privacy policy
Last updated: 11 July 2026
Lightmark Advisory respects your privacy and is committed to protecting your personal information.
This privacy policy explains how we collect, use, store and share personal information when you visit lightmarkadvisory.co.uk, contact us, submit an enquiry or otherwise interact with Lightmark Advisory.
1. Who we are
Lightmark Advisory is a strategic communications consultancy based in the United Kingdom.
For the purposes of UK data protection law, the data controller responsible for your personal information is: Caitlin Phillips trading as Lightmark Advisory
References in this policy to “Lightmark”, “Lightmark Advisory”, “we”, “us” or “our” mean the data controller named above.
You can contact us about privacy or data protection matters at:
Email: hello@lightmarkadvisory.co.uk
Website: lightmarkadvisory.co.uk
2. The information we collect
We may collect and process the following categories of personal information.
Information you provide to us
When you contact us by email or submit an enquiry through our website, you may provide information including:
Your name
Your email address
Your telephone number, if provided
Your job title, organisation or other professional details
Information about your project, event, communications requirements or potential engagement
Your preferred method of contact
The content of your message and any subsequent correspondence
Any other information you choose to provide
Please avoid including sensitive personal information in an initial enquiry unless it is genuinely necessary for us to understand or respond to your request.
Information collected when you use our website
Our website is hosted by Squarespace. When you visit the website, Squarespace may collect technical and usage information including:
Information about your browser, network and device
Your IP address
Web pages you visited before coming to this website
Pages you view on this website
Clicks and internal links
Scrolling activity
Searches
Referring pages or traffic sources
Dates and timestamps
This information is used to operate, secure and improve the website and, where you have consented to analytics cookies, to help us understand website traffic and activity.
Information collected during a client relationship
If you become a client, supplier, associate or business contact, we may also collect:
Business contact details
Project briefs and scopes of work
Proposals, contracts and related correspondence
Meeting notes and project communications
Invoicing, payment and transaction records
Information required to deliver the agreed services
Records necessary for legal, tax, insurance and accounting purposes
This policy applies where Lightmark Advisory decides how and why that information is used.
During some consultancy engagements, we may process personal information on behalf of a client and under the client’s instructions. In those circumstances, the client will normally be the data controller and its own privacy arrangements will apply.
3. How and why we use your information
We only process personal information where we have a lawful basis for doing so.
Responding to enquiries
We use the information you submit to:
Review and respond to your enquiry
Arrange introductory calls or meetings
Understand your communications or project requirements
Prepare a proposal, estimate or potential scope of work
Maintain a record of our correspondence
Our lawful basis is normally that the processing is necessary to take steps at your request before entering into a contract. We may also rely on our legitimate interest in communicating with prospective clients and developing our business.
Providing consultancy services
Where you engage Lightmark Advisory, we use personal information to:
Establish and manage the client relationship
Deliver the agreed consultancy services
Communicate with you and relevant project stakeholders
Manage timelines, meetings, deliverables and approvals
Prepare and administer proposals, contracts and invoices
Maintain appropriate business and project records
Our lawful basis is normally that the processing is necessary to perform our contract with you or to take steps connected with that contract.
Where our client is an organisation rather than an individual, we may rely on our legitimate interest in managing the engagement and communicating with the organisation’s employees, representatives and other relevant stakeholders.
Operating and improving the website
We may use technical and usage information to:
Operate and maintain the website
Diagnose technical problems
Protect the website against misuse, fraud or security threats
Understand how visitors use the website
Improve the structure, content and performance of the website
Assess the effectiveness of our business and communications activities
For strictly necessary website operation and security, we rely on our legitimate interests in maintaining a secure and functional website.
For optional analytics and performance cookies, we rely on your consent where consent is required.
Meeting legal and administrative obligations
We may use and retain information where necessary to:
Comply with tax, accounting and legal requirements
Establish, exercise or defend legal claims
Respond to lawful requests from courts, regulators or public authorities
Prevent or investigate fraud, misuse or security incidents
Obtain professional legal, financial or insurance advice
Our lawful basis may be compliance with a legal obligation or our legitimate interest in protecting and administering our business.
4. Website forms
When you submit information through a form on this website, we collect the information requested in the form so that we can review, track and respond to your submission.
The form will ordinarily send the information to Lightmark Advisory’s designated business email account. Form information may also be stored within Squarespace, depending on the website’s configuration.
We provide this information to Squarespace, our website hosting provider, so that Squarespace can provide its website and form services to us.
Submitting an enquiry does not automatically add you to a general marketing mailing list.
5. Cookies and analytics
Cookies and similar technologies are small files or pieces of information stored on or accessed from your device when you visit a website.
Our website may use the following types of cookies.
Necessary cookies
Necessary cookies allow Squarespace to serve the website securely and provide its essential functions. These cookies are required for the website to operate and cannot ordinarily be disabled through our cookie controls.
Analytics and performance cookies
With your permission, Squarespace Analytics may use analytics and performance cookies to help us understand:
How visitors reach the website
Which pages they visit
How visitors move around and interact with the website
General levels of traffic and engagement
Technical performance and errors
We receive this information in a form intended to help us understand general website activity rather than identify individual visitors.
Analytics and performance cookies should only be activated after you have made an appropriate choice through our cookie banner.
You can accept, decline or manage non-essential cookies through the cookie banner or the cookie-preferences control displayed on the website. You may also be able to remove or block cookies using your browser settings, although doing so may affect some website functions.
We do not currently use cookies for targeted advertising or behavioural profiling.
6. Who we share information with
We do not sell your personal information.
We may share personal information with carefully selected recipients where it is reasonably necessary for the purposes described in this policy. These recipients may include:
Squarespace
Squarespace hosts and operates our website and provides website analytics, security and form functionality.
Depending on the nature of the information and service, Squarespace may act as a data processor on our behalf or as an independent data controller for certain information it collects for its own purposes.
Business technology providers
We may use reputable providers of:
Business email
Cloud document storage
Video conferencing
Accounting and invoicing software
Project-management or collaboration tools
Website security and technical support
These providers may process personal information only to the extent necessary to provide their services.
Professional advisers
We may share information with accountants, lawyers, insurers or other professional advisers where this is reasonably necessary to obtain advice, comply with our obligations or protect our legal interests.
Associates and subcontractors
Where appropriate for a consultancy engagement, we may share relevant information with trusted associates, specialists or subcontractors involved in delivering the services.
We will only share information that is reasonably necessary for their role and will require appropriate confidentiality and data-protection arrangements.
Authorities and legal recipients
We may disclose information where required by law, regulation, court order or a lawful request from a public authority, or where necessary to protect our rights, property, security or the interests of others.
Business transfers
If Lightmark Advisory undergoes a restructuring, sale or transfer of all or part of its business, relevant information may be disclosed to professional advisers and prospective or actual purchasers, subject to appropriate confidentiality protections.
7. International transfers
Some of our service providers, including Squarespace, may process or store personal information outside the United Kingdom, including in the United States.
Where personal information is transferred outside the UK, we take steps to ensure that the transfer is protected in accordance with applicable data-protection law.
These protections may include:
Transferring information to a country covered by UK adequacy regulations
Reliance on an approved data-privacy framework
Use of the UK International Data Transfer Agreement
Use of the UK Addendum to approved European Commission Standard Contractual Clauses
Other legally recognised contractual or organisational safeguards
You may contact us for further information about the safeguards relevant to a particular transfer.
8. How long we keep information
We keep personal information only for as long as reasonably necessary for the purpose for which it was collected, including any legal, accounting, tax, regulatory or reporting requirements.
As a general guide:
Enquiries that do not result in an engagement will normally be retained for up to two years after our last meaningful contact.
Client contracts, key correspondence, project records and related business records may normally be retained for up to six years after the end of the engagement.
Invoices and financial records will be retained for the period required by applicable tax and accounting laws.
Website analytics and technical information will be retained in accordance with our Squarespace settings and only for as long as reasonably necessary to analyse website performance and trends.
Information connected with a dispute, complaint, legal claim or regulatory issue may be retained for longer where reasonably necessary.
We may delete or anonymise information sooner where it is no longer needed.
9. Data security
We take reasonable and proportionate technical and organisational measures to protect personal information from accidental or unlawful loss, alteration, misuse, disclosure or unauthorised access.
These measures may include:
Password-protected systems
Access controls
Secure cloud and website providers
Encryption where supported by our service providers
Confidentiality arrangements
Limiting access to those who reasonably need the information
Keeping software and services appropriately maintained
No internet transmission or storage system can be guaranteed to be completely secure. You should therefore take care when deciding what information to send through an online form or by email.
10. Your data-protection rights
Depending on the circumstances and the lawful basis on which we rely, you may have the right to:
Ask for access to the personal information we hold about you
Ask us to correct inaccurate or incomplete information
Ask us to delete your information
Ask us to restrict how we use your information
Object to certain uses of your information
Ask to receive certain information in a portable format
Withdraw consent where we rely on consent
Complain to a data-protection regulator
These rights are not absolute and may not apply in every situation. We may need to verify your identity before responding to a request.
We will not normally charge a fee for exercising your rights. However, the law may allow us to charge a reasonable fee or refuse a request where it is manifestly unfounded or excessive.
Your right to object
You have the right to object at any time to our use of your personal information where we rely on legitimate interests as our lawful basis.
You also have an absolute right to object to your personal information being used for direct marketing.
To exercise your rights, contact us using the details at the beginning of this policy.
11. Withdrawing consent
Where we rely on your consent—for example, for optional analytics cookies—you may withdraw that consent at any time.
You can change your cookie preferences through the cookie-management control on the website. Withdrawing consent will not affect the lawfulness of processing carried out before consent was withdrawn.
12. Complaints
Please contact us first if you have concerns about how we have handled your personal information. We will take your concerns seriously and try to resolve them.
You also have the right to complain to the UK Information Commissioner’s Office:
Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
United Kingdom
You can find current contact and complaint information on the ICO website.
13. Children
Our website and consultancy services are intended for business and professional audiences and are not directed at children.
We do not knowingly collect personal information from children through the website. If you believe a child has provided personal information to us, please contact us so that we can review and, where appropriate, delete it.
14. Third-party websites
Our website may contain links to websites operated by third parties.
We are not responsible for the privacy practices, security or content of third-party websites. You should review the privacy information provided by those organisations before submitting personal information to them.
15. Changes to this policy
We may update this privacy policy from time to time to reflect changes to our website, services, suppliers or legal obligations.
The latest version will be published on this page and the “last updated” date will be amended accordingly.