Privacy notice

Who we are

Ema Local is a service operated by puglieseweb LTD, a company registered in England and Wales. For the information described here, puglieseweb LTD is the data controller. You can reach us at hello@emalocal.com.

What we collect, and why

If you're looking for a service

When you ask us to find someone, we collect what you tell us: the job you need doing, your area or postcode, and how to reach you. We use it for one thing — putting you in touch with a business who can do the work.

If the job itself reveals something sensitive — a physiotherapy appointment says something about your health, for example — we treat that information with the additional care the law requires, and we only pass it to the business you asked us to contact.

If you run a business

We hold your trading details, the areas and services you cover, your contact number, and a record of the jobs we've sent you and how you responded.

Who we share it with

The business you asked us to contact. That's the point of the service: to do the job, they need to know what you need and how to reach you. Once they have your details they are responsible for them as their own controller, under their own privacy notice.

We don't sell your details, and we don't pass them to businesses you haven't asked about. If nobody local can take the job, your request goes no further.

We use suppliers to run the service — hosting, messaging and email delivery — who process data on our instructions and cannot use it for their own ends.

Talking to Ema

Ema is an automated assistant, not a person, and will tell you so. Your conversation is kept for up to 180 days so we can follow up on a booking and investigate anything that goes wrong, then deleted. Where a conversation produces an enquiry for a business, that enquiry is sent to them directly and is not retained as a separate record by us.

Messages we send businesses

When a customer needs work doing, we may contact local businesses by text, WhatsApp or phone to ask whether they want it. Every message tells you who we are and how to stop. Reply STOP — or say so on a call — and we will not contact you again; that suppression is permanent and applies however you first came to be listed.

We screen numbers against the Telephone Preference Service and its corporate equivalent before making calls.

How long we keep things

• Chat conversations — up to 180 days
• Booking records — for as long as you have an account with us, plus the period we're required to keep business records
• Suppression list entries — kept indefinitely, because that's what makes an opt-out stick

Businesses listed in the directory

Some directory entries are compiled by us from information a business has already made public — its trading name, the kind of work it does, and a link to its own website — before we have spoken to it, so the town has a directory ahead of one-by-one outreach. We rely on legitimate interest to do this: it is the same basic information the business publishes to be found, and we add nothing to it. We do not copy content from its site, publish a phone number or address it hasn't given us directly, invent a description, or let Ema answer on its behalf until it has agreed.

If that is your business, you can claim, correct or remove the entry at any time — every such listing carries an “Is this your business?” link, or tell us here. Removal is immediate and permanent unless you ask to be listed again.

Your rights

You can ask us for a copy of what we hold about you, to correct it, to delete it, or to stop using it in a particular way. Write to hello@emalocal.com and we'll respond within one month.

If you think we've got it wrong, you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk. We'd rather you told us first so we can fix it.

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