Privacy notice

Who we are

The Margin Department is a trading name of Margin Department Limited, registered in England and Wales, company number 15739593. Registered office: The Old Vicarage, Vicarage Road, Ditton Priors, Bridgnorth, WV16 6SP.

We decide how the personal information on this page is used, which makes us its "controller". Questions about it go to Ro Ballard, Director: [email protected] or +44 7980 277780.

We're registered with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), registration number ZB744689.

Visiting the website

The site is hosted by Cloudflare. To deliver pages and protect the site from attacks, Cloudflare processes technical information about each visit, such as your IP address, your browser and device type, the page asked for, the time, and security signals.

We don't use any analytics or visitor-tracking tools.

Why and on what basis: to run a working, secure website. That's our legitimate interest.

Booking a chat

"Book a chat" opens Microsoft Bookings. It collects your name, email address, phone number and any notes you add, and sends you a confirmation.

Why and on what basis: to arrange the call and follow up. That's taking steps you've asked for before a possible contract, and our legitimate interest in replying to business enquiries.

Emails and calls

If you email or ring, we keep your message and contact details so we can reply and keep a record of what was agreed.

Basis: legitimate interests, and the contract if you become a client.

The client login

Clients (and our own team) sign in with their email address. Cloudflare Access emails a one-time code, so Cloudflare holds the email addresses we've allowed in and records each sign-in: the email used, the time and the IP address. Only the people a client names can see that client's area.

When you sign in, Cloudflare sets a cookie that keeps you signed in for a limited time. It's strictly necessary for the login to work, so we don't ask for consent.

Some client pages show a live dashboard from Mammoth, our data platform, which may set its own cookies to work.

Basis: the contract with our client, and our legitimate interest in keeping client information secure.

Business contacts

We may hold work contact details for people at businesses we'd like to work with, taken from public sources such as company websites and LinkedIn. We use them only for occasional, relevant business contact. Ask us to stop and we will.

Basis: legitimate interests.

Client project data

The data a client shares for a margin project, such as sales, costs and payroll, isn't covered by this notice. It's covered by the engagement letter and data agreement the client signs, where we act for the client. Those documents name the services that handle it: Mammoth (data platform), Microsoft 365 (email, files and bookings), Anthropic (Claude, the AI that helps analyse the data and draft reports) and Cloudflare (the client login).

Cookies

The only cookies are the ones the client login needs, plus any the Mammoth dashboard sets inside the client area. No advertising or tracking cookies, so there's no cookie banner.

Who else handles your information

• Cloudflare: website hosting, security and the client login
• Microsoft (Microsoft 365, Bookings and SharePoint): email, calendar, bookings and where we keep contact records
• Mammoth: client dashboards
• Our accountant: where needed for invoicing and the law

We don't sell personal information, and we don't use it to make automated decisions about you.

Where it goes

Information may be handled in the UK, the European Union, Switzerland (Ro works partly from Geneva) and the USA, depending on the service. Where it leaves the UK, we rely on the safeguards UK law requires, such as approved transfer arrangements in our providers' terms.

How long we keep it

• Enquiries and bookings that don't lead to work: up to 2 years from our last contact.
• Clients: for as long as we work together, then 6 years, for accounting and legal reasons.
• Client login access: removed when a project ends or someone leaves the client.
• Business contacts: until you ask us to stop, or 2 years with no contact.

Your rights

You can ask us to:

• send you a copy of what we hold about you
• correct it
• delete it
• limit how we use it, or object to it, including any business contact
• move it to another provider, where that applies

Email [email protected]. We'll reply within a month.

If you're unhappy, please tell us first so we can put it right. You can also complain to the Information Commissioner's Office: ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint or 0303 123 1113.

Changes

If this notice changes, we'll update it here and change the date at the top.