Privacy Policy
Last updated: 15 November 2026
This policy explains what personal data DOBfind uses, where it comes from, why we use it, and the rights you have under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018.
1. Who we are
DOBfind (dobfind.co.uk) is operated by [Company legal name], a company registered in England and Wales under number [company number], with its registered office at [registered address].
We are the data controller for the personal data described in this policy. We are registered with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) under registration number [ICO number].
Contact for all privacy matters: [privacy@dobfind.co.uk], or write to the address above marked "Data Protection".
2. Data about company directors
DOBfind republishes information from the public register held by Companies House. If you are, or have been, a director, secretary or person with significant control (PSC) of a UK company, we may hold the following about you:
- Your full name and any former names
- Your month and year of birth (we never hold or show the day)
- Nationality, occupation and country of residence
- Your correspondence (service) address as filed with Companies House
- Your company appointments, with appointment and resignation dates
- Your nature of control over a company, if you are a PSC
- Any disqualification order published by Companies House or the Insolvency Service
- Related notices published in The Gazette
- Charity trusteeships and FCA approved-person status, where these are on a public register
Where this data comes from
We did not collect this data from you directly. It comes from free official public registers: Companies House (company, officer, PSC and disqualified directors data), The Gazette, the Charity Commission for England and Wales, the Scottish Charity Regulator (OSCR), the FCA Financial Services Register, Contracts Finder and the Electoral Commission. These are published under the Open Government Licence v3.0 or the register's own reuse terms. This section is our notice to you under Article 14 of the UK GDPR.
What we do not hold
We do not hold your full date of birth, your residential address where Companies House has protected it, your phone number, personal email, financial information or identity documents. We do not combine register data with data from other people-search sites, social media or data brokers.
3. Data about visitors and users
| Data | Why we use it |
|---|---|
| Search terms you enter | To show results. Searches are not linked to your identity and are kept only in aggregate statistics. |
| The name or nickname you give in the chat, your chat messages, any files you send, and a random chat ID stored in your browser | To let you talk to our admin team and keep your conversation together. |
| Your approximate country (worked out from your IP address, which we don't keep with your chat), browser, device type, screen size and language | To help us answer you (for example, knowing your time zone) and to keep the chat secure and stop abuse. |
| Name, email and details given in a removal or correction request | To verify and handle your request and keep a record that we did so. |
| IP address, browser type and request times (server logs) | To keep the site secure, stop abuse and scraping, and fix faults. |
4. Our lawful basis
Director data: legitimate interests (Article 6(1)(f) UK GDPR). Our interest, and the interest of the public, is in transparency about who runs and controls UK companies. This supports due diligence, fraud prevention, journalism and informed business decisions. Parliament made this information public for the same reason. We have carried out and documented a legitimate interests assessment, which balances these interests against directors' privacy. To protect directors we show only month and year of birth, use correspondence addresses only, block bulk extraction, and honour objections (see Remove my profile).
Chat and requests: legitimate interests in answering your enquiry, and legal obligation (Article 6(1)(c)) where we must handle a data protection request.
Server logs and security: legitimate interests in keeping the service secure.
We do not use your data for automated decision-making that has legal or similarly significant effects on you.
5. Who we share data with
We do not sell personal data. We share it only with service providers who process it on our behalf under a written contract:
- Hosting provider: [VPS provider name, country]
- AI summary provider, if enabled: Anthropic, which processes register data to write short profile summaries. It does not receive chat messages or request forms.
- Email provider for replying to requests: [provider]
We may disclose data where the law requires it, for example to the police or a court.
6. International transfers
Our main servers are in [country]. Where a provider processes data outside the UK, we rely on UK adequacy regulations or the International Data Transfer Agreement / UK Addendum to the EU Standard Contractual Clauses.
7. How long we keep data
- Director profiles: updated daily from Companies House. If Companies House removes or changes a record, we do the same at the next update. Appointments in companies dissolved more than 6 years ago are removed from public view.
- Chat messages: 12 months after your last message, then deleted.
- Removal and rights requests: 6 years, so we can show we handled them and keep a suppressed profile hidden.
- Server logs: 30 days.
8. Your rights
You have the right to:
- Be informed about how we use your data (this policy).
- Access a copy of the data we hold about you.
- Rectification: have inaccurate data corrected.
- Erasure: have your data deleted in certain circumstances.
- Restriction: ask us to limit how we use your data.
- Object to our use of your data based on legitimate interests (Article 21). If you object, we will stop unless we have compelling legitimate grounds that override your interests.
- Data portability where it applies.
Use our request form or email [privacy@dobfind.co.uk]. It's free. We reply within one month. We may extend this by up to two more months for complex requests, and we will tell you if we do.
Removing your profile from DOBfind does not remove it from the Companies House register. To change what Companies House publishes, contact Companies House directly.
9. Cookies
We use only strictly necessary storage: a random ID in your browser so the chat remembers your conversation, and a session cookie for site security. We do not use advertising or tracking cookies. If we add analytics later, we will ask for your consent first.
10. Security
All traffic uses HTTPS. Chat messages are encrypted in transit and at rest. Admin access requires two-factor authentication. We rate-limit searches and block bulk scraping. If a breach is likely to put your rights at risk, we will tell the ICO within 72 hours and tell you without undue delay.
11. Complaints
Please contact us first and we will try to resolve your concern. You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office: ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint, phone 0303 123 1113.
12. Changes to this policy
We will post any changes on this page and update the date at the top. Significant changes will also be shown on the home page.
Draft template. Fill in the highlighted fields and have it checked by a UK data protection adviser before launch.