Privacy Policy

This privacy policy explains how LocalShout ("we", "us", "our") collects, uses, and protects your personal data when you use our website at localshout.co.uk and its subdomains.

We are committed to protecting your privacy in accordance with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018.

1. Data we collect

Information you provide

• Contact information — if you contact us via email, we store your email address and message content to respond to your enquiry.
• Account information — if you sign in via Google, we receive your name, email address, and profile picture from Google. This is used solely to identify your account and personalise your experience. We do not access your Google contacts, calendar, or any other Google services.

Information collected automatically

• Location data — with your explicit consent, we use your device's geolocation API to show events near you. This data is processed in your browser only and is not sent to our servers or stored.
• Anonymous session identifier — when you first visit, your browser generates a random identifier and stores it in local storage. It is not linked to your name or email unless you sign in, and it lets us remember the events you save and the venues and artists you follow without asking you to create an account. Clearing your browser data removes it and starts a new one.
• Activity data — we record the deliberate actions you take on the site, tied to that anonymous identifier: saving an event, following a venue or artist, submitting a listing, switching between the Curated and Everything views, and the filters and search terms you settle on. We use this to understand which events people are looking for and whether our default ordering is actually useful. We do not track what you read, how far you scroll, or how long you spend on a page.
• Local storage — we store your display preferences (such as hidden tags and distance radius) in your browser's local storage. These preferences stay on your device.

2. Cookies

We use strictly necessary cookies to ensure the website functions correctly. These do not require consent under UK GDPR as they are essential for the service.

We do not use advertising cookies, and we do not track you across other websites. The anonymous session identifier described above is held in local storage rather than a cookie, but we treat it with the same care: it exists to make saving and following work without an account, and it is never shared with advertisers or data brokers. If we introduce advertising or cross-site tracking in the future, we will update this policy and obtain your consent first.

3. How we use your data

We use the data we collect to:

• Display events relevant to your location and preferences
• Remember the events you have saved and the venues and artists you follow, and order your feed accordingly
• Understand which events people are searching for, so we know which listings we are missing
• Respond to your enquiries
• Ensure the security and performance of our service

4. Legal basis for processing

We process your data on the following legal bases:

• Consent — for geolocation data (you can revoke this at any time through your browser settings)
• Legitimate interests — for activity data and service improvement: understanding which events people search for and whether our default ordering helps is how we decide what to fix. You can object to this at any time (see section 7)
• Contractual necessity — for responding to your enquiries

5. Data sharing

We do not sell your personal data, and we do not use third-party analytics services. Activity data stays in our own database. Our infrastructure providers include:

• Vercel — website hosting (servers in the EU/UK)
• Supabase — database hosting and authentication (servers in the EU)
• Sentry — error monitoring. When an application error occurs, technical details (browser type, error message, page URL) may be sent to Sentry to help us diagnose and fix issues. This does not include your personal information unless you are signed in, in which case your user ID may be attached to help us investigate account-specific problems.
• Google — if you sign in with Google, authentication is processed through Google's OAuth service. See Google's Privacy Policy.

6. Data retention

• Account data — retained for the lifetime of your account. You can request deletion at any time via our contact page.
• Contact enquiries — retained for up to 12 months after your last communication, then deleted
• Activity data — kept for as long as it is useful for improving the service, and no longer than 26 months. Automatic deletion is not yet in place; you can ask us to delete your activity data at any time (see section 7) and we will do so.
• Saves and follows — retained until you remove them, or until you clear the browser data holding your anonymous identifier
• Local storage data — remains on your device until you clear your browser data

7. Your rights

Under UK GDPR, you have the right to:

• Access — request a copy of the personal data we hold about you
• Rectification — ask us to correct inaccurate data
• Erasure — ask us to delete your data ("right to be forgotten")
• Restrict processing — ask us to limit how we use your data
• Data portability — receive your data in a portable format
• Object — object to processing based on legitimate interests
• Withdraw consent — at any time, without affecting the lawfulness of prior processing

To exercise any of these rights, please contact us at the details below.

8. Children's privacy

Our service is not directed at children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children. If you believe we have inadvertently collected such data, please contact us and we will delete it promptly.

9. Changes to this policy

We may update this privacy policy from time to time. We will post the revised policy on this page with an updated "last updated" date. Material changes will be highlighted on the website.

10. Contact

If you have questions about this privacy policy or wish to exercise your data rights, please contact us. See also our Terms of Service.

You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) at ico.org.uk.