Privacy

1. Who's responsible

Stort Valley Computers (Louis) is responsible for your data and is registered with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO). Contact: Stort Valley Computers, Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire. louis@stortvalleycomputers.co.uk · 01279 927125.

2. What I collect

• Your name, email and phone number when you get in touch.
• What you tell me about the problem, and any photos you send.
• Details needed for the job, such as the device model and notes on the fault.
• Basic server logs when you visit the site, such as IP address and browser type.
• Daily visit totals (see Usage counts below), which aren't about you.

3. How I use it

• To reply to you, quote, and do the work you've asked for.
• To keep job and payment records, as the law requires.
• To deal with any follow-up, such as a fault coming back.
• To email you about your booking: confirmations, quotes, when it's ready, and afterwards to ask if you'd leave a review.
• If you tick the box to say yes, to send occasional tips and offers. You can unsubscribe at any time by replying to any email or asking me.

4. The legal basis

Doing the work you've asked for (contract), replying to enquiries (legitimate interests), and keeping financial records (legal obligation).

5. Your files

I only access what I need to on your device to do the job. I don't copy, keep or look through your files, except where the job needs it, for example data recovery or moving files to a new computer. Any temporary copies are deleted once the job is finished and you've confirmed everything's there.

· The Fault Finder

The Fault Finder is an AI helper. What you type, and any photo you add, is sent to an AI model running on my own equipment to produce an answer. If that's unavailable, it goes instead to Anthropic (the company behind the Claude AI) as a backup, which doesn't use it to train its models.

To keep a record of what the Fault Finder told you, the conversation (your messages and its replies) is saved on my own server for 90 days and then deleted automatically. Photos aren't kept in this record, and passwords, card numbers and recovery keys are removed before anything is saved. If you book in through it, the conversation and any photo are also emailed to me and kept like any other enquiry.

Its answers are a best guess to help you decide what to do next, not a diagnosis or advice you should rely on. Please don't type personal details you don't need to, and only photograph the problem.

· Usage counts

To see how the site and the Fault Finder are used, the site counts things each day: how many people visited, which pages they looked at, roughly where they came from (for example a Google search), whether they're on a phone or computer, how long a page was open, and how many tapped to call, WhatsApp or email. Only daily totals are kept long term. To understand usage and keep the site secure, a short log of visits (the time, IP address, the rough town the IP address points to, device type, where the visit came from and how many pages were viewed) is kept for 30 days and then deleted automatically. The town lookup happens on my own server; your IP address isn't sent to anyone else. Nothing is stored on your device, no cookies are used, and nothing is shared with anyone else. To avoid counting the same visitor twice in a day, a scrambled code is made from your IP address and browser and kept for that day only, then deleted.

6. Cookies

The site doesn't set any cookies for visitors: no tracking, advertising or analytics. The contact form is protected from spam without them. (The only cookie is a login cookie for my own admin area.) Fonts and videos are served from this site, not third parties.

Google reviews shown on the site are fetched from Google by my server. If you click through to Google, Google's own privacy policy applies.

7. Who I share it with

I don't sell your data. It's only shared where it has to be, such as with my email provider, or if the law requires it.

8. How long I keep it

Enquiries that don't lead to a job are deleted within a year. Job and payment records are kept for as long as the law requires for tax, usually around six years.

If you opt in to tips and offers, I keep a record of when you agreed, and stop as soon as you unsubscribe.

9. Your rights

You can ask for a copy of the data I hold about you, ask me to correct or delete it, or object to how it's used. Just get in touch. If you're unhappy with how I've handled your data, you can complain to the ICO at ico.org.uk.