be confirmed]

Cookies

We don’t set any cookies for visitors. The only cookie we set is a login session cookie for the site owner when using the admin area. It’s strictly necessary for that purpose and isn’t set for anyone else.

When you click through to a retailer, the retailer (and any affiliate network) may set its own cookies. Their privacy and cookie policies apply to those.

Who we share data with

We don’t sell your data, and we don’t share it with advertisers. We use these service providers (processors), who handle data on our behalf:

• Hosting: our website and database are hosted on a server provided by [hosting provider to be confirmed].
• Content delivery network: Cloudflare, which sits in front of the site to cache pages and protect it from attacks. It processes requests, including IP addresses.
• Email: when alerts launch, an email delivery provider [to be confirmed] will send our emails and process your email address to do so.

Your postcode district (not your full postcode, and nothing else about you) is sent to postcodes.io the first time a district is looked up.

[International transfers and safeguards to be confirmed once providers are confirmed]

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;
• ask us to delete it;
• object to how we use it, or ask us to restrict it;
• withdraw your consent at any time, where we rely on consent (for example alert emails).

To use any of these rights, email [email protected] [to be set up]. We’ll reply within one month. Because we don’t store IP addresses or accounts, we usually can’t link click or log records to a particular person.

Complaints

If you’re unhappy with how we’ve handled your data, please contact us first. You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK data protection regulator: ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint or 0303 123 1113.

Changes to this notice

If we change how we use personal data, we’ll update this page and the date at the top, and record significant changes in our changelog.