Who we are
OpenForBiz is a trading name of C&M IT Solutions LTD, a company registered in England and Wales. Our registered address is 20 Morris Drive, Stafford, ST16 3YE.
We provide an AI-powered local business visibility audit service. This privacy policy explains how we collect, use and protect your personal data when you use our service at openforbiz.uk.
If you have any questions about this policy, please contact us at hello@openforbiz.uk.
What data we collect
When you use OpenForBiz, we collect the following information:
- Business information — the business name, postcode, category and website URL you provide when requesting an audit.
- Contact details — your name and email address, used to send you your audit report.
- Payment information — if you purchase a full report, your payment is processed by Stripe. We do not store your card details. Please refer to Stripe's privacy policy for how they handle payment data.
- Usage data — basic information about how you use our website, including pages visited and audit reports viewed.
How we use your data
We use the information you provide to:
- Run the visibility audit for your business and generate your report
- Email you your audit report and score
- Process your payment for a full report (via Stripe)
- Send you follow-up emails about your audit results if you have opted in
- Improve our service and fix errors
We will not sell your personal data to third parties. We will not use your data for advertising purposes.
Legal basis for processing
We process your personal data on the following legal bases under UK GDPR:
- Contract performance — processing your audit request and delivering your report
- Legitimate interests — improving our service and communicating with you about your audit
- Legal obligation — retaining records as required by law
Third party services
We use the following third party services to operate OpenForBiz:
- Anthropic (Claude API) — used to generate the text in your audit report. Business data is sent to Anthropic's API to produce your report. See Anthropic's privacy policy.
- Google Maps Platform — used to look up your business on Google and retrieve accurate review counts and business information. See Google's privacy policy.
- Stripe — used to process payments securely. See Stripe's privacy policy.
- Resend — used to send transactional emails including your audit report. See Resend's privacy policy.
Data retention
We retain your audit data for up to 2 years to allow you to access your report. You may request deletion of your data at any time by emailing hello@openforbiz.uk.
Payment records are retained for 7 years as required by HMRC regulations.
Your rights
Under UK GDPR, you have the right to:
- Access — request a copy of the personal data we hold about you
- Rectification — ask us to correct inaccurate data
- Erasure — ask us to delete your data (the "right to be forgotten")
- Restriction — ask us to restrict how we use your data
- Portability — receive your data in a portable format
- Object — object to processing based on legitimate interests
To exercise any of these rights, email us at hello@openforbiz.uk. We will respond within 30 days.
Cookies
We use only essential cookies required for the website to function. We do not use advertising or tracking cookies. No cookie consent banner is required as we only use strictly necessary cookies.
Security
We take reasonable technical and organisational measures to protect your data, including HTTPS encryption, secure database storage, and restricted access to personal data.
Complaints
If you are unhappy with how we handle your data, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) at ico.org.uk or by calling 0303 123 1113.
Changes to this policy
We may update this privacy policy from time to time. We will notify you of significant changes by email if we hold your contact details. The current version will always be available at openforbiz.uk/privacy.