Privacy Policy

1. Introduction

Bulldogs Digital Ltd ("we", "us", "our", or "Company") operates the Trades Panel construction management application (web and mobile versions) and is committed to protecting and respecting your privacy. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, disclose, and safeguard your personal information when you use our services.

Company Details:

• Company Name: Bulldogs Digital Ltd
• Company Number: 14123590
• Registered Address: 3 Church Street, Littlehampton, West Sussex, BN17 5EL, United Kingdom
• Data Controller: Bulldogs Digital Ltd
• Contact: support@tradespanel.com

2. Information We Collect

2.1 Personal Information You Provide

Account Information:

• Name (first name, last name, full name)
• Email address (used for authentication and communication)
• Phone number (optional)
• Login credentials (passwords are encrypted using bcrypt)
• Profile image (optional)
• Business information (company name, role within company)

Business Data:

• Customer and contact information (names, email addresses, phone numbers, addresses)
• Project and job details (descriptions, locations, status, schedules)
• Document uploads and file attachments (PDFs, images, spreadsheets)
• Financial information (invoices, quotes, payments, purchase invoices)
• Time tracking and scheduling data (clock in/out times, GPS locations with permission)
• Communications and messages within the platform
• Staff information (roles, payment details, working schedules)

Support Ticket Information:

• Support ticket subject, description, priority, and category
• File attachments (screenshots, PDFs, images) - you choose what to attach
• Technical metadata (browser, operating system, device type, screen resolution) - automatically collected to help diagnose issues
• Current page URL (web app only) - automatically collected to identify where issues occur
• Browser console logs (errors and warnings only) - only with your explicit opt-in consent to help diagnose technical issues
• App version (mobile app) - automatically collected

Note: Console log collection is entirely optional. You can submit support tickets without sharing console logs. Only error and warning messages are captured, not all console output. This information is stored securely and accessed only by our support team.

Payment Information:

• Billing address and contact details
• Payment method information (processed securely through Stripe - we do not store full payment card details)
• Subscription and billing history

Special Category Data:

• GPS Location Data: Only collected with your explicit permission on mobile devices for time tracking and job site mapping
• Financial Data: Staff salary information (day rates, annual salaries) processed for employment purposes

2.2 Information We Collect Automatically

Technical Information:

• IP address and general location information (based on IP)
• Device information (browser type, operating system, device type)
• Usage data and analytics (pages visited, features used) - with your consent
• Log files and error reports - with your consent
• Session information and authentication tokens
• Device fingerprinting data (for security purposes)
• Support ticket technical metadata (browser version, OS version, device type, screen resolution, current URL) - automatically collected when you submit a support ticket to help our support team diagnose issues

Location Data:

• Address information for projects and customers (you provide this)
• Geocoded coordinates for mapping features (when you provide addresses)
• GPS location data (only with explicit mobile app permission for time tracking)

Analytics Data (with consent):

• Page views and navigation patterns
• Feature usage statistics
• Performance metrics
• Form interaction data

3. How We Use Your Information

3.1 Primary Purposes

We process your personal information for the following purposes:

Service Provision (Legal Basis: Contract Performance - Article 6(1)(b) GDPR):

• Providing and maintaining the Trades Panel application
• Managing your account and user authentication
• Enabling project management, scheduling, and job tracking features
• Processing payments and billing
• Providing customer support and technical assistance
• Processing support tickets, including technical metadata (browser, OS, device info) and file attachments to diagnose and resolve issues
• Delivering push notifications (mobile apps)
• Processing and storing documents you upload

Business Operations (Legal Basis: Legitimate Interest - Article 6(1)(f) GDPR):

• Improving and optimizing our services
• Developing new features and functionality
• Ensuring security and preventing fraud
• Monitoring for suspicious activity
• Internal business administration
• Performance monitoring (with consent)

Legal Compliance (Legal Basis: Legal Obligation - Article 6(1)(c) GDPR):

• Complying with applicable laws and regulations
• Responding to legal requests and law enforcement
• Tax and accounting requirements (7-year retention)
• Data retention as required by law

Special Category Data Processing:

• GPS Location Data: Processed with your explicit consent (Article 9(2)(a) GDPR) for time tracking and job site mapping
• Financial Data (Salaries): Processed for employment contract purposes (Article 9(2)(b) GDPR)

3.2 Communication

We may use your contact information to:

• Send service-related notifications and updates (transactional emails)
• Provide customer support responses
• Share important account or billing information
• Send marketing communications (only with your explicit consent)
• Send security alerts (e.g., suspicious login attempts)

Marketing Communications:

• We use Postmark for transactional and marketing emails
• Marketing emails are only sent with your explicit consent
• You can unsubscribe at any time via the link in emails or by contacting us

4. Information Sharing and Disclosure

4.1 Third-Party Service Providers

We share your information with carefully selected service providers who assist us in operating our business. All processors are bound by data processing agreements:

Infrastructure and Hosting:

• Supabase (database hosting and management) - Location: London, UK - DPA: ✅ Data Processing Agreement in place
• Vercel (web application hosting and deployment) - Location: UK (primary) - DPA: ✅ Covered in Vercel terms

Payment Processing:

• Stripe (payment processing and billing management) - Location: Global (primary: UK, US, EU) - DPA: ✅ Data Processing Agreement in place - PCI-DSS: ✅ Stripe is PCI-DSS certified

Communication Services:

• Postmark (transactional and marketing email delivery) - Location: US-based - DPA: ✅ Data Processing Agreement in place - SCCs: ✅ Standard Contractual Clauses in place

Mapping and Location Services:

• Mapbox (web application - interactive mapping and address visualization) - Location: Global - DPA: ✅ Mapbox Data Processing Agreement in place - Cookies: None (uses localStorage for caching)
• Google Maps API (Android mobile app - address geocoding and mapping features) - Location: Global - DPA: ✅ Google Cloud Data Processing Agreement in place
• Apple Maps (iOS mobile app - platform-native mapping) - Location: Apple data centers - No third-party data sharing

Analytics and Monitoring (with consent):

• Google Analytics 4 (GA4) (website analytics and user behavior tracking) - Location: Global (Google data centers) - Consent: ✅ Required - only loaded with your consent - DPA: ✅ Google Cloud Data Processing Agreement in place - Data collected: Page views, user interactions, device information, IP addresses (anonymized), location data (general)
• Vercel Analytics (website analytics) - Consent: ✅ Required - only loaded with your consent
• Vercel Speed Insights (performance monitoring) - Consent: ✅ Required
• Facebook Pixel (conversion tracking and advertising analytics) - Location: Global (Facebook data centers) - Consent: ✅ Required - only loaded with your consent - DPA: ✅ Facebook Data Processing Agreement in place - Data collected: Page views, conversion events (e.g., signup form submissions), device information, IP addresses (anonymized), general location data - Purpose: Track conversions and measure advertising effectiveness
• Sentry (error tracking and debugging) - Location: US-based - Consent: ✅ Required - DPA: ✅ Data Processing Agreement in place - SCCs: ✅ Standard Contractual Clauses in place

Security Services:

• Vercel BotID (bot protection) - Location: Global - Server-side bot detection, no client-side cookies or tracking

AI Services:

• Anthropic (Claude API) (our built-in AI features: CrAIg, including quotes generated from uploaded PDFs, price-a-job import, suggested job items and purchase invoice reading) - Location: US-based - DPA: ✅ Data Processing Agreement in place - SCCs: ✅ Standard Contractual Clauses in place - Covers the AI features we provide. An AI assistant you connect yourself is a separate arrangement - see 4.3.

Mobile App Services:

• Expo Push Notification Service (push notifications) - Location: Global - DPA: ✅ Data Processing Agreement in place

File Storage:

• Supabase Storage (document and file storage) - Location: London, UK - Files are encrypted at rest - Access controlled via signed URLs
• Support ticket attachments (screenshots, PDFs, images) are stored securely in Supabase Storage with the same encryption and access controls

4.2 Legal Requirements

We may disclose your information when required by law, such as:

• Responding to court orders, subpoenas, or legal process
• Protecting our rights, property, or safety
• Preventing or investigating suspected fraud or illegal activities
• Complying with regulatory requirements

4.3 Integrations You Connect

Some features let you connect Trades Panel to a third-party service of your choosing. They are off unless you switch them on. When you do, we send data to that service on your instruction, and the service handles it under your own agreement with its provider, not under ours, so that provider is not one of our processors listed in 4.1. For your customers' data, where you are the controller (see section 12), this is processing on your instructions.

AI assistants you connect

• Who can connect: The account owner, and admins the owner has allowed, can connect an AI assistant (such as Claude) to a Trades Panel account on a paid plan. Nothing is shared unless someone does this.
• What it can see: The assistant can read the account data the connecting user can already see in Trades Panel, including contacts with their phone numbers, email addresses and site addresses (and any access notes, such as gate codes or key safe numbers), jobs, quotes, invoices, suppliers and subcontractors, tasks, appointments, price presets and financial summaries, and the names of staff assigned to jobs, tasks and appointments. It does not receive staff email addresses or individual staff pay rates; labour appears only as costs on jobs and quotes and as labour rate presets.
• What it can change: It can create and update records the connecting user is allowed to change, such as contacts and their addresses, jobs, quotes, tasks, suppliers and subcontractors, and it can record purchase invoices. It cannot delete whole records such as contacts, jobs, quotes or invoices, and it cannot send anything to your customers. When it edits a quote or a job it can remove lines from it, as you can in the editor. It can notify staff you assign to a task, and changing a job's dates can notify a subcontractor linked to that job in their own Trades Panel account, as the same change in the app would.
• Where the data goes: Data returned to the assistant is processed by the provider you chose, under your agreement with that provider and its privacy terms. This is separate from our built-in AI features in 4.1, even where the same company provides both. Check your provider's settings for how long it keeps data and whether it uses your data for training.
• What we keep:
  • Connection details (the app connected, when, by whom and when it was last used) and the credential that keeps the connection working, which we store only in hashed form. The access tokens the assistant presents expire after an hour and are not stored.
  • A log of each change the assistant makes (the user, the app, the kind of change, the outcome and the records it touched, but not the content of the request).
  • A short-lived copy of the response to each change, kept for about a day so that a retried request is not applied twice.

  We keep these to secure the connection, prevent duplicate changes and show who made a change (legal basis: contract, Article 6(1)(b), and our legitimate interest in security, Article 6(1)(f)). Retention periods for these records are in section 6. Every request, including reads, is also recorded in our server logs (the user and app, the tool, the address requested and the outcome).

• Ending access: The account owner can disconnect any connection, and an admin their own, at any time from Settings > AI connections. A connection also ends automatically when the connecting member loses access to AI connections, when they take security steps such as signing out of all sessions or changing their password, when the account leaves a paid plan, when it has not been used for 30 days, or in any case after a year. Disconnecting stops new requests; it cannot recall data the provider has already received.

Xero

• Who can connect: The account owner or an admin, on a Trades Panel account on Crew, Business or Pro where the Xero integration is available, can connect one Xero organisation. Nothing is sent to Xero unless someone does this.
• What we send to Xero: The sales invoices, bills and receipts you sync (with their lines, amounts, VAT treatment, dates and references), and the customers, suppliers and subcontractors on them as Xero contacts (their name and email address).
• What comes back: Payment updates on the sales invoices you have synced - payments, credit notes, prepayments and overpayments applied in Xero - which Xero tells us about through its webhooks and which we also check for regularly.
• Where the data goes: Xero processes this data under your own agreement with Xero, on your instruction. It is not one of our processors listed in 4.1.
• What we keep: The connection record (the Xero organisation connected, when, by whom, and your Xero settings), the access tokens that keep the connection working, which we store encrypted and delete when Xero is disconnected, a record of each sync, and the links between each Trades Panel record and its Xero copy. The links and sync records are kept after a disconnect or a plan change, so that reconnecting the same organisation updates the documents already in Xero rather than creating duplicates. Retention for these records is in section 6.
• Ending access: The account owner or an admin can disconnect Xero at any time. When you disconnect, we also ask Xero to remove Trades Panel's connection, unless another Trades Panel account is still connected to the same Xero organisation. Moving to a plan that does not include Xero (the Free plan) disconnects it automatically. Disconnecting stops new syncs; it does not remove what is already in Xero.

5. Data Security

We implement appropriate technical and organizational measures to protect your personal information:

Technical Safeguards:

• Encryption of data in transit (HTTPS/TLS)
• Encryption of data at rest (Supabase database and storage)
• Secure authentication and session management
• Password hashing (bcrypt with 12 rounds)
• Multi-tenant architecture with strict data isolation
• Access controls and audit logging
• Signed URLs for file access
• HTTP-only and Secure cookies
• CAPTCHA protection on authentication forms
• Device fingerprinting and suspicious activity detection

Organizational Safeguards:

• Access limited to direct employees of Bulldogs Digital Ltd
• Staff training on data protection and privacy
• Regular review of data processing activities
• Incident response procedures
• Vendor security assessments

6. Data Retention

We retain your personal information only as long as necessary for the purposes outlined in this policy:

• Account Data: Retained while your account is active and for up to 7 years after account closure for legal and tax purposes
• Business Data: Retained while your account is active and for 7 years after account closure (tax and legal requirements)
• Financial Records: 7 years (tax requirement)
• Session Data: Active sessions: 30 days, Login attempts: 1 year, Security events: 2 years
• Communication Data: Support tickets: 3 years, Email communications: 3 years
• Support Ticket Data: Support tickets, attachments, and technical metadata (including console logs if provided): 3 years from ticket creation
• Analytics Data (with consent): Retained for 2 years
• Document Storage: Retained while account is active and for 7 years after account closure
• AI Assistant Connections: Log of changes made through a connection: 180 days. Disconnected connection records: 90 days after disconnection. Approvals for an app with no live connection: 90 days after last approved. Authorisation codes and short-lived response copies: about 1 day
• Xero Connection: Connection record, sync records and the links between Trades Panel records and their Xero copies: kept for as long as your account exists, including after a disconnect or plan change, so a reconnect updates rather than duplicates. Access tokens (stored encrypted): deleted when Xero is disconnected

7. Your Rights Under GDPR

As a data subject under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), you have the following rights:

• Right of Access (Article 15): Request confirmation of whether we process your personal data and obtain a copy
• Right to Rectification (Article 16): Request correction of inaccurate personal data
• Right to Erasure (Article 17): Request deletion of your personal data in certain circumstances
• Right to Restrict Processing (Article 18): Request limitation of processing in specific situations
• Right to Data Portability (Article 20): Receive your personal data in a structured, machine-readable format
• Right to Object (Article 21): Object to processing based on legitimate interests or direct marketing

To exercise your rights, please contact us at support@tradespanel.com. We will respond within one month (or two months for complex requests).

8. Cookies and Tracking

Our web application uses cookies and similar technologies. For detailed information, please see our Cookie Policy.

Essential Cookies (No Consent Required):

• Session management and authentication
• Security and fraud prevention

Analytics Cookies (Consent Required):

• Usage analytics and performance monitoring
• Error tracking and debugging

9. International Data Transfers

Your personal information may be processed in countries outside the United Kingdom. For transfers to countries without an adequacy decision (e.g., US), we implement appropriate safeguards including Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs) and Data Processing Agreements with all processors.

10. Children's Privacy

Our services are not intended for individuals under 16 years of age. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 16. If we become aware that we have collected personal information from a child under 16, we will take steps to delete such information promptly.

11. Mobile Application Specific Provisions

Our mobile applications may request permissions for:

• Location Services: Only with explicit permission for time tracking and job site mapping
• Camera and File Access: For document capture and upload, including support ticket attachments (screenshots)
• Push Notifications: For job reminders and updates (can be disabled)

Support Ticket Data Collection (Mobile):

• When you submit a support ticket via our mobile app, we automatically collect: app version, device OS information, device type, and timezone
• You can optionally attach screenshots to help illustrate issues
• Console log collection is available on mobile but requires explicit opt-in consent

12. Customer Contact Data

Important: When you add customer contacts to Trades Panel, you are the data controller for that personal data. We act as a data processor, hosting and processing the data on your behalf. We do not use customer contact data for our own purposes.

13. Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy periodically to reflect:

• Changes in our data processing practices
• New legal or regulatory requirements
• Improvements to our services
• New third-party integrations

We will notify you of material changes through:

• Email notification to your registered address
• Prominent notice within the application
• Updates to the "Last Updated" date at the top of this policy

Continued use of our services after changes constitutes acceptance of the updated policy.

14. Contact Information

For questions about this Privacy Policy, data protection, or to exercise your rights:

Email: support@tradespanel.com
Postal Address:
Data Protection Officer
Bulldogs Digital Ltd
3 Church Street
Littlehampton
West Sussex
BN17 5EL
United Kingdom

Complaints:

If you are unhappy with how we have handled your personal data, please tell us first at support@tradespanel.com with "Data protection complaint" in the subject. We will acknowledge your complaint within 30 days, look into it without undue delay, keep you updated and tell you the outcome.

Supervisory Authority:

You also have the right to complain to the UK data protection regulator, the Information Commission (known as the ICO):

Website: https://ico.org.uk
Phone: 0303 123 1113
Address: Information Commission, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF

15. Definitions

Personal Data: Any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person.

Processing: Any operation performed on personal data, including collection, use, storage, and deletion.

Data Controller: The entity that determines the purposes and means of processing personal data (Bulldogs Digital Ltd).

Data Processor: The entity that processes personal data on behalf of the data controller (e.g., Supabase, Stripe).

Data Subject: The individual to whom personal data relates (you, our users).

Special Category Data: Personal data revealing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious beliefs, trade union membership, genetic data, biometric data, health data, or data concerning sex life or sexual orientation. In our case, this includes GPS location data (when collected).

16. Legal Basis Summary

The following table summarizes the legal basis for our processing activities: