Privacy notice

Last reviewed: 25 October 2026 · Contact: start@snedden.net

Who is responsible for your information?

Charles Snedden is a sole trader trading as Snedden.net, of 11 Castle View, Hatton, DE65 5QL. For questions about personal information, email start@snedden.net.

If an email-triage service is provided to a business, that business will generally decide why its customer and email data is used. Snedden.net would handle that information only under agreed instructions. The final service agreement will describe each party’s role.

What information may be handled?

If you email us, or send an enquiry through the form on this website, we handle your name, email address, the topic you select, the message you write, and records of our reply. The website and its email account are provided by HostGator, a commercial hosting provider based in the United States, so this information is stored and processed there rather than in the UK. Ask us for details of HostGator's data processing and security terms if you'd like to see them before getting in touch.

The planned email service may involve message content, sender and recipient details, attachments, conversation history and customer profiles. For a new enquiry, Helen and Flynn will make the first check: they may read and store the message, classify it, move suspected spam, create customer context, and draft or send a reply under agreed rules. The service is still being designed and is not currently connected to customer mailboxes. The exact permissions and when a person must approve an action, including sending or moving messages, still need to be specified before a pilot.

Why would information be used?

Enquiry information may be used to respond to requests, discuss needs, prepare proposals, provide agreed services, maintain security and meet legal obligations. Helen and Flynn are planned to make the first check of Snedden.net enquiries automatically. A reply about the enquiry is separate from permission to send future marketing. No marketing will be sent unless the person has given valid, recorded consent for email marketing, or another lawful route has been checked and documented. A new enquiry by itself is not marketing consent.

We plan to ask for email-marketing permission only where the rules allow us to do so. An email asking someone to consent to marketing can itself count as direct marketing, so Helen and Flynn must not send a standalone marketing-consent request unless a valid PECR route applies. If a person does not reply, their status stays “not opted in.” For any consent we rely on, the CRM will record the address, status, date, source email/thread, and the consent wording shown. Every marketing email will include a simple unsubscribe method.

For email triage, the customer business will set the purpose and permitted actions, and Snedden.net will act under the agreed instructions.

Helen and Flynn may classify and summarise messages and build customer profiles from approved context. The service is intended to support business staff; each customer’s profile and message-handling rules, human review points, and any automatic sending must be documented before a pilot.

AI and service providers

The planned AI routes are the OpenAI API and Anthropic API. They are not currently processing customer mail through this service. Message content and approved customer context may be sent to the API selected for a customer. Before a pilot, we must identify the exact model, account owner, processing region, retention and logging settings, support access and any international-transfer safeguards, then state those details in the service information.

A customer’s choice of local or AWS hosting will not by itself keep information local if a hosted OpenAI or Anthropic API processes message content. The final service information and agreement must explain the actual configuration.

Retention, security and your rights

We keep personal information only for as long as it is needed for the stated purpose, then delete or anonymise it. These are the proposed periods for Snedden.net’s own records:

• Active enquiry: Keep the email thread and relevant contact details while we are discussing the person’s needs and handling the request. If no service follows, keep the original enquiry for four weeks after the discussion closes, then delete it.
• Closed enquiry summary: If a short summary is still needed for a documented business reason, keep only the minimum details for up to 12 months after the last meaningful contact, review it at that point, then delete or anonymise it. Do not keep a full profile “just in case,” and do not use a summary for marketing without valid marketing permission.
• Marketing permission: Keep a record while consent remains active and the marketing purpose is current. Review the list at least annually and remove stale or unnecessary details. A person can withdraw consent or object at any time.
• Marketing opt-out: Stop marketing promptly. Keep only the minimum suppression record (usually the email address and the “do not market” status, with the date) for as long as needed to ensure the person’s choice is respected. This record is not used to send marketing.
• Customer records: Keep necessary contract and service records for the contract term plus 180 days, then delete or anonymise them unless a specific legal obligation or live dispute requires a relevant record for longer.

For customer-connected mailboxes, profiles, AI-processing logs and backups, the retention period must be agreed with each customer and reflected in the service agreement before a pilot; the periods above do not automatically apply to those customer-controlled records.

We aim to respond to deletion requests within one month. A deletion request does not automatically require us to erase information that we still need to handle an active enquiry, comply with a legal obligation, establish or defend a legal claim, or honour a marketing opt-out. If we retain anything after a request, we will limit it to what is necessary and explain why. We aim to confirm completion in writing. Security controls will be designed and tested for the agreed service before a live pilot.

Depending on the circumstances and the lawful basis used, UK data-protection law may give you rights to access, correct, erase, restrict, object to or transfer personal information, and to withdraw consent where consent is the basis. You have an absolute right to object to direct marketing. You can contact us at start@snedden.net. You may also complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office at ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint.

This notice will be updated as the email-triage pilot and its data handling are confirmed.