Privacy Policy

Stack Match ("we", "us" or "our") operates this website as an independent business software review and comparison platform for the United Kingdom. We publish editorial reviews, comparisons and guides covering accounting, payroll, HR, CRM and related software.

For the purposes of the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018, Stack Match is the data controller responsible for your personal data. If you have any questions about this policy or how we handle your information, you can reach us at hello@stackmatch.uk.

We aim to collect as little personal data as possible. The information we do collect falls into a few clear categories.

Information you give us

• Your name and email address when you contact us, submit a review for editorial verification, or enquire about listing your software.
• Your email address, chosen topics and marketing consent when you subscribe to our newsletter, along with a hashed IP address and timestamp so we can demonstrate that consent was freely given. You can unsubscribe at any time via the link in every email or our unsubscribe page.
• Any details you choose to include in the body of an email or enquiry.

Information collected automatically

• Standard technical data such as your IP address, browser type, device information and the pages you visit, collected through cookies and similar technologies.
• Aggregated, anonymised analytics about how visitors use the site, which never identifies you personally.

We do not knowingly collect special category data (such as health, ethnicity or political views), and we do not collect information from anyone we know to be under the age of 16.

We only process your personal data where we have a lawful basis to do so under UK GDPR. In practice, that means one of the following.

• To respond to you. When you email or contact us, we use your details to reply and to keep a record of the correspondence. Lawful basis: legitimate interests.
• To operate and improve the site. We use technical and analytics data to keep the platform secure, fast and relevant. Lawful basis: legitimate interests.
• To send updates, where you ask us to. If you opt in to a newsletter, we use your email to send the content you requested. Lawful basis: consent, which you can withdraw at any time.
• To meet our legal obligations. We may process data where the law requires it, for example to respond to a valid request from a regulator. Lawful basis: legal obligation.

Stack Match is funded in part by affiliate commissions. When you click through to a software vendor from our site and go on to purchase, we may earn a referral fee at no extra cost to you. Following one of these links takes you to a third party website that operates under its own privacy policy, which we encourage you to read.

We use a small number of trusted third party processors to run the site, which may process limited data on our behalf, including our hosting and infrastructure provider, our analytics provider, and email delivery services. Each is bound by contract to handle data securely and only on our instructions.

We use cookies and similar technologies to make the site work, to remember your preferences and to understand how the platform is used. You are always in control of non-essential cookies and can manage or refuse them through your browser settings.

For full detail on the specific cookies we use and how to control them, please see our Cookie Policy.

We keep personal data only for as long as we genuinely need it. Correspondence is kept for as long as needed to handle your enquiry and for a reasonable period afterwards for our own records. Newsletter subscriptions are kept until you unsubscribe. Analytics data is retained in aggregated form and is not tied to you as an individual.

When data is no longer needed, we delete it or irreversibly anonymise it.

Under UK data protection law you have a number of rights over your personal data. You have the right to:

• be informed about how your data is used, which this policy is designed to do;
• access the personal data we hold about you;
• have inaccurate data corrected;
• have your data erased, where there is no compelling reason to keep it;
• restrict or object to certain processing;
• data portability, where applicable;
• withdraw consent at any time, where we rely on consent.

To exercise any of these rights, email hello@stackmatch.uk. We will respond within one month. There is normally no charge, and we will never make you jump through hoops to exercise a right that is yours.

We take the security of your data seriously and use appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect it, including encryption in transit, access controls and reputable infrastructure providers. No system can be guaranteed completely secure, but we work to reduce risk and to respond promptly should an issue ever arise.

If you are unhappy with how we have handled your personal data, we would always prefer the chance to put things right, so please contact us first at hello@stackmatch.uk.

You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), the UK supervisory authority for data protection, at ico.org.uk.

We may update this policy from time to time. When we do, we will revise the date at the top of this page, and any significant changes will be made clear.