Privacy Policy

Bird & Bear Group Limited ("Bird & Bear", "we", "us") is committed to protecting your privacy. This policy explains what personal data we collect through this website, why we collect it, how we use and store it, and what rights you have over it.

Who we are

Bird & Bear Group Limited is a company registered in England & Wales, company no. 17378129, registered office at 124-128 City Road, London, England, EC1V 2NX. For the purposes of data protection law, Bird & Bear is the data controller for the personal data described in this policy.

Contact for any privacy query: tim.hutton@birdandbear.io.

What we collect, and why

Contact form

When you submit the contact form on this site, we collect your name, email address, the content of your message, and whether you've identified yourself as a brand/in-house team or an agency. We use this solely to respond to your enquiry. The legal basis for this processing is our legitimate interest in responding to enquiries you've chosen to send us.

Newsletter signup

If you sign up for our occasional newsletter, we collect your email address. We use this to send you the newsletter you've asked to receive. The legal basis for this processing is your consent, given by submitting the form — you can withdraw that consent at any time (see "Your rights" below).

Cookies

When you first visit, a banner asks which of the following you're happy for us to use. Nothing beyond what's strictly necessary runs until you choose, and you can change your mind at any time via the "Cookie Preferences" link in the footer of every page.

• Strictly necessary — required for the site to work. Always on, and not something you can opt out of, since the site can't function without it.
• Analytics — helps us understand how the site is used (for example, Google Analytics), so we can improve it. Off until you agree.
• Marketing — used to measure marketing performance and, if enabled, to show relevant ads (for example, Google Ads). Off by default, and only switched on if you specifically agree to it.

We use Google's Consent Mode to pass your choice to Google's own tools, so that if you decline Analytics or Marketing cookies, Google doesn't set the corresponding cookies or use your data for those purposes either. Where a category is active, the relevant Google service processes data under its own terms — see Google's Privacy Policy.

As of the date at the top of this page, we haven't yet switched on any Analytics or Marketing tools behind this banner — it's here ready for when we do, so nothing runs before you've had the chance to choose. We'll update this section to name the specific tools in use once that happens.

How we store your data

Data submitted through the contact form and newsletter signup is stored in Google Firestore (part of Google Cloud / Firebase), hosted in Google's London (europe-west2) region. Access to this data is restricted to Bird & Bear; it is not accessible directly by website visitors and is not sold or shared with third parties for their own marketing purposes.

Contact form submissions may be relayed to us via a transactional email service purely so we're notified of your message — that service is not used for marketing and does not retain your data beyond delivering that notification.

If we begin using a dedicated email marketing platform (e.g. Mailchimp, ConvertKit or similar) to send the newsletter, newsletter sign-up data will be transferred to that platform, and we'll update this policy to name the provider and link to their own privacy policy at that point.

How long we keep it

Contact form submissions are kept for as long as reasonably necessary to deal with your enquiry and any follow-up, and are deleted or anonymised when no longer needed. Newsletter sign-up data is kept for as long as you remain subscribed, and deleted promptly if you unsubscribe or ask us to remove it.

Your rights

Under UK GDPR, you have the right to:

• Ask what personal data we hold about you, and request a copy of it.
• Ask us to correct inaccurate data.
• Ask us to delete your data ("right to be forgotten").
• Ask us to restrict or object to how we use your data.
• Withdraw consent at any time (e.g. unsubscribe from the newsletter, or change your cookie choices via the footer link).
• Request your data in a portable format.

To exercise any of these rights, email tim.hutton@birdandbear.io. You also have the right to complain to the UK's data protection regulator, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), if you believe we haven't handled your data properly.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time — for example, when we add analytics, cookies, or a new email provider, as noted above. The "last updated" date at the top of this page will always reflect the most recent change.