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This privacy notice tells you what to expect us to do with your personal information. Told & Traced is registered with the Information Commissioner's Office; our data protection registration number is C2014212.
Email: hello@toldandtraced.co.uk · Telephone: 07904 969460
To research and produce your family history, and to deliver it, we collect and use: names and contact details; addresses; dates of birth; purchase and account history; payment details; photographs and recordings you give us; recordings and transcripts of interviews; and the names, dates, places and family relationships of living relatives, whether you supply them or we find them in public records. Where someone chooses to tell us — or where a public record shows it — this can include health information, religious or philosophical beliefs, political opinions, racial or ethnic origin, and information about criminal offences or alleged offences. Information of that kind carries additional protection because of its sensitive nature.
We also use names, contact details, addresses, payment details and purchase history to run customer accounts and honour our guarantee; name, contact and financial transaction information to comply with the law; and names, contact details, addresses, payment details, service history, account records and correspondence to deal with queries, complaints or claims.
For providing the service we rely on contract — we need the information to enter into or carry out our agreement with you — and on legitimate interests for the people involved who are not our client. Some of the people whose information we handle did not commission the work: living relatives named in the tree, and the interview subject whose recollections are recorded. A family history cannot be researched without holding information about them, and the work benefits them and their descendants by preserving an account that would otherwise be lost. We keep the impact proportionate: we record only what the history itself requires, we ask the interview subject for their agreement at the start of every recording, we publish nothing without their approval, and we delete a subject's recording on request regardless of what our client wants. Nobody is contacted for marketing on this basis, and nothing is sold or shared beyond the suppliers named below.
For customer accounts and guarantees we rely on contract; for legal requirements, legal obligation; and for queries, complaints or claims, both.
Under UK data protection law you have the right of access, the right to rectification, the right to erasure, the right to restriction of processing, the right to object to processing, the right to data portability, and — where we rely on consent — the right to withdraw it. Which rights apply depends on the lawful basis. To make a request, contact us using the details above; we will respond without undue delay and in any event within one month.
Directly from you; from your own relatives, who may supply names, dates, photographs and recollections about other members of the family; from the interview subject, recorded with their agreement; from councils and other public sector organisations; from publicly available sources; from genealogical record subscription services such as Ancestry and FindMyPast; and from public record offices and civil registration bodies, including the General Register Office for Northern Ireland and the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland.
We keep your research file, recordings and transcripts for seven years from the date we deliver your finished work, so that we can answer questions about it and supply further copies. After that they are permanently deleted. You may ask us at any time to delete them sooner, or to hand over the complete file, and we will do so within 30 days. Where we have recorded an interview with someone other than you, that person may ask us to delete their recording at any time, and we will do so regardless of your wishes. Payment and accounting records are kept for six years from the end of the relevant tax year, as UK tax law requires.
Where necessary our data processors may share personal information outside the UK, complying with the UK GDPR and making sure appropriate safeguards are in place. Google LLC (cloud email and file storage, United States) and Stripe, Inc. (payment services, United States) each receive information under Adequacy Regulations — the UK data bridge.
If you have any concerns about our use of your personal information, complain to us first: hello@toldandtraced.co.uk, or 07904 969460. If you remain unhappy afterwards you can also complain to the Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF — helpline 0303 123 1113, ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint.
Last updated 23 August 2026.