How we use storage businesses’ details

Who we are

StoreBay makes software for self-storage businesses. It is run by Sellframe Ltd, a company registered in Scotland (number SC472357). Our registered office is 14 Avonside Grove, Hamilton, ML3 7DL. We are registered with the ICO (the Information Commission, formerly the Information Commissioner’s Office), number ZA781833.

For anything about your data, email privacy@storebay.co.uk.

Why you are reading this

We keep a list of UK self-storage businesses so that we can phone them, write to them and, for limited companies, email them about StoreBay. If we have called you, written to you or emailed you, or you run a storage business, this notice explains what we hold, where we got it, and how to make us stop.

What we hold

About your business

Its name, site addresses, phone numbers, website and general email address (such as info@).
Its company number and Companies House details, if it is a company.
What your website shows: the kinds of storage you offer, how many sites you have, how you take bookings, and whether your prices are online.
Our own notes: when we called, wrote or emailed, what was said, and what happens next.
Emails between our team and your business (see “Letters and emails” below).

If you trade as a sole trader or a partnership, these business details are information about you.

About people. We hold these only if we have spoken to you, or you are a director we looked up at Companies House and saved:

your name, your role, and your business contact details;
when we gave you this notice.

About emails. If you email one of our team, or one of our team emails you, we keep a copy of it. That includes the email addresses on it, which may be personal ones, and anyone else copied in.

We do not collect personal email addresses from websites, home addresses, or anything sensitive. (The email addresses on an email we exchange with you are kept with it, as above.)

Where we got it

Your own website.
Companies House.
Open map data from OpenStreetMap and Overture Maps.
Google Maps. We keep only Google’s reference number for your listing, never details copied from Google.
You, when we speak.

What we use it for, and why we are allowed to

We use it to decide which businesses to contact and when, to phone, write to and email you about StoreBay, and to keep a record of what was said.

We also use what we hold to produce anonymous statistics about the storage market, such as the share of storage businesses in Scotland that take bookings online. A statistic never names a business, never shows where one is, and is never used to decide whether to contact you. We make it from a copy that has your name, address, phone number and website removed, and we publish nothing for an area small enough for you to be recognised. The law lets us use data we already hold for statistics when the result is anonymous and is not used to make decisions about you (UK GDPR Articles 4(5) and 8A). You can object to this in the same way as to anything else in this notice.

Our legal basis is legitimate interests (UK GDPR Article 6(1)(f)): telling storage businesses about software built for them. We have weighed that against your interests, and you can ask us for that assessment.

We use software, including an AI service, to decide whether a business offers self storage, to order our calls and letters, and to read and sort the replies we get to our emails. It decides nothing about you except whether and when we contact you, and how we answer. When it can’t tell, a person decides, or signs off a check of the business’s own website and public listings.

Phone calls

Before we call a number, we check it against our own do-not-call list. If you have asked us not to call, we will not.
We never withhold our number. If you ask, we will give you our address or a free number to reach us on.
If you tell us you would rather not be called, we will not call you again.

Letters and emails

Letters. We write to storage businesses on our list. A letter says who we are and how to ask us to stop, and carries this notice. We use Stannp to print and post our letters.

Emails we send. We email limited companies, limited liability partnerships and Scottish partnerships about StoreBay, at the business’s general address (such as info@). We send them through a service called Instantly, from a separate StoreBay email address, one short plain-text message at a time, and never more than three to a business unless it replies. Every email says who we are and how to stop. Before we first write to an address, a service called Bouncer checks that it can receive email. We do not email sole traders or other partnerships about StoreBay unless they have asked us to.

Emails you send us. If you email one of our team, or one of our team emails you, we keep a copy: who it was between, the subject, when it was sent, and what is new in it (not the earlier messages quoted below it). We keep the names of attachments, not the attachments. We do not track whether you open an email or click a link. Ask us and we will delete any email we hold about you.

We never sell your data. These service providers handle it for us:

DigitalOcean: our hosting, in London.
Anthropic: its AI service helps us sort public website text, for example whether a business offers self storage (personal email addresses are removed before it sees any text), and helps us read and sort the replies we get to our emails (it sees what you wrote to us and your email address).
Google: when a member of our team looks at your Maps listing. Also Google Workspace, which runs our team’s email, including the mailboxes our emails to you are sent from.
cal.com: runs our meeting bookings. If you book a meeting with us, or agree one on a call and we book it for you, we keep a copy of the booking so our team sees it beside our notes on your business: its time, the meeting link, who you are meeting, and your name and email address as you gave them.
Zoom: runs the video meeting, if we meet online.
Stannp: prints and posts our letters. It receives the business’s name and address and the text of the letter.
Instantly: sends our emails to limited companies, and keeps each message and whether it was delivered or answered. It receives the business’s email address and the text of the email.
Bouncer: checks that an email address can receive email, before we first write to it. It receives the address.

Transfers outside the UK

Anthropic, Google, cal.com, Instantly and Zoom are based in the US. When your data goes to them, we rely on the UK Extension to the EU-US Data Privacy Framework, the UK International Data Transfer Agreement or the UK Addendum to the EU’s standard contractual clauses. Bouncer is in the EU: its company is in Poland and its servers are in Germany. Stannp is based in England and keeps our data in Ireland.

How long we keep it

People, and sole traders’ and partnerships’ details: up to 24 months after our last contact.
Emails and letters: up to 24 months after our last contact with the business.
Company details: while they are current. We refresh them every month.
If you ask us not to contact you, we keep a scrambled code made from your number, email or business, not the details themselves, so that we never contact you again. The code cannot be turned back into your details. Our email service also keeps the email address itself on a block list, for the same purpose.

Your rights

Stop us contacting you, at any time. Say so on a call, reply “stop” to one of our emails, or email privacy@storebay.co.uk. This ends our calls, letters and emails. This is an absolute right: we will stop.
See what we hold about you, correct it, have it deleted, or restrict how we use it.

Email privacy@storebay.co.uk, or write to our registered office. We reply within one month.

Complaints

Please tell us first: email privacy@storebay.co.uk or write to our registered office. We will acknowledge your complaint within 30 days and deal with it without undue delay.

You can also complain to the ICO (the Information Commission, formerly the Information Commissioner’s Office): Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF · 0303 123 1113 · ico.org.uk.

Changes

We will update this notice when what we do changes.