Privacy policy

This policy explains how Her Index collects, uses, stores and protects personal information when you use herindex.co.uk or contact us about a business enquiry. It also explains your rights under UK data protection law.

Who we are

Her Index (https://herindex.co.uk) is an independent UK comparison website for women's health, fitness and wellbeing services. It is operated by Leoni Jeffcoate, a sole trader trading as Her Index, who is the controller of the personal information described in this policy.

For any privacy question or request, please email hello@herindex.co.uk.

Information we collect

You can browse and compare listings on Her Index without creating an account or giving us any personal information.

Business enquiries (listing applications, claims or updates, partnership enquiries, and concerns or removal requests) are currently handled by email to hello@herindex.co.uk rather than through website submission forms. The website forms are paused and do not currently save new enquiries. When you email us, we receive the information you choose to include in your email, such as your name and email address. We also continue to hold records submitted through our former website forms, which are kept and anonymised as described below. These records may include:

• your name and email address;
• business details, including the business name, website, social media and app store links;
• prices, pricing terms and information about the services offered;
• messages, explanations, proposed corrections and supporting evidence or links you provide.

For submissions made through our former website forms, we also stored a hashed representation of the sender's connection (IP) address to limit repeated or abusive submissions. Hashing makes the original address harder to read, but it does not guarantee anonymity, so we treat it as personal information.

Please only include information about other people where you are entitled to share it.

How we use information and our lawful bases

We use personal information to:

• respond to your enquiry and communicate with you about it;
• assess applications for new listings;
• process corrections, updates, complaints, concerns and removal requests;
• consider partnership enquiries;
• keep our comparisons accurate and up to date;
• keep the website secure and prevent spam and misuse;
• meet our legal obligations.

Under the UK GDPR, we rely on the following lawful bases:

• Legitimate interests — to run an accurate, independent comparison service, review submissions, handle concerns, and keep the website secure. We consider these interests to be balanced against your rights and expectations.
• Steps before entering into a contract — where you ask us about a possible commercial arrangement, such as a partnership.
• Legal obligation — where we must keep or disclose information to comply with the law.

Where confirmation boxes were ticked on our former website forms, they confirmed that the information was accurate and that this policy had been read. They are not the lawful basis for all our processing, and we do not rely on consent for the activities above.

Submitting information does not guarantee inclusion, changes to a listing, favourable coverage or removal. All listings and editorial assessments remain independently controlled by Her Index.

Business submissions and how long we keep them

Applications and enquiries previously submitted through our website forms are stored securely in our database on Lovable Cloud. Only authorised Her Index administrators can access them. New enquiries sent by email are received in our email inbox and are not added to this database.

Once a submission is marked Closed, its personal information is automatically anonymised 12 months later. Anonymisation removes the contact name and email address, the submitted details, our private notes and the hashed connection address, leaving only non-identifying administrative information, such as the type of submission and relevant dates.

Where an ongoing dispute or a legal obligation justifies keeping information for longer, we may place a documented retention hold on a specific submission. Holds are reviewed and lifted once they are no longer needed, after which the normal retention rule applies.

Published and draft business listings are stored separately from submissions and are not removed by this retention process. Listing information is public business information rather than personal contact details.

Hosting and service providers

We use trusted technical service providers to run the website:

• Lovable provides the platform that builds and hosts the website, and Lovable Cloud, which stores our database. The database is hosted on Amazon Web Services (AWS) infrastructure in Frankfurt, Germany.
• The public website is delivered through global hosting infrastructure, so requests may be handled by servers in or outside the UK, depending on where you are.

The typefaces used on the site are hosted with the website itself, so your browser does not connect to Google Fonts or any other third-party font service.

These providers process information on our behalf or to deliver the service. Lovable publishes a Data Processing Agreement and a list of subprocessors.

International transfers

Some technical information, including IP addresses, may be processed outside the UK, for example by global hosting infrastructure. Where personal information is transferred outside the UK, we rely on the safeguards offered by our providers, such as UK adequacy regulations or contractual data protection terms. We have not independently verified each provider's transfer arrangements. Please contact us if you would like more information.

Cookies, browser storage and analytics

Her Index does not currently use visitor analytics, advertising trackers or non-essential analytics cookies. The public website does not use Google Analytics, Meta Pixel or any other advertising or measurement service.

Browser storage is used only where necessary for administrators: to keep authorised admins signed in and to keep a temporary copy of unsaved admin drafts. Visitors who do not sign in to the admin area are not affected by this storage.

The visitor statistics built into Lovable's hosting have been switched off, so no visit or page-view data is collected through the website. If any analytics or measurement tool is introduced in future, this policy will be updated first and any notice or consent required by UK law will be added before it is used.

Affiliate links and referral codes

Her Index may introduce affiliate partnerships or referral codes in future. These would always be clearly disclosed. We do not currently have any active affiliate links or referral codes. If you follow a link to a provider's website, that provider's own privacy policy and cookies apply.

Your rights

Under UK data protection law, you have rights including the right to:

• access the personal information we hold about you;
• ask us to correct inaccurate or incomplete information;
• ask us to erase your information;
• object to processing based on legitimate interests;
• ask us to restrict processing;
• data portability, where it applies.

Some rights apply only in certain circumstances. To make a request, email hello@herindex.co.uk. We will respond within one month, or tell you if we need longer as permitted by law.

If you are unhappy with how we have handled your information, please contact us first. You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) at https://ico.org.uk.

Security

We use access controls so that only authorised administrators can view submissions, limit how much information we collect, and automatically anonymise closed submissions. No online service can be completely secure, but we take reasonable steps to protect your information.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy when our services or legal requirements change. The date at the top shows when it was last updated.