Privacy Policy

1. Who We Are

This Privacy Policy is issued by EL Industries Pty Ltd (ABN 66 655 026 823) ("we", "us", "our"), the operator of PubWatch UK, the website at pubwatchuk.co.uk (the "Service"). We are the controller of the information described here for the purposes of the UK General Data Protection Regulation ("UK GDPR") and the Data Protection Act 2018. We are established in Australia. Questions about this Policy, and any request under it, go to support@pubwatchuk.co.uk.

2. Scope

This Policy applies to information handled by us when you visit the Service or contact us. It does not apply to third-party websites or services linked from the Service, which are governed by their own privacy policies.

3. Information We Collect and Hold

You can use the Service without telling us who you are. There is no account, nothing asks for your name or contact details, and you can browse, plan a crawl, submit a price and rate a venue without identifying yourself. The one exception is contacting us, where we need somewhere to reply. What we do handle is set out below.

3.1 What you submit. You may submit a price or rate a venue. A price submission comprises the venue, the item, the price and, where applicable, the beer style, a date, a glass size and, for a steak, a weight and cut. A rating comprises the venue, the item and star scores. We do not ask for your name or any contact detail, and none is attached to what you send.

3.2 Naming a venue we do not list yet. If the pub is not on the Service you can type its name and address, so we can find the pub and add it. That text is stored for us to check and is not published. Please type the pub's name and street address and nothing else.

3.3 Preventing spam and abuse. When a submission or rating is received we record a short value derived from technical information about the connection it came from and the date. Your internet address itself is not retained. The value is used only to limit how many submissions can be sent from one source and to spot duplicates. It is never published and never forms part of the public pricing record.

3.4 Technical data. As with any online service, technical data such as internet addresses and request metadata is processed in the ordinary course of delivering content and keeping the Service secure, by us and by the hosting provider described in section 7.

3.5 Location. The "Find Me" button uses your position on your device only, with your permission, to centre the map. Your coordinates are not transmitted to us. The Service works fully if you decline, and you can withdraw the permission at any time in your browser. Map imagery is supplied by a mapping provider, which necessarily receives requests indicating the general area being displayed, as with any online map; your coordinates are not included in those requests.

3.6 Stored in your browser only. The website stores your map position, filters and planner entries in your browser for the length of the visit. That is not sent to us and clears when you close the tab.

3.7 Special category data. We do not ask for, and do not knowingly collect, special category data: information about health, racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, sex life or sexual orientation, or genetic or biometric data, or information about criminal convictions and offences. Please do not include any of it in a submission or a rating. If you send it to us anyway, we will delete it.

4. Why We Use Information, and the Lawful Basis

• To publish the pricing record and run the Service, including reviewing submissions before publication. This is in our legitimate interests in operating a public price comparison, and in the interests of the patrons who use it. Submissions carry no information identifying you.
• To keep the Service secure and to limit spam and abuse, using the value described in section 3.3 and the technical data in section 3.4. This is in our legitimate interests in protecting the Service and its users.
• To reply when you contact us. This is in our legitimate interests in answering the people who write to us.
• To meet a legal obligation, where one applies to us.

We do not use information to identify you, to build a profile of you, or to make automated decisions with legal or similarly significant effects on you.

5. Cookies and Measurement

The Service sets no advertising cookies and no analytics cookies, and it asks for no cookie consent because it needs none. We may use Cloudflare Web Analytics, which counts page loads and measures performance without cookies and without storing any identifier on your device. The browser storage described in section 3.6 is used only to keep the page working for the length of your visit. If that changes, we will update this Policy.

6. Use and Publication of Submissions

Accepted price submissions and ratings form part of the public pricing record and may be displayed on the Service without any information identifying who sent them. That record is published as open data that anyone can fetch.

Before publication, submissions are reviewed for plausibility. Review is not a guarantee, so please do not include personal information about yourself or anyone else in anything you send us.

7. Who We Share Information With, and Where It Goes

We do not sell information, and we do not disclose information that identifies you to anyone in exchange for money, a service or any other advantage.

We share information only with the service providers engaged to operate the Service, and only to the extent necessary: hosting and content delivery, the supply of map imagery, and the measurement described in section 5. Some links hand you to a third party only when you use them, such as opening a venue's website, calling a venue, or opening a route in a maps application. That destination then receives your request directly.

Our providers hold information in the United Kingdom, the European Economic Area and the United States, and we are in Australia, so information may leave the United Kingdom. Where it does, it is protected by the safeguards UK GDPR provides for international transfers, including the transfer terms approved by the Information Commissioner, and we share only the minimum needed to provide the Service.

8. Security

We take appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect the information we hold from loss, misuse and unauthorised access, alteration or disclosure. Those measures include holding as little as we can, not retaining internet addresses, limiting how much can be submitted from one source, and restricting access to what is held. No system is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee the security of information sent over the internet.

9. How Long We Keep Things

• Accepted submissions and ratings form part of the public pricing record and are kept for as long as they remain part of it.
• Submissions that are not accepted are never published.
• The value described in section 3.3 is specific to a single day and is not used to identify any visitor.
• What the website stores in your browser clears when you close the tab.
• Email you send us is kept for as long as we need it to deal with your request.
• Information held by our service providers is kept for the periods those providers set.

10. Your Rights

Under UK GDPR you have the right to ask for access to the personal information we hold about you, to have it corrected or erased, to restrict or object to our use of it, and, where we rely on consent or a contract, to receive it in a portable form. You also have the right to withdraw a consent at any time, and to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk. We would rather hear from you first: write to support@pubwatchuk.co.uk and we will look at it.

Because there are no accounts, we hold nothing to look you up by, so your request needs to tell us which record is yours.

• For a price or a rating, tell us the venue, the item, the price or score you sent and roughly when. Where several people have sent the same thing we may not be able to tell which is yours, and we will say so rather than guess.
• For a venue name and address you typed in, tell us what you typed and roughly when.

Nothing on the Service is sent unless you send it. Withdrawing the location permission in your browser stops the map using your position, and clearing your browser's storage for this site clears what section 3.6 describes.

11. Over 18s Only

The Service is for persons aged 18 or over. Clause 4 of our Terms of Use sets that as a condition of use, and by using the Service you confirm that you meet it. The Service provides pricing information relating to licensed premises, it is not directed at anyone under 18, and it must not be used by anyone under 18. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 18. If we become aware that we hold information from someone under 18, we will delete it.

12. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Policy from time to time. The current version is always available on this page, and the effective date above is updated when it changes.