Privacy notice

Last updated: 16 July 2026

Who we are

The Local Link Ayrshire (referred to as "we", "us", "our") operates this website at https://www.thelocallinkayrshire.com/. We're the data controller for the personal information we collect through this site.

You can reach us at thelocallinkayrshire@gmail.com.

What we collect, and why

We collect personal information only when you give it to us, and only what we need:

• Membership applications — your name, business name, category, town, email, phone, social handles, website, and the answers you give about why you'd like to join. Lawful basis: your consent, given when you submit the form.
• Contact form messages — your name, email, optional subject, and message. Lawful basis: your consent.
• Newsletter subscribers — your email address only. Lawful basis: your consent, given when you tick the box on the newsletter form.
• Server logs — your IP address, the page you requested, the time, and basic browser information. Held by our host for normal security and troubleshooting reasons. Lawful basis: our legitimate interest in keeping the site secure.
• Admin login attempts — if you try to log in to the admin area, we keep the IP and email for up to 7 days to detect brute-force attempts. Lawful basis: legitimate interest.

What we don't do

• We don't use advertising or marketing cookies.
• We don't use analytics that tracks you across other sites.
• We don't load fonts, scripts or images from third-party CDNs without consent — assets are self-hosted.
• We don't sell or rent your information to anyone.

How long we keep your information

• Pending applications: kept while under review, then either become a directory listing on approval, or are deleted within 90 days of rejection.
• Approved business listings: kept for as long as you're a member; deleted within 30 days of you leaving or asking us to remove them.
• Contact messages: kept up to 12 months after the last reply, then deleted.
• Newsletter subscribers: kept until you unsubscribe. After unsubscribe we keep a record of the unsubscribe (just the email + timestamp) so we don't accidentally re-add you.
• Login attempts: auto-deleted after 7 days.

Who we share information with

Only our hosting provider, who stores the database and serves the site on our behalf. They act as our data processor and don't use your information for their own purposes.

Your rights under UK GDPR

You have the right to:

• access a copy of the personal information we hold about you,
• have it corrected if it's wrong,
• have it deleted (the "right to be forgotten"),
• withdraw your consent at any time,
• object to processing or restrict how we use it,
• complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ico.org.uk) if you think we've handled your information badly.

To exercise any of these, email thelocallinkayrshire@gmail.com. We'll respond within one month.

Security

We protect your information with industry-standard measures: HTTPS in transit, passwords stored as bcrypt hashes, prepared SQL statements, CSRF tokens on every form, and rate-limited admin login. No system is perfectly secure, but we take this seriously.

Changes to this notice

If we change how we handle information, we'll update this page and bump the "last updated" date at the top. Material changes will also be mentioned in the next newsletter.