Privacy Policy
This policy explains how Aquifer Energy Ltd, trading as Water Borehole Assessments, collects and uses your personal information when you use this website or order an assessment, and the rights you have under UK data protection law (the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018).
1. Who we are
Aquifer Energy Ltd is the controller of your personal information. We are registered in England and Wales, company number 15719835, at 29 Main Street, Long Whatton, Leicestershire LE12 5DF. For any question about this policy or your information, email info@aquifer.energy.
2. The information we collect
- Contact details: your name, company name, email address and phone number.
- Site information: the site address and postcode, the what3words location of the proposed borehole, the site plan you send us, the intended use of the water, expected volumes and any other notes you give us. Because this information is linked to you, it is personal information.
- Order and payment information: your order reference, the assessment purchased, the amount paid and the date. Card payments are taken by Stripe. We do not see or store your full card details.
- Correspondence: emails and messages you send us, including questions from you or your driller about the report.
- Technical information: when you visit the website, your browser automatically sends information such as your IP address to the services that deliver the site and its fonts.
3. How we use it, and our legal basis
| Purpose | Legal basis |
|---|---|
| Processing your order, preparing and delivering your report, and answering questions about it | Performance of our contract with you |
| Taking payment, issuing invoices and keeping financial records | Contract, and our legal obligations under tax and company law |
| Handling complaints, defending legal claims and dealing with our insurers and professional advisers | Our legitimate interests in running and protecting our business |
| Improving our service and keeping the website secure | Our legitimate interests |
| Using anonymised geological and groundwater data from assessments in our professional knowledge base | Our legitimate interests. This data does not identify you. |
| Sending you news or offers | Only with your consent, which you can withdraw at any time |
You do not have to provide your information, but we cannot carry out an assessment without the details requested on the order form.
4. Who we share it with
We do not sell your personal information. We share it only as follows:
- Stripe, to process your payment. Stripe acts as an independent controller for payment data under its own privacy policy.
- Service providers that host our website, email and file storage, acting on our instructions.
- Professional advisers and insurers, such as our accountants, lawyers and professional indemnity insurers, where necessary.
- Your driller, other contractors or regulators, only if you ask us to.
- Authorities, where we are required to by law, such as HMRC.
5. Transfers outside the UK
Some service providers, including Stripe, may process information outside the UK, for example in the United States or the European Economic Area. Where this happens, we make sure the transfer is protected, for example through UK adequacy regulations (including the UK–US Data Bridge) or the UK International Data Transfer Agreement or Addendum.
6. How long we keep it
- Order, invoice and payment records: six years from the end of the financial year in which the order was placed, as required for tax and company records.
- Reports and the information used to prepare them: 15 years from delivery, because claims about professional advice can be brought up to 15 years after it is given.
- Enquiries that do not lead to an order: 12 months.
After these periods, we securely delete your information or anonymise it.
7. Security
We use appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect your information, including access controls and secure, encrypted services. Only people who need your information to carry out your assessment can access it.
8. Your rights
You have the right to:
- ask for a copy of your personal information;
- ask us to correct information that is wrong or incomplete;
- ask us to delete your information, where we no longer have a legal reason to keep it;
- ask us to restrict how we use your information;
- object to our use of your information based on legitimate interests;
- ask us to transfer information you gave us to another organisation; and
- withdraw consent at any time, where we rely on consent.
To use any of these rights, email info@aquifer.energy. We will respond within one month. There is normally no charge.
9. Cookies and third-party services
This website does not use advertising or analytics cookies. It loads fonts from Google Fonts, which means your browser sends your IP address to Google. When you pay, you are taken to Stripe's secure checkout page, which uses its own cookies for security and fraud prevention under Stripe's cookie policy.
10. Complaints
If you have a concern about how we use your information, please contact us first at info@aquifer.energy. You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), the UK data protection regulator, at ico.org.uk.
11. Changes to this policy
We may update this policy from time to time. The latest version will always be on this website, with the date it was last updated.