Privacy Policy

We are committed to handling your personal information in line with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018.

Who we are

Five Minute Business is a business-media brand publishing fast, practical answers to business questions.

For the purposes of UK data protection law, the data controller is Five Minute Business. We are not yet incorporated as a company; until we are, the data controller is the owner trading as Five Minute Business.

• Data protection contact: contact@fiveminutebusiness.com

If you have any question about this policy or how we use your information, contact us at the email address above.

The information we collect

We keep data collection to a minimum. Depending on how you use the Site, we may collect the following.

Information you give us directly

• Email address when you subscribe to our newsletter, request a downloadable resource (a "vault") or ask us to email you the result of a calculator or tool.
• Your name or first name, only where you choose to provide it in a sign-up form.
• Information you submit to a calculator or interactive tool (for example, figures you enter to estimate a cost). Where this is sent to you by email, we process it to deliver your result; we do not use it to identify you beyond that purpose.
• The content of any message you send us by email or through a contact form.

Information we collect automatically

• Technical and usage data such as your IP address, browser type, device type, referring page and the pages you view. We collect this through privacy-focused, cookieless website analytics (see section 8). Where possible this data is aggregated and does not identify you.
• Anti-spam data generated when you submit a form, used solely to confirm you are a genuine human and to protect the Site from abuse (we use Cloudflare Turnstile for this).

We do not intentionally collect any special category data (such as health, ethnicity or political opinions), and we ask that you do not send us such information.

How and why we use your information

We use your personal information only for the purposes below, and we rely on a specific lawful basis for each.

Where we rely on consent, you can withdraw it at any time (see section 7). Where we rely on legitimate interests, we have assessed that our use does not override your rights and freedoms; you can object at any time.

We operate double opt-in for our newsletter: after you sign up, we send a confirmation email and only add you to the list once you confirm. We never buy or rent email lists.

Marketing and your choices

If you subscribe, we will send you our newsletter and occasional related emails. Every marketing email includes a one-click unsubscribe link, and you can opt out at any time. You can also email contact@fiveminutebusiness.com to be removed.

If we ever introduce sponsored content or advertising within the newsletter, we will always make this clear and it will not involve sharing your personal data with the sponsor unless we have asked for and obtained your separate consent.

Who we share your information with

We do not sell your personal information. We run our own newsletter system rather than a third-party newsletter platform, and we store subscriber details on our own infrastructure. We share your information only with the limited service providers ("processors") that help us host and run the Site, and only as far as needed. These currently include:

• Cloudflare, Inc. — website hosting, content delivery, security and anti-spam (Turnstile), cookieless analytics, and the secure storage of subscriber email addresses on our infrastructure.
• Amazon Web Services, Inc. (Amazon SES) — the email delivery service used to send our newsletter and confirmation emails reliably to your inbox, configured to operate in the UK (London) region.
• Google LLC — Google Search Console, used to understand search performance (this uses aggregated search data, not your identifiable personal data).

Each provider acts on our instructions under a data processing agreement. We may also disclose information where required by law, regulation or a valid legal request, or to establish, exercise or defend legal claims.

International transfers

Our email delivery (Amazon SES) is configured to process data in the UK (London) region, so your subscriber details and our emails are handled within the UK. Some of our other providers (including Cloudflare and Google) are based in, or may store data in, the United States or other countries outside the UK. When we transfer your personal information outside the UK, we make sure it is protected by an appropriate safeguard, which will be one of the following:

• the UK-US Data Bridge (the UK Extension to the EU-US Data Privacy Framework), where the provider is certified under it; or
• the UK's International Data Transfer Agreement (IDTA) or the EU Standard Contractual Clauses with the UK Addendum; or
• a transfer to a country the UK Government has deemed to provide adequate protection.

You can ask us for more detail on the safeguards in place for any specific transfer.

Your rights

Under UK data protection law you have the right to:

• be informed about how we use your data (this policy);
• access the personal data we hold about you;
• rectify inaccurate or incomplete data;
• erase your data ("right to be forgotten"), in certain circumstances;
• restrict our processing of your data, in certain circumstances;
• object to processing based on legitimate interests, and to direct marketing at any time;
• data portability, to receive your data in a structured, machine-readable format; and
• withdraw consent at any time, where we rely on consent.

To exercise any of these rights, email contact@fiveminutebusiness.com. We will respond within one month. Exercising your rights is free, although we may charge a reasonable fee or refuse a request that is manifestly unfounded or excessive.

If you are unhappy with how we have handled your data, you can complain to the UK regulator, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), at ico.org.uk, by calling 0303 123 1113, or by post to Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF. We would, however, appreciate the chance to resolve your concern first.

Cookies and analytics

We aim to run the Site with no non-essential cookies and no cross-site tracking.

• Analytics: we use privacy-focused, cookieless analytics (Cloudflare Web Analytics or Plausible). These measure overall traffic and page performance without setting tracking cookies, without building a profile of you and without sharing your data with advertisers. Because of this, we do not show an intrusive cookie banner.
• Essential cookies / similar technologies: we may use a small number of strictly necessary cookies or local storage, for example for security and anti-spam (Cloudflare Turnstile) or to remember a preference. These are required for the Site to work and do not need consent under the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR).

If we ever introduce non-essential cookies, we will update this policy and ask for your consent first.

How long we keep your information

• Newsletter subscribers: for as long as you remain subscribed, and for a short period afterwards to honour your unsubscribe and meet our record-keeping duties. If you unsubscribe, we remove or suppress your details promptly.
• Calculator/tool inputs sent by email: retained only as long as needed to deliver your result, then deleted or anonymised.
• Enquiry emails: typically kept for up to 24 months after our last contact, unless a longer period is needed for a legal reason.
• Analytics data: retained in aggregated form only.

How we protect your information

We use appropriate technical and organisational measures to keep your information secure, including encryption in transit (HTTPS), access controls, reputable infrastructure providers and data minimisation. No method of transmission over the internet is completely secure, but we work to protect your data and to deal quickly with any suspected breach.

Children

The Site is intended for business professionals and is not directed at children under 16. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children. If you believe a child has provided us with personal data, contact us and we will delete it.

Third-party links

The Site and our content may link to third-party websites and primary sources (for example GOV.UK, HMRC or Companies House). We are not responsible for the privacy practices of those sites. Please review their privacy policies before providing them with any personal information.

Changes to this policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. The "Last updated" date at the top shows when it was last changed. If we make a significant change, we will take reasonable steps to bring it to your attention, for example by a notice on the Site or an email to subscribers.

Contact us

Questions, requests or complaints about this policy or your personal data:

Five Minute Business
Email: contact@fiveminutebusiness.com