Privacy notice

This notice explains what personal data Before Tender collects, where it comes from, what we do with it and the choices you have. We've tried to write it plainly. If anything isn't clear, email us and we'll explain.

Who we are

Before Tender Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 17522493. Registered office: 67 Cambrai Avenue, Chichester, England, PO19 7UU. Registered with the Information Commissioner's Office as a data controller: registration number ZC290836.

We decide how and why the personal data described here is used, so we're its "controller" under UK data protection law. Contact us about anything in this notice at joe@beforetender.uk, by phone on 07915 911422, or by post to the registered office.

What we do

Before Tender reads the papers that councils, churches, schools, charities and other public bodies publish (agendas, minutes, reports, accounts and public notices) to find projects they're planning to buy. We tell firms that supply that kind of work, so they hear about it early. Firms pay us a monthly subscription for these leads.

Whose data we hold, and why

People named in published papers

Who: councillors, clerks, officers, church wardens and other officers of the bodies we follow, and occasionally other people a paper names.

What: your name, your role, the contact details the body publishes, and what the paper says about a project.

Where it comes from: papers the body has chosen to publish, on its own website or a public portal. We don't read pages a site asks robots not to read, and we never get round bot checks.

Why: to understand a project, who is running it and how to reach the right person. A lead we send to a firm can include the body's published contact for the project, usually the clerk or their role address.

Legal basis: our legitimate interests, and those of the firms we serve, in finding and supplying public projects. These details were published so that people could get in touch with the body about its business. We don't use the papers to build profiles of individuals. We don't record personal information about members of the public that appears in minutes, such as complaints or someone's health, and never pass it on.

We don't normally contact everyone named in a paper to tell them we've read it, because that would mean writing to thousands of people about information they or their body chose to publish. This notice is how we tell them instead.

People at firms that supply public projects

Who: directors and staff of companies we think could supply the projects we find, including our customers.

What: your name, role, business email address, business phone number and the company you work for. We also keep a record of what we've sent you, your replies, our calls, notes of what was agreed, and, if you quote for a job we introduced, the quote.

Where it comes from: Companies House, your company's website, trade directories, LinkedIn, councils' published payment lists, and you.

Why: to tell your company about leads that fit its work, to set up and run a subscription if you take one, and to keep track of the jobs we're helping with.

Legal basis:

• Emails to companies about our service: our legitimate interest in telling businesses about a service that fits their work. We only email limited companies and LLPs this way, never sole traders or ordinary partnerships, and every email says who we are and offers a simple way to stop.
• Calls to your company's business number and messages on LinkedIn about our service: the same legitimate interest. We, or an agency calling on our behalf, say who we are and why we're calling.
• Running a customer's subscription: the contract with your company.

If you ask us to stop, by any of these routes, we stop and keep only enough to make sure we don't contact you again.

Clerks and others we work with on a project

Who: people at a council, church, school or other body who talk to us about a project, for example when we help them find firms to quote.

What: your name, role and contact details, our emails and calls, and the facts you give us about the project.

Why: to understand the job, find suitable firms and keep you and them informed.

Legal basis: our legitimate interest in helping the project go ahead and in keeping accurate records of it.

Callers and people we call

What: your number, the recording of the call, a written transcript, and notes of what was agreed. If you leave a voicemail, the recording and a transcript of it. If no one can answer, an automated assistant may take the call and say that it's automated.

Why: to keep an accurate record of what was said and agreed, so we don't have to ask twice and nothing is missed. We tell you at the start of a call that it may be recorded. Recordings and transcripts are deleted after 12 months.

Legal basis: our legitimate interest in keeping accurate records of business calls.

Visitors to our website

What: if you send an enquiry or ask for a sample, the details you give us (name, email, phone if you add it, your message) and basic technical data for spam protection. If you join our mailing list, your email address.

Visitor counting: Cloudflare Web Analytics counts page views without cookies and without identifying you. Some pages load a Google map or Google's fonts. Our cookie policy explains these in full.

Legal basis: our legitimate interest in answering enquiries and protecting the site; your consent for the mailing list, which you can withdraw at any time with the unsubscribe link.

Customers' billing

What: the name, billing contact and address of the subscribing company, its subscription and payment history. Card and bank details are taken and held by Stripe. We never see full card numbers.

Why and legal basis: to take payment under the contract, and to keep the accounts and tax records the law requires.

How we use AI

We use Claude, an AI model made by Anthropic, to read papers and find projects, to read emails and call transcripts so our notes stay up to date, and to draft emails that a person or our rules check before they're sent. Anthropic processes this data on our behalf and doesn't use it to train its models. We also use Granola for notes of some calls.

AI helps us decide which leads suit which firms. It doesn't make any decision about you that has a legal or similarly significant effect.

Who we share it with

• Firms that subscribe to our leads: details of the projects we find, including the public body's published contact for each one. Our subscription terms (beforetender.co.uk/subscription-terms/) require them to use those details only to pursue the project, and to follow data protection law when they get in touch.
• Companies that run services for us, acting only on our instructions under data processing terms:
  • Anthropic (AI);
  • Google Workspace (email and documents);
  • Twilio (our phone line, recordings and transcripts);
  • Granola (call notes);
  • Cloudflare (website, storage and security);
  • Neon (database);
  • GitHub (where our software and records are kept);
  • Resend (website enquiry emails and the mailing list);
  • Stripe (payments);
  • Xero (accounts);
  • Revolut Business (banking);
  • FreshWeb (website build and hosting).
• A calling agency, when we use one, to call firms about our service: it gets the firm's name, business contact details and the projects to mention, and acts only on our instructions under a written agreement.
• If Before Tender, or its business, is sold, the buyer would take over the data described here and this notice would continue to apply.
• Where the law requires it, for example HMRC or a court order.

We never sell personal data, and never share it for anyone else's marketing.

Data that leaves the UK

Some of these services store or process data in the United States or the European Economic Area. Where they do, the transfer is covered by UK adequacy regulations (including the UK-US data bridge, for companies certified to it) or by the UK's International Data Transfer Agreement or Addendum. Ask us and we'll tell you which applies to which service.

How long we keep it

• Papers and the leads we find in them: while they're useful to the service, which includes knowing which firms have worked for which bodies, and no longer than six years from the paper's date.
• Details of people at firms that aren't our customers: 12 months after our last contact, then removed. We keep the company's name, its general contact details and a note of when we last wrote, but not who we spoke to or what was said. If you ask us to stop contacting you, we keep your name, email address and company on a do-not-contact list for as long as we're in business, so we never contact you again.
• Call recordings and transcripts, including voicemails and calls our automated assistant takes: 12 months, then deleted. A short note of what was agreed stays with the record of the job or firm it belongs to.
• Customer and billing records: six years after the end of the financial year they relate to, as the law requires for company and tax records.
• Website enquiries: 12 months after the last contact, unless you become a customer; the mailing list until you unsubscribe.

Removing data means deleting it from the records and mailbox we work from. Earlier copies stay in our backups and the version history of our records, which are kept securely, aren't used, and are cleared when we can.

Your rights

You can ask us:

• for a copy of the personal data we hold about you;
• to correct anything that's wrong;
• to delete it, where we no longer need it or have no good reason to keep it;
• to stop or pause using it while a question is sorted out;
• to give you the data you provided in a common format.

You can object to our using your data on the basis of legitimate interests. If you object to direct marketing, including our emails to your company, we stop. We don't ask you to give a reason.

Email joe@beforetender.uk. We'll reply within one month and won't charge you.

Complaints

If you're unhappy with how we've handled your data, please tell us first at joe@beforetender.uk or on 07915 911422. We'll acknowledge your complaint within 30 days, look into it, and tell you the outcome as soon as we can.

You can also complain to the Information Commissioner's Office: ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint, 0303 123 1113, or Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF.

Keeping it secure

We keep access to our systems to the people who need it, and we use established service providers that encrypt data as it travels and where it's stored. If a breach could put you at risk, we'll tell the ICO within 72 hours and, where we must, tell you.

Changes

When we change this notice we'll update the date at the top. If a change matters to you, we'll say so on the website, or tell you directly if you're a customer.