Appeal Scout ("we", "our", or "us") is committed to protecting your privacy. This policy explains how we collect, use, and safeguard your personal data when you use our website and search engine at appealscout.co.uk.
1. Data Controller Information
Appeal Scout is the Data Controller responsible for your personal data under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018.
Contact Email:
2. What Personal Data We Collect
We only collect data that is necessary to deliver our research service and process transactions:
Identity & Contact Data: Email address and username when you create an account or subscribe to a Professional plan.
Transaction Data: Details about payments you make through our platform. Note: We do not store full credit card numbers on our servers. All payments are securely processed by Stripe.
Usage & Technical Data: IP addresses, search queries, browser type, and PDF download activity (used for performance optimization and enforcing our Fair Use Policy).
3. Personal Data Within the Appeal Archive
The appeal decisions in our archive are sourced from the Planning Inspectorate's own public records and republished under the Open Government Licence v3.0. These documents may contain personal data about third parties — such as appellants, agents, or other individuals named in a decision — that was already part of the public record before we indexed it.
We do not add to, verify, or otherwise enrich this personal data ourselves; we present it as published by the Planning Inspectorate. If you are named in a decision on our site and would like it reviewed for removal, please contact us at . We consider each request individually, weighing your rights against the public interest in maintaining an accurate record of planning decisions, and will not unreasonably refuse a legitimate request.
4. How We Use Your Data & Lawful Basis
Under UK GDPR, we process your personal data under the following lawful bases:
Performance of a Contract: To process your Professional Subscription, grant database access appropriate to your account tier, and send essential transactional emails (e.g. your "Magic Link" password setup).
Legitimate Interests: To protect our platform from automated scraping, prevent fraud, improve our search algorithms, and notify users of relevant updates.
Consent: Where you have given it — for example, analytics cookies (Google Analytics) only load if you accept them via our cookie banner, and you may withdraw consent at any time (see our Cookie Policy).
Legal Obligation: To maintain accurate tax and accounting records for purchases.
5. Third-Party Data Processors
We share necessary data with trusted service providers strictly to operate our business:
Google Fonts: We load web fonts directly from Google's servers to display our website correctly, which means your IP address is shared with Google when a page loads (Google Privacy Policy).
Google Analytics: With your consent (see our Cookie Policy), we use Google Analytics to understand how visitors use our site and improve it, which involves collecting anonymized usage data, your IP address, and browser information (Google Privacy Policy).
6. Data Retention
We keep your personal information only for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes we collected it for, including for the duration of your account or Professional Subscription, and to satisfy any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements.
7. Your Rights Under UK GDPR
You have the following legal rights regarding your personal data:
Right of Access: You can request a copy of the personal data we hold about you.
Right to Rectification: You can ask us to correct inaccurate or incomplete data.
Right to Erasure ("Right to be Forgotten"): You can ask us to delete your personal data where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it.
Right to Withdraw Consent: Where processing is based on consent, you may withdraw it at any time.
To exercise any of these rights, please contact us at .
8. Complaints
If you have concerns about our data practices, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the UK data protection authority, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) at ico.org.uk.
For privacy inquiries or data removal requests, email .
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