Privacy Policy
1. Who we are
The Bluepencil Development Model is provided by Bluepencil Designs Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales, company number 8176840 ("Bluepencil", "we", "us"). Our registered office is 1 Ware View Terrace, Spital Rd, Maldon CM9 6GD.
We are registered with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) under registration number ZC274859. We are the data controller for the account, billing, support and security information described in this policy.
This policy covers:
- the public website at bluepencilmodel.com, which anyone can visit; and
- the Model, the online service you reach by logging in, including the free trial.
The Model is a business service for professionals working on land and development. For privacy enquiries, requests about your personal data, or complaints about how we handle it, contact us at [email protected] or by post at the address above.
2. What personal data we collect
We collect only what we need to run the service.
| What | Examples | Where it comes from |
|---|---|---|
| Sign-up details | Full name, work email, organisation, your role (for example landowner, housebuilder, local authority) | You, when you start a free trial or subscribe |
| Login and security | Your password (stored only as a secure hash by our login provider), whether you use 2-step verification, sign-in times, session identifiers used to allow one login at a time, failed sign-in attempts | You, and our login provider |
| Payment and billing | Billing name and address, VAT number, your plan, invoices and payment history. You enter card details directly with our payment provider; we never see or store your full card number | You, and our payment provider |
| Company licence users | Names and work emails of the people your organisation names as users | Your organisation's account holder |
| Your site data | The sites you save in the Model: site names, areas, housing mix, policy figures, costs, values, notes and any imported plot schedules | You, as you use the Model |
| Messages | Your name, email, organisation and what you write when you contact us | You, through the contact form or email |
| Technical data | IP address, browser and device type, security and error logs, and records of account creation, plan changes and deletion requests | Your browser, through our hosting and login providers |
Site data. Your site data is about land and development, not people, and it is often commercially confidential. Section 3 explains how we protect it. The Model has no fields for other people's personal details, so please don't add them to site names or notes.
We do not ask for special category data, and the service is not intended for anyone under 18.
3. How we use your data, and why we are allowed to
UK data protection law (the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018) requires a lawful basis for each use of personal data.
| What we use it for | Lawful basis |
|---|---|
| Setting up and running your trial or subscription, logging you in and saving your sites | Contract: we need it to provide the service you signed up for |
| Taking payment and administering your subscription | Contract |
| Keeping invoices and financial records | Legal obligation: tax and accounting law |
| Sending service messages, such as trial-ending reminders, receipts, security notices and changes to our terms | Contract |
| Keeping the service secure, preventing misuse and fixing faults | Legitimate interests: protecting the service and our users |
| Replying to enquiries and support requests | Legitimate interests: answering people who contact us |
| Counting how many accounts use each plan, from our own account records | Legitimate interests: running and planning the business |
| Sending news about new features | Consent, which you can withdraw at any time with the unsubscribe link |
Legitimate interests. Where we rely on legitimate interests, we use personal data only where our interests are not overridden by your rights and interests. You can object to this use at any time; see section 9.
Your saved sites are confidential. We use your site data only to provide the service to you. In particular, we do not:
- analyse, aggregate or benchmark your saved sites, housing mixes, land values, costs or viability assumptions to develop or improve the Model;
- use them for marketing, research or any commercial purpose of our own; or
- sell them or share them with anyone, except as section 4 explains.
We improve the Model using our own test sites and research. We would use a customer's site data for anything else only with that customer's separate written agreement.
We do not sell personal data, and we do not make automated decisions that have legal or similarly significant effects on you.
4. Who we share it with
We use a small number of service providers (processors) who handle data on our behalf, under written terms that only let them use it to provide their service to us.
| Provider | What they do for us | Data they handle |
|---|---|---|
| Supabase, Inc. | Sign-in, and the database that stores accounts and saved sites. Data is stored in the EU (Frankfurt, Germany) | Sign-up, login and security data, billing status, your site data |
| Cloudflare, Inc. | Hosts the website pages and protects them from attack. It does not store saved sites | Technical data as it passes through |
| Resend | Sends our account emails (sign-up confirmation, password reset) and passes website contact-form messages to us. Sent from the EU (Ireland) | Your name, email address and the email or message content |
| Stripe | Takes payment, issues invoices and runs the billing portal | Payment and billing data |
| Google (Google Workspace) | Our email | Messages to and from us |
| Google Fonts and jsDelivr | Deliver the typefaces and the sign-in code the pages use | Your IP address and browser details |
We may also share personal data:
- with our professional advisers, such as our accountant and solicitor, where needed;
- where the law requires it, for example with HMRC or in response to a court order; or
- with a buyer of the business, or of the Bluepencil Development Model, as part of that sale. We will require the buyer to protect it in line with data protection law and this policy.
Company licences. If your organisation has a Company licence:
- other named users on the same licence can see and edit sites saved to your organisation's shared projects; and
- your organisation's account holder can see users' names and work emails, their plan and whether their access is active.
The account holder cannot see sites you keep in your own projects.
Access by Bluepencil. Access to personal data and customer information is restricted to authorised people who need it for support you have asked for, security investigations or legal obligations. We do not look at saved sites for any other reason.
5. International transfers
Your account and saved sites are stored in the EU. Some of our providers, or their subprocessors, are based in or may access data from the United States or other countries outside the UK, for example for support or to keep their systems running.
Where UK data protection law requires a safeguard for a transfer, we use a mechanism the law allows. This may be a UK adequacy regulation (the EU has one), the UK Extension to the EU–US Data Privacy Framework where the recipient is certified, or the UK International Data Transfer Agreement or Addendum, with any additional measures required.
You can ask us at [email protected] for details of the safeguards that apply to a particular provider.
6. How long we keep it
When a free trial or a subscription ends, your saved sites stay read-only for 7 days, are then held without access until 90 days after the end date, and are then deleted.
| Data | How long |
|---|---|
| Account and saved sites, while your trial or subscription is active | For as long as it is active. You can delete any saved site at any time |
| Account and saved sites, after a trial or subscription ends | Days 1 to 7 after the end date: you can still log in, open and export your sites, but not change them. Days 8 to 90: no access, but everything is kept so you can subscribe and carry on. After day 90: deleted |
| Deletion on request | If you ask us to delete your account early, we delete it within one month, apart from records we must keep by law |
| Invoices and payment records | For the period tax and accounting law requires, normally 6 years from the end of the financial year they relate to |
| Messages to us | 2 years from our last reply, or longer if they form part of a contract, complaint or dispute |
| Security and technical logs | Up to 30 days, or longer if needed to investigate a security problem |
| Backups | Daily backups are kept for 7 days and then overwritten. If we ever restore a backup, we delete again anything you had already deleted |
The end date is the last day of your trial, or the last day of the period you paid for.
7. Cookies and similar technologies
Our own website and the Model set no advertising or analytics cookies. We use only what is strictly necessary to provide the service you ask for:
| Technology | Set by | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Login session, held in your browser's local storage | Bluepencil, through our login provider | Keeps you logged in and lets us allow one login at a time |
| Payment cookies, on Stripe's own checkout pages | Stripe | Taking payment securely and preventing fraud |
| Security checks on our hosting | Cloudflare | Protecting the website from attack |
When you pay, you move to Stripe's checkout pages, which are covered by Stripe's own privacy and cookie policies.
If we add analytics or any other technology that is not strictly necessary, we will ask for your consent first and update this policy.
8. Security
We use appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect personal data and customer information against unauthorised access, loss, alteration and disclosure. These include:
- encrypted connections (HTTPS) for the website, the Model, sign-in and payment;
- passwords stored only as secure hashes, never in readable form;
- optional 2-step verification with an authenticator app, which we recommend;
- one login at a time for each named user;
- database rules that let each user reach only their own sites and, on a Company licence, their organisation's shared projects;
- access by Bluepencil limited as section 4 explains; and
- daily backups, kept for 7 days.
No system is completely secure. If a personal data breach occurs, we will investigate it promptly, contain and remedy it, and assess whether we must report it. Where a breach is reportable to the ICO, we will tell the ICO without undue delay and, where feasible, within 72 hours of becoming aware of it. Where the law requires us to tell the people affected, we will do so without undue delay.
9. Your rights
Your right to object. Where we use your personal data on the basis of legitimate interests (section 3), you can object at any time. We will then stop, unless we have compelling legitimate grounds that override your interests, or we need the data for legal claims. You can always stop feature news with the unsubscribe link.
Under UK data protection law you also have the right to:
- access the personal data we hold about you;
- have inaccurate data corrected;
- have your data deleted, in certain circumstances, for example where we no longer need it or you withdraw consent;
- restrict how we use it, in certain circumstances;
- receive the data you gave us in a commonly used format, where we process it by contract or consent and by automated means; and
- withdraw consent at any time, where we rely on it.
Some of these rights do not apply in every case. For example, we must keep invoices for as long as tax law requires.
To use any of these rights, email [email protected]. There is normally no charge. We will respond without undue delay and normally within one month. Where the law allows more time, because a request is complex or you have made several, we will tell you within that month and explain why.
If you are unhappy with how we have handled your data, please tell us first so we can put it right. You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint, or by telephone on 0303 123 1113.
10. Changes to this policy
We may update this policy to reflect changes to the service, our providers or the law. The latest version is always on our website, with the date it was last revised.
Where a change materially affects how we use personal data, we will give you appropriate notice, by email or in the Model, before the new use begins. Where the law requires your consent or another step first, we will take that step.
Last updated: 29 October 2026.