Privacy Policy

Last updated: 6 June 2026

HGC IT Solutions ("HGC IT Solutions", "we", "us" or "our") is committed to protecting your privacy. This policy explains what personal data we collect when you use our website, why we collect it, how we look after it, and the rights you have over it.

We've written this in plain English. If anything is unclear, or you'd like to ask us about how we handle your data, please get in touch using the details below.

This policy applies to our website and to enquiries you send us through it. It does not cover the separate IT services we provide to clients under contract, which are governed by the agreement we have with that client.

Who we are

HGC IT Solutions is a managed IT services provider supporting small and medium-sized businesses across Shaftesbury, the Blackmore Vale and North Dorset.

For the purposes of UK data protection law, HGC IT Solutions is the data controller for the personal data described in this policy. This means we are responsible for deciding how and why your data is used.

• Company: HGC IT Solutions
• Registered office: Unit 2a Railway Triangle Industrial Estate, Dorchester, England, DT1 2PJ
• Company registration number: 16665205
• ICO registration number: ZC052483
• Email: hello@hgcit.co.uk
• Phone: 01305 310006

If we have appointed a data protection contact, you can reach them at the email address above marked for the attention of data protection.

What personal data we collect, and how

We collect personal data in two main ways: information you give us directly through our contact form, and limited technical information that's gathered automatically when you submit that form.

Information you give us through the contact form

When you complete the enquiry form on our Contact page, we collect:

• Your name
• Your email address
• Your phone number (optional)
• Your company name (optional)
• The type of enquiry you select (for example, Managed IT Support, Cyber Security or Microsoft 365)
• Your message, the details you choose to tell us about your business and what you need help with
• Your consent, a record that you ticked the box agreeing to us storing and processing your details to respond to your enquiry

Please only include personal data in your message that is relevant to your enquiry. There's no need to share sensitive information at this stage.

Technical and attribution information collected automatically

When you submit the contact form, our website also records some technical context about the submission. This helps us understand how people find us, respond effectively, and protect the form from spam and abuse. We collect:

• The page you were on when you submitted the form (the landing page)
• The website that referred you to us, if any (the referrer)
• Marketing campaign information (UTM source, medium and campaign tags), these are present only if you arrived via a tagged link, such as an email or advert
• Your IP address
• Your browser's user agent (for example, the type of browser and device you used)

This information is attached to your enquiry as context. We do not use it to build a profile of you or to track you across other websites.

Spam protection (Cloudflare Turnstile)

To protect our contact form from automated spam and abuse, we use Cloudflare Turnstile, a privacy-focused alternative to traditional CAPTCHAs. When you use the form, Turnstile runs in your browser and generates a verification token, which we check with Cloudflare to confirm the submission is from a genuine person rather than a bot.

To do this, Cloudflare may process limited technical information from your browser. Cloudflare acts as a processor on our behalf for this purpose. You can read more in Cloudflare's own privacy documentation.

Email

When we respond to your enquiry, we send and receive email. Your enquiry is delivered to our team by email, and we send you an automatic acknowledgement confirming we've received it. Our email is handled by a third-party email provider acting on our behalf (see "Who we share your data with" below).

How we use your data, and our lawful bases

Under UK GDPR we must have a lawful basis for using your personal data. The bases we rely on are explained below.

To respond to your enquiry

We use your name, contact details and message to reply to you, answer your questions and discuss how we might be able to help.

• Lawful basis, Consent. When you tick the consent box and submit the form, you give us your consent to store and process your details so we can respond to your enquiry. You can withdraw this consent at any time (see "Your rights" below); withdrawing it won't affect anything we did lawfully before you withdrew it.

To follow up on a business enquiry

If your enquiry relates to a potential business relationship, we may follow up to continue the conversation or provide a quote or proposal.

• Lawful basis, Legitimate interests. It is in our legitimate interest as a business to respond to and follow up on genuine business enquiries from people who have contacted us. We balance this against your rights, and we'll always stop contacting you if you ask us to.

To provide our services

If you go on to become a client, we'll use the relevant information to set up and deliver the services you've asked for. At that point, our handling of your data will also be governed by the agreement we put in place with you.

• Lawful basis, Performance of a contract (and our legitimate interests in running our business).

To keep our website secure and prevent spam

We use the technical information described above, together with Cloudflare Turnstile, to protect our contact form from automated abuse and to keep our systems secure.

• Lawful basis, Legitimate interests. We have a legitimate interest in protecting our website, our systems and the people who use them from spam, fraud and misuse.

We will not use your data for any unrelated purpose without telling you and, where required, asking for your consent.

Who we share your data with

We do not sell your personal data, and we never will. We do not share it for anyone else's marketing.

We do share your data with a small number of trusted third parties ("processors") who help us run our website and respond to you. Each is bound by contract to keep your data secure and to use it only on our instructions:

• Our email / SMTP provider, used to send and receive enquiry emails, including your enquiry to our team and our acknowledgement to you. [Email/SMTP provider name, to confirm]
• Our website hosting and infrastructure provider, stores the website and the enquiry records submitted through it. [Hosting provider name, to confirm]
• Cloudflare, provides the Turnstile spam-protection service on our form.

We may also disclose personal data if we are required to do so by law, or to establish, exercise or defend our legal rights.

International transfers

Some of our processors may store or process data outside the UK or European Economic Area (EEA). Where that happens, we take steps to make sure your data is protected to a standard equivalent to UK data protection law, for example, by relying on UK adequacy regulations, the International Data Transfer Agreement, or the UK Addendum to the EU Standard Contractual Clauses, together with appropriate safeguards.

If you'd like more detail about where your data is processed, please contact us.

How long we keep your data

We keep enquiry data only for as long as we need it:

• If you don't become a client: we keep your enquiry and the details you provided for up to [24 months, to confirm] from your last contact with us, so we can follow up on your enquiry and refer back to it if you get back in touch. After that, we delete or anonymise it.
• If you become a client: we keep the relevant information for the duration of our relationship and for a reasonable period afterwards, in line with our legal and accounting obligations.

We review the data we hold periodically and remove anything we no longer need.

Your rights

Under UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018, you have the following rights over your personal data:

• The right to be informed, to know how we use your data (which this policy explains).
• The right of access, to ask for a copy of the personal data we hold about you.
• The right to rectification, to have inaccurate or incomplete data corrected.
• The right to erasure, to ask us to delete your data in certain circumstances.
• The right to restrict processing, to ask us to limit how we use your data in certain circumstances.
• The right to data portability, to ask us to provide your data in a portable, machine-readable format in certain circumstances.
• The right to object, to object to us processing your data where we rely on legitimate interests.
• The right to withdraw consent, where we rely on your consent, you can withdraw it at any time.

To exercise any of these rights, please email us at hello@hgcit.co.uk or call 01305 310006. We'll respond within one month. You won't normally have to pay anything, and we may need to confirm your identity before acting on your request.

Cookies and tracking

We've kept things deliberately simple. Our website does not set advertising or analytics cookies, and we do not use third-party tracking tools to monitor your browsing.

The only third-party technology that runs in your browser is Cloudflare Turnstile on our contact form, which is there purely to tell genuine visitors apart from spam bots. It does not track you across other websites or build an advertising profile of you.

If we introduce analytics or other cookies in future, we'll update this policy and, where required, ask for your consent first.

How to complain

If you have any concern about how we've handled your personal data, please contact us first, we'd genuinely like the chance to put things right.

You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), the UK's data protection regulator:

• Website: ico.org.uk
• Helpline: 0303 123 1113
• Post: Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time to reflect changes to our practices or to legal requirements. When we do, we'll revise the "Last updated" date at the top of this page. Please check back occasionally to stay informed.

Contact us

If you have any questions about this policy or about how we handle your personal data, please get in touch:

• Email: hello@hgcit.co.uk
• Phone: 01305 310006
• Post: HGC IT Solutions, [Registered office address, to confirm]