Privacy Policy

TheDirectory.uk is the data controller for the information described here. That means we decide why and how it is processed, and we are accountable for it.

Contact the data controller at [email protected] about anything on this page, including a request to see, correct or delete your data.

Information you give us. Your email address and password, display name, date of birth, gender, the town you list in, your biography and listing details (which may include height, build, hair, eyes, ethnicity, nationality and languages), contact details you choose to publish such as a telephone number, Telegram or WhatsApp, photographs and video, working hours and rates, your cryptocurrency addresses, and anything you write in messages, reviews, the forum or the chat room.

Identity documents. Where you go through identity verification, the document you upload and what we record from checking it.

Information we generate. Your account status and tier, your token balance and every transaction, moderation decisions about your content, reports made by or about you, ratings you receive, when you were last active, and which profiles you have viewed.

Technical information. Your IP address, browser and device information, and the pages you request, recorded in server logs. When you sign up we also record the IP address and country you signed up from, and each time you sign in we keep the IP address of your most recent sign in. Staff can see these to protect members and investigate fraud.

Every use has a lawful basis under Article 6 of the UK GDPR. Ours are:

• To provide the service you signed up for: creating your account, publishing your listing, delivering messages, taking payment, crediting tokens, paying what we owe you. Basis: performance of a contract.
• To keep the site safe: moderating photographs and text, investigating reports, detecting fraud and duplicate or banned accounts, recording enforcement decisions. Basis: legitimate interests, namely protecting members and running a lawful platform.
• To meet legal obligations: responding to a lawful request from the police or a regulator, keeping financial records, complying with the Online Safety Act 2023. Basis: legal obligation.
• To verify age and identity: checking that members are over 18 and are who they say they are. Basis: legal obligation, and our legitimate interest in keeping children off an adult service. A member of our team looks at the document you upload. It is not read by software.
• To answer you: support, complaints and enquiries. Basis: legitimate interests.
• To keep accounts secure: recording the IP addresses of sign ups, sign ins and repeated failed attempts, and blocking abuse. Basis: legitimate interests, namely protecting members and the site from fraud and attack.

Information about your sex life or sexual orientation is special category data under Article 9 of the UK GDPR. It has stronger protection than ordinary personal data, and it cannot be processed on the basis of our legitimate interests.

A listing on this site inherently reveals information of that kind. We therefore rely on your explicit consent under Article 9(2)(a), which we ask for separately and plainly when you sign up rather than folding it into acceptance of the terms.

You can withdraw that consent at any time by unpublishing your listing or closing your account. Withdrawing it does not affect anything done before you withdrew, and we may still keep a limited record where the law requires it or where it is needed to defend a legal claim.

Where you deliberately publish such information on your own public profile, Article 9(2)(e) also applies: you have manifestly made it public yourself.

Your listing is public. Your display name, age, town, biography, listing details, public photographs, rating and whether you are online can be seen by anybody visiting the site, including people who are not members. Search engines do not list individual profiles unless the member chooses to make theirs visible.

• Private gallery photographs and video are shown only to members holding a valid access code from you, and to our moderators.
• Your email address and password are never shown to other members.
• Your date of birth is never shown. Only your age is.
• Telephone, Telegram, WhatsApp and email are shown only if you publish them, and are masked until a member chooses to reveal them.
• Your cryptocurrency addresses appear on your profile only if you switch that on.
• Messages are visible to you and the person you send them to, and to a moderator if reported.

Messages on this site are not end-to-end encrypted. They are stored on our servers and can be read by a moderator if they are reported. Please do not treat them as private from us.

We do not sell your personal data. We share it only as follows:

• Our hosting and storage providers, who hold the site and your photographs on our instructions.
• Our email provider, to send you account and security messages.
• Our content delivery and security provider, which passes all traffic to the site and therefore sees your IP address.
• Public blockchains. If you give us a cryptocurrency address, or we send you a payout, the payment is recorded on a public ledger that neither we nor anyone else can erase.
• The police, a court or a regulator, where we are lawfully required to, or where there is a risk to life.
• A professional adviser, insurer or auditor where reasonably necessary.
• A buyer, if the site changes hands. We would tell you first.

Every provider acts as our processor under a written contract that requires them to keep your data secure and to use it only as we instruct.

Some of our providers store or process data outside the United Kingdom. Where that happens we rely on either an adequacy decision by the UK government, or the International Data Transfer Agreement, or the UK Addendum to the European Commission's standard contractual clauses, together with an assessment of the protection actually available in that country.

You can ask us at [email protected] which providers are involved and what safeguards are in place.

• Your account and listing: while your account is open.
• After you close your account: your profile and photographs are hidden straight away. We keep the account record for 365 days in case you ask to come back or a legal or safety matter arises, and then delete it, other than the exceptions below.
• Messages: kept while both accounts exist, then deleted with the account. A conversation set to disappear is deleted automatically on the schedule chosen.
• Identity documents: the image is deleted 12 months after we approve or reject it, or after 90 days if the check was never finished. We keep the decision, not the image.
• Moderation and safety records, including reports, blocks and enforcement decisions: up to 6 years, so that a banned member cannot simply return and so we can defend a claim.
• Financial records including token transactions and payouts: 6 years, as tax law requires.
• Server logs: 30 days. The sign up and latest sign in IP addresses on your account: while the account exists.

• Passwords are stored hashed. Nobody at TheDirectory.uk can read yours.
• Photographs are held in private storage and served only through short-lived signed links, never a public address.
• Private and unapproved photographs are not served to anybody without permission, and requests for them are answered as though the photograph does not exist.
• Access to member data is limited to the people who need it to moderate or support the site.

No system is perfectly secure. If a breach happens that is likely to put your rights at risk, we will tell the ICO within 72 hours and tell you without undue delay.

We do not make decisions about you by automated means alone that produce legal effects or similarly significantly affect you. Photographs and video are reviewed by a person before publication, and account suspensions are decided by a person.

This service is for adults. We do not knowingly collect data about anybody under 18. If you believe a child is using the site, tell us at [email protected] and we will act immediately.

You have the right to be informed, of access, to rectification, to erasure, to restrict processing, to data portability, to object, and to withdraw consent. These are set out in full, with how to use them, in Your data and GDPR.

You can also complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk, on 0303 123 1113, or at Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF. We would rather you came to us first.

We use a small number of cookies and similar technologies. What they are and how to control them is in Cookies.

To see which parts of the site are used, we keep a simple count of page views for each section of the site, each day. It uses no cookie, does not store your IP address and cannot be tied back to you, and it is skipped if your browser sends a Do Not Track signal. We also keep totals of how many times each advert was shown and clicked, again with nothing that identifies you.

We will post any change here and update the reviewed date. Where a change materially affects how we use your data we will tell you directly and, where the law requires it, ask for your consent again.