Privacy notice

This notice explains what personal data Discern collects when you use this website or get in touch, why it is collected, how long it is kept and what rights you have over it.

Last updated 26 August 2026

Who is responsible for your data

Discern is a trading name of Discern Search Ltd, registered in England and Wales (company number 17377332), with its registered office at 71–75 Shelton Street, Covent Garden, London WC2H 9JQ. Discern Search Ltd is the data controller for the information described here.

If you have a question about this notice or want to exercise any of your rights, email privacy@discernsearch.com.

What is collected

Almost all of the personal data held comes directly from you when you fill in the contact form, send an email or communicate during an enquiry or engagement.

Contact details: Your name, role, email address and any phone number you choose to provide.
Organisation details: Your company name and website and, where relevant, the website or business an enquiry concerns.
Enquiry information: What you write in the form or email, including website scale, platform, technical problem, timing and services you may need.
Correspondence: Emails, notes of calls and any documents you send during an enquiry or engagement.
Aggregate website usage: Page views, referring sites, device information and enquiry-related events, as explained under Analytics and cookies.

Please do not send special category data, such as health, political or religious information, through the contact form. It is not needed and there is no reason for Discern to hold it.

Why it is collected and the lawful basis

Purpose	Lawful basis	Retention
Responding to an enquiry and scoping possible work	Legitimate interests: responding to someone who has approached the business about its services.	24 months from the last contact if no engagement follows.
Delivering an engagement and communicating during it	Performance of a contract or steps taken at your request before entering one.	The duration of the engagement, then six years.
Invoicing, accounting and tax records	Legal obligation.	Six years after the end of the relevant accounting period.

Where legitimate interests are relied on, the assessment is that a business enquiry carries a low privacy impact, the data is limited to what you choose to send, and you can object at any time.

Analytics and cookies

This website loads Google Analytics 4 when you visit to understand page visits, referring websites and interactions such as opening an enquiry form or submitting an enquiry. It uses first-party analytics cookies without an on-site consent prompt.

Google Analytics uses cookie identifiers and collects information about your browser, device and approximate location. Form contents, names and email addresses are not sent as analytics events. Advertising personalisation and Google Signals are disabled.

Analytics cookies expire after at most two years unless renewed by a visit. Event data is retained for two months. User data is retained for 14 months, renewed by new activity. Aggregate reports may be retained longer. You can manage cookies in your browser. Google’s privacy policy explains how Google processes data.

Who the data is shared with

Personal data is not sold and is not shared for marketing. It is processed by a small number of suppliers that provide the tools needed to run the business:

Email and file storage for correspondence and documents relating to enquiries and engagements.
Website hosting and forms to run this site and deliver form submissions.
Analytics through Google Analytics.
Accounting and invoicing for financial records and tax compliance.
Professional advisers, such as accountants or legal advisers, where genuinely necessary.

Each supplier acts under appropriate contractual terms and may only use the data to provide its service. Data may also be disclosed where required by law.

Where an engagement involves working alongside another specialist, this will be agreed with you in advance and their role disclosed.

International transfers

Some suppliers are based outside the UK, principally in the EEA and the United States. Where personal data is transferred outside the UK, it is protected through an applicable UK adequacy regulation, the UK International Data Transfer Addendum, or the UK extension to the EU–US Data Privacy Framework, as appropriate to the supplier.

Confidentiality

Information you send about your business, website or technical systems is treated as confidential. Discern is happy to sign an NDA before you share non-public analytics, access or technical documentation.

Your rights

Under UK data protection law, you may have the following rights:

Access: Ask for a copy of the personal data held about you.
Rectification: Have inaccurate data corrected.
Erasure: Ask for data to be deleted where there is no continuing reason to hold it.
Restriction: Ask that processing is paused while a concern is resolved.
Object: Object to processing carried out on the basis of legitimate interests.
Portability: Receive certain data in a portable format.

To exercise any of these rights, email privacy@discernsearch.com. A response will normally follow within one month.

If you are unhappy with how a request has been handled, you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office at ico.org.uk or on 0303 123 1113. You are welcome to raise the issue directly first, but you are not required to do so.

Changes to this notice

This notice may be updated from time to time. The date at the top shows when it was last changed.