Privacy Policy
Last Updated: 25 July 2025
1. Introduction
Welcome to Music Linguist. We are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, store, and protect your personal data when you visit and use our website, https://musiclinguist.co.uk (our "Service").
This policy will also inform you about your privacy rights and how the law protects you.
2. Who We Are (Data Controller)
For the purpose of the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR), the data controller is:
- Name: George Burgess, trading as Music Linguist
- Location: Birmingham, UK
- Contact Email: For any data protection queries, please email us at george@musiclinguist.co.uk.
3. What Personal Data We Collect
We collect data to operate our Service effectively and provide you with the best experience.
a) Data You Provide to Us:
- Contact Data: Your email address when you create an account or contact us.
- Account Data: Your password (which is stored in a hashed, unreadable format) and any user preferences you set.
- User-Generated Content: Any notes, answers to questions, lyrics, or other text you create and save within our Service.
- Communications: Any feedback or information you provide when you communicate with us.
b) Data We Collect Automatically:
- Technical Data: Your IP address, device type, operating system, browser type and version, and general geographic location (country).
- Usage Data: Information about how you interact with our Service, such as the pages you visit, the features you use, and the time you spend on the site. We use Vercel Analytics and Hotjar for this purpose.
4. How We Use Your Data & Our Lawful Basis
We only use your personal data when the law allows us to. Below, we have set out the purposes for which we use your data and the lawful basis we rely on for each.
| Purpose / Activity | Data Types Used | Lawful Basis for Processing |
|---|---|---|
| To register you as a new user and manage your account. | Contact, Account | Performance of a Contract with you. |
| To provide the core Service, including saving and processing your User-Generated Content. | User-Generated Content, Account | Performance of a Contract with you. |
| To process payments for the Service. | Contact (passed to our payment processor) | Performance of a Contract with you. |
| To manage our relationship with you, including sending essential transactional emails (e.g., password resets, billing notifications). | Contact, Account | Legitimate Interest (to keep our records updated and manage your use of the service). |
| To send you marketing newsletters and promotional offers. | Contact | Consent. You can withdraw consent at any time by clicking the "unsubscribe" link in any marketing email. |
| To analyse website usage to improve our Service, troubleshoot issues, and enhance user experience. | Technical, Usage | Legitimate Interest (for us to develop our products/services and grow our business). |
| To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations. | Transactional records (held by our payment processor) | Legal Obligation. |
5. Who We Share Your Personal Data With
We do not sell your personal data. We may share your data with trusted third-party service providers (known as "data processors") who help us operate our Service:
- Hosting & Database: Vercel (USA) and Supabase (UK) provide the cloud infrastructure to host our website and your data.
- Payment Processing: Paddle (UK/Ireland) securely handles all payment card information and processing. We do not store your full payment card details.
- Analytics: Vercel Analytics (USA) and Hotjar (Malta) help us understand how our users interact with the site.
6. International Data Transfers
Some of our external third parties are based outside the UK, so their processing of your personal data will involve a transfer of data outside the UK.
- To the USA: When we transfer your data to Vercel, we rely on the UK Extension to the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework, which ensures that your data is protected to a standard deemed adequate by the UK government.
- To the European Economic Area (EEA): When we transfer data to Hotjar (Malta), we rely on the UK's adequacy decision regarding the EEA, which means data can flow freely as it is protected to the same high standard.
7. Data Security
We have implemented appropriate technical and organisational security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used, or accessed in an unauthorised way. These measures include SSL/TLS encryption for data in transit and strict access controls.
8. Data Retention
We will only retain your personal data for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for.
- Account Data: We retain your account data for as long as your account is active. If your account is inactive for 24 months, we will delete it.
- Analytics Data: We retain analytics data for 12 months.
- Financial Records: Our payment processor, Paddle, retains transaction data for 7 years to comply with UK tax and accounting laws.
9. Your Data Protection Rights
Under UK data protection law, you have rights including:
- Right of Access: To ask for a copy of your personal data.
- Right to Rectification: To ask us to correct inaccurate or incomplete data.
- Right to Erasure: To ask us to delete your personal data.
- Right to Restrict Processing: To ask us to suspend the processing of your data.
- Right to Data Portability: To ask us to transfer your data to you or another party.
- Right to Object: To object to our processing of your data (e.g., for marketing).
You can exercise many of these rights directly via your account settings. For any other requests, please contact us at george@musiclinguist.co.uk.
10. User-Generated Content
Our Service allows you to create and store your own content, such as lyrics. We advise you not to include any sensitive personal information (e.g., relating to your health, religion, or political beliefs) in this content.
11. Children's Data
Our Service is not intended for or directed at children under the age of 13, and we do not knowingly collect data relating to children.
12. Cookies
Our website uses cookies. For detailed information on the cookies we use and the purposes for which we use them, please see our Cookie Policy.
13. Changes to This Policy
We may update this policy from time to time. We will notify you of any significant changes by posting the new policy on this page and, where appropriate, by email.