Privacy Policy

The short version

This site sets no cookies, runs no analytics and embeds no trackers. The only personal data it collects is what you type into the enquiry form — your name, your email address and your message — which is emailed to me so I can reply. Nothing is sold, and nothing is used for advertising.

Who is responsible for your data

Emerging Freelancer is the data controller for this website. I am an independent developer based in [Your City and Country], working with clients internationally.

For any question about your data, or to exercise any of the rights below, email info@emergingfreelancer.com.

What this site collects

Two things, and nothing else:

• Enquiry form submissions. Your name, email address and the message you write. You choose what goes in the message, so please do not include anything sensitive — passwords, card details or confidential documents — in a first contact.
• Your IP address, briefly. The contact route counts recent submissions per IP address to stop automated abuse. That count is held in the server’s memory for ten minutes and is never written to a database or a file. It is discarded when the window passes or the server restarts.

Your web host will also keep its own server logs, which typically record IP addresses and the pages requested. That is standard for any website and is outside this site’s own code.

What this site does not do

Stated plainly, because most privacy policies bury it:

• No cookies are set by this site. There is no cookie banner because there is nothing to consent to.
• No analytics, no tag manager, no pixels, no session recording, no heatmaps.
• No advertising networks, and no sharing or selling of personal data to anyone.
• No profiling and no automated decision-making about you.
• Fonts are served from this site rather than from Google Fonts, so loading a page does not pass your IP address to a third party.

Why I process it, and on what basis

Your enquiry is processed so I can reply to it and, if we work together, so I can quote and deliver the work. Under UK and EU data protection law the lawful basis is legitimate interests — responding to someone who deliberately contacted me — and, once we agree a project, performance of a contract.

The brief IP count exists to keep the form usable and is also a legitimate interest: without it, the form can be flooded.

Who else can see it

Only the services needed to deliver the email and serve the site. Each is bound by its own agreement and may not use your data for its own purposes.

• Hostinger — Hosts the mailbox that enquiries are sent from and delivered to. Receives: Your name, email address and message. Processed in European Union. Their privacy policy.
• Vercel — Serves the website and runs the contact route. Receives: Server logs, which typically include IP address and page requested. Processed in United States, with edge locations worldwide. Their privacy policy.

Because I work internationally, your data may be processed outside your own country — including in the United States. Where that applies to UK or EU personal data, the transfer relies on the provider’s own safeguards, such as standard contractual clauses.

I will also disclose data if the law genuinely requires it. I will tell you if that happens, unless I am forbidden from doing so.

How long it is kept

• Enquiries that do not become projects: kept for up to 12 months in my email, then deleted. Enquiries are often picked up again months later, which is the only reason for keeping them at all.
• Project correspondence: kept for as long as the project runs and for 6 years afterwards, because tax and contract records have to be retained.
• Rate-limit counts: ten minutes, in memory only.

Your rights

Wherever you are, you can ask me to show you what I hold about you, correct it, or delete it, and I will do so. If you are in the UK or EU, you also have the right to restrict or object to processing, to receive your data in a portable format, and to complain to your data protection authority — in the UK that is the Information Commissioner’s Office.

There is nothing to opt out of here in the marketing sense: I do not run a mailing list and I do not send unsolicited email.

Security, honestly described

Enquiries are sent over an encrypted connection and the secrets that send them are stored as server environment variables, never in the website code or in a repository. Access to client systems is requested at the narrowest scope that does the job, granted from your own accounts rather than copied, and revocable by you at any time.

No system is perfectly secure, and anyone claiming otherwise is selling something. If a breach ever affected your data, I would tell you and the relevant authority within the time the law requires.

Children

This is a business-to-business service and is not directed at children. I do not knowingly collect data from anyone under 16.

Changes

If this policy changes, the date at the top changes with it. Material changes affecting people who have already contacted me will be notified by email where I have an address for them.