Privacy Policy

Last updated: 1 September 2026

This Privacy Policy sets out how Portcroft Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales under company number 17383266 ("Portcroft", "we", "us", "our"), collects, uses and protects personal data in connection with your use of portcroft.com, including the Portcroft Assistant (together, the "Site"). It applies to visitors and enquirers only and does not extend to any separate client engagement terms.

Data Controller

Portcroft is the data controller in respect of personal data processed through this Site. Our registered office is at Bartle House, 9 Oxford Court, Manchester, M2 3WQ, United Kingdom. Portcroft is registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office, reference ZC218247. Enquiries regarding this Policy or any personal data held should be directed to our contact address.

Personal Data We Collect

We do not use cookies or advertising trackers on this Site. If you arrive by way of a link that carries a campaign tag, for example from a social media post, we hold that tag in your browser's session storage for the length of your visit, so that if you go on to send an enquiry or subscribe we know which post or channel it came from. This is not a cookie, is never shared with a third party, is not used to identify you, and disappears the moment you close the tab. If you choose how a page looks or is laid out, for example the Insights layout or night reading, that choice is kept in your browser’s local storage so the site appears the same way on your next visit. These are display settings only, are never sent to us and identify nobody; clearing your browser’s data for this Site removes them. We collect your name and email address, together with any company name, telephone number, subject and message you provide, when you send an enquiry; any text you enter into the Portcroft Assistant, together with an email address if you leave one for a reply; and your name and email address if you subscribe to Portcroft Insights. When you do any of these things, we also record which page you were on and, where applicable, the campaign tag described above, in an internal record used only to see which channels enquiries and subscriptions come from; this record holds no name, email address or message content. Our servers record the IP address of requests in order to limit automated abuse.

How the Contact Form Operates

The form is completed one question at a time. What you have entered is sent to us when you complete it, and also if you leave the page before completing it, so that an enquiry interrupted part way through can still be answered rather than lost. It is used only to reply to you.

How the Portcroft Assistant Operates

Text you enter is sent to a third-party artificial intelligence provider in order to generate a response, which may involve processing outside the UK under contractual safeguards. Portcroft uses that service under commercial terms rather than a consumer account, and your text is not used to train artificial intelligence models. A copy of the conversation is emailed to Portcroft when it ends, so that we can see what visitors are asking and pick up anything that needs a human reply. You may also leave an email address if you would like a reply. That is optional, off by default, and used only to answer the question you asked.

Portcroft Insights

If you subscribe, we hold your name and email address in order to send you the newsletter. These are held both by our email delivery provider and in Portcroft's own database. We also record the domain of your email address and an estimate of your organisation and its industry, so that we can see what kinds of organisation Portcroft Insights reaches and keep it relevant to them. That estimate is produced by sending the domain, and only the domain, to our artificial intelligence provider. Your email address itself is never sent, and domains belonging to personal email services are excluded entirely. You may unsubscribe at any time using the link in every email, after which your details are deleted.

Personal Data in Our Published Analysis

Portcroft's insights are drafted from published news sources. Those sources sometimes name individuals, such as an executive quoted in a trade story or an officer named in a public notice, and that information is processed by our editorial pipeline, including artificial intelligence tooling operating under contractual safeguards, in the course of producing our own original analysis. We do this under legitimate interests in publishing business analysis. We do not build profiles of individuals, and a name appears in our published work only where it appeared in the public source and matters to the story. Anyone named may object or ask for correction via our contact address, and the rights described below apply.

Purpose and Legal Basis for Processing

Enquiries, including those you do not finish, and assistant conversations are processed in order to respond to you. IP addresses are processed in order to keep the Site available and free from automated abuse. The internal, non-personal channel record described above is processed in order to understand which channels are effective, so that we can run the Site well. The legal basis for each of these is legitimate interests.

Subscriber data, including the estimate described above, is processed on the basis of your consent, which you may withdraw at any time by unsubscribing or by contacting us.

Data Retention

Enquiries and assistant conversations are retained in our email records for as long as reasonably necessary to maintain an adequate business record, in line with standard commercial practice. If you unsubscribe, your details are marked as unsubscribed and kept only so that we do not contact you again. They are deleted in full on request. Records containing IP addresses are deleted automatically after a short period. The internal page-view and channel record described above holds no personal data and is kept only for as long as it remains useful for comparing performance over time.

Who We Share Personal Data With

We share personal data only with providers who help us operate this Site, namely providers of artificial intelligence, email hosting and delivery, form delivery, and hosting and infrastructure services. Some process data outside the UK, under contractual safeguards. None of this involves advertising or behavioural tracking. Their names are available on request.

Your Rights

Under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018, you have the right to request access to, rectification of or erasure of personal data held about you, to request that we restrict its processing, and to receive a copy of data you have provided to us in a portable form. Where we rely on legitimate interests, you have the right to object to the processing. Where we rely on your consent, you may withdraw it at any time, which does not affect the lawfulness of processing carried out before you withdrew it.

If you subscribe to Portcroft Insights, you may unsubscribe using the link in any such email, with no need to make a separate request. If you would also like your details deleted rather than only suppressed, ask us and we will remove them. All other requests may be made to our contact address. You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner's Office (ico.org.uk).

Changes to this Policy

This Policy may be revised from time to time to reflect changes in the Site's data practices. Any revision will be reflected in the "Last updated" date above.