Privacy Policy
What information Clerkly collects, why it’s collected, how long it’s kept, and what you can ask me to do with it.
1. The short version
Clerkly is a one-person business. The data I hold is the data I need to answer enquiries, do the work I’m hired for, and keep proper business records.
- I don’t sell or rent personal information. Ever.
- I don’t run advertising trackers or share data with ad networks.
- Contact-form details are used to reply to you, not to add you to a list.
- Client data is handled under your instructions and returned or deleted when we’re done.
- You can ask me what I hold, and ask me to delete it.
2. Who is responsible for your data
Clerkly (“Clerkly”, “we”, “I”) operates clerkly.us and is the data controller for personal information collected through this website and in the course of enquiries and client engagements.
- Contact for privacy matters: hello@clerkly.us
- Website: https://clerkly.us
3. What information is collected
Information you give me
- Enquiry details submitted through the contact form: your name, email address, and optionally company name, phone number, the service you’re interested in, preferred arrangement, timeline and the message you write.
- Correspondence you send by email, phone, messaging app or video call, including anything you choose to share in it.
- Client and billing details if we work together: business address, billing contact, tax identifiers where required, and payment records.
- Access credentials shared for the purpose of doing agreed work — handled as described in section 14.
Information collected automatically
- Server logs kept by the website host: IP address, browser type and version, referring page, pages visited, and timestamps. These are standard security and operational logs.
- Analytics data, if analytics is enabled on this site — see section 5.
Information I don’t want
Please don’t send sensitive personal data (health information, government identifiers, financial account numbers, or data about criminal matters) through the contact form. If a task genuinely requires it, we’ll agree a secure channel first.
4. How the information is used
| Purpose | Data used | Legal basis (GDPR/UK GDPR) |
|---|---|---|
| Replying to your enquiry and discussing a possible engagement | Enquiry details, correspondence | Consent, and steps taken at your request before entering a contract |
| Delivering the services you’ve engaged me for | Client details, materials and access you provide | Performance of a contract |
| Invoicing, accounting and tax records | Billing details, payment records | Legal obligation |
| Keeping the website secure and available | Server logs | Legitimate interests (security and service integrity) |
| Understanding which pages are useful | Aggregated analytics | Consent, where required |
| Defending or establishing legal claims | Relevant records | Legitimate interests |
Your details are not used for automated decision-making or profiling, and no marketing emails are sent unless you specifically ask to receive them.
5. Cookies & analytics
This website is deliberately light. In its default configuration it sets no advertising or tracking cookies. Any strictly necessary cookies exist only to make the site work.
If a privacy-respecting analytics tool is enabled, it is configured to collect aggregated usage data only — page views, referrers, broad location at country level — and not to build a profile of you across websites. Where local law requires consent for analytics, that consent is requested before any such tool loads.
You can block or delete cookies in your browser settings at any time. The site will continue to work.
6. Embedded content
The videos page can embed players from YouTube. These embeds are click-to-load: nothing is requested from YouTube, and no YouTube cookies are set, until you choose to play a video. Video embeds use youtube-nocookie.com, which limits the data YouTube collects.
Once you press play, YouTube receives your IP address and may set its own cookies, under Google’s privacy policy. Video thumbnails, where shown, are loaded from Google’s image servers.
This site also loads web fonts from Google Fonts, which involves a request to Google’s servers containing your IP address. If you would prefer fonts to be self-hosted, let me know — it’s a small change.
7. Service providers
A handful of trusted providers process data on my behalf so the business can function. Typically these fall into these categories:
- Website hosting — serves this site and keeps server logs.
- Form handling — delivers contact-form submissions to my inbox.
- Email — hosts business correspondence.
- Scheduling — books intro calls when you pick a time.
- Invoicing and payments — issues invoices and processes payments.
- Password management — stores shared credentials securely.
- Cloud storage and project tools — hold working files and task records.
Each is bound by its own agreement to process data only for the purpose it was given and to keep it secure. A current list of named providers is available on request — just email and ask.
8. Sharing & disclosure
Personal information is never sold, rented or traded. It is shared only:
- with the service providers described above, to run the business;
- with your accountant, developer or team members, where you ask me to;
- where required by law, court order or a valid request from a public authority;
- where necessary to establish, exercise or defend legal claims;
- with your explicit consent, for anything else.
9. International transfers
Clerkly works remotely with clients and providers in different countries, so your information may be processed outside your own. Where data is transferred from the UK, EEA or another region with transfer restrictions, appropriate safeguards are used — usually the European Commission’s Standard Contractual Clauses or the UK International Data Transfer Addendum, together with the provider’s own compliance measures.
10. How long data is kept
| Type of data | Kept for |
|---|---|
| Enquiries that don’t become engagements | Up to 12 months, then deleted |
| Client correspondence and project files | Duration of the engagement, plus 12 months |
| Invoices and financial records | 7 years, as tax law requires |
| Contracts and signed agreements | 7 years after the engagement ends |
| Website server logs | Typically 30–90 days, per the host’s policy |
| Shared credentials and system access | Revoked and removed within 30 days of offboarding |
11. Security
Practical measures, applied consistently:
- a password manager for all credentials — never plain text in email or chat;
- two-factor authentication on every account that offers it;
- full-disk encryption and current operating systems on work devices;
- least-privilege access — only the permissions a task actually needs;
- HTTPS across the whole website;
- prompt revocation of access when an engagement ends.
No system is perfectly secure. If a breach affecting your personal data ever occurs, you will be notified without undue delay, along with the relevant supervisory authority where the law requires it.
12. Your rights
Depending on where you live, you may have the right to:
- Access — get a copy of the personal data I hold about you.
- Rectification — have inaccurate data corrected.
- Erasure — ask for your data to be deleted, where no legal obligation requires me to keep it.
- Restriction — ask me to limit how your data is used.
- Portability — receive your data in a machine-readable format.
- Objection — object to processing based on legitimate interests.
- Withdraw consent — at any time, where processing relies on consent.
To exercise any of these, email hello@clerkly.us. I’ll respond within 30 days, free of charge. I may need to verify your identity first — usually by replying from the address I already have on file.
If you’re in the UK or EEA and unhappy with how I’ve handled your request, you can complain to your local supervisory authority. I’d appreciate the chance to put it right first.
13. U.S. state privacy rights
Residents of California and other states with comprehensive privacy laws may have the right to know what personal information is collected, to request deletion or correction, to receive a portable copy, and not to be discriminated against for exercising those rights.
Clerkly does not sell personal information and does not share it for cross-context behavioural advertising, as those terms are defined under the CCPA/CPRA. To make a request, email hello@clerkly.us with “Privacy request” in the subject line.
14. Client data (when I act as your processor)
During an engagement I often access systems containing personal data belonging to your customers, staff or contacts — a helpdesk, a CRM, a store back end. For that data, you are the controller and I am your processor.
In that role I will:
- process personal data only on your documented instructions;
- keep it confidential and apply the security measures in section 11;
- not use your customers’ data for any purpose of my own;
- help you respond to data subject requests where I reasonably can;
- notify you without undue delay if I become aware of a breach;
- return or delete the data at the end of the engagement, as you direct.
A formal data processing agreement is available on request and takes precedence over this section where the two differ. See also the Terms of Service.
15. Children
This website and these services are aimed at businesses and are not directed at children under 16. I don’t knowingly collect personal information from children. If you believe a child has provided information through this site, contact me and it will be deleted.
16. Changes to this policy
This policy may be updated as the business, the tools or the law change. The current version is always the one published here, with the “last updated” date at the top. Material changes affecting active clients will be notified by email.
17. Contact
Questions, requests and complaints about privacy all go to the same place:
- Email: hello@clerkly.us
- Contact form: clerkly.us/contact
- Response time: within 30 days, usually much sooner