Privacy notice

Last updated: 24 August 2026

Who we are

Patchlight [legal entity to be confirmed] ("Patchlight", "we") is the data controller for the personal data described in this notice. We provide a prospecting service to independent financial adviser firms: we watch the public Companies House record for owner-managed companies in a firm's county, identify events such as a business being sold, and draft emails for the adviser firm to send under its own approval.

Our registration with the Information Commissioner's Office is pending. This notice will be updated with the registration number, the legal entity and its registered address when they are confirmed.

If you are an officer or owner of a company in the public record

If a company you are connected with trades in a county served by Patchlight, this section explains what we hold about you, where it came from, and your rights.

What we process

Information published on the Companies House register about companies and the people connected with them: company name, number, registered and trading address, filed accounts, confirmation statements, the names of directors and persons with significant control, their roles, appointment dates, nationality, country of residence and month and year of birth, and the correspondence (service) addresses given on the register. Where a company publishes a website, we may also read the business information it makes public there.

We do not process residential addresses that are protected on the register, and we do not process special category data.

Where it came from

The Companies House public register, which is published under the Companies Act 2006 for anyone to inspect, and a company's own public website. We do not buy marketing lists, scrape social media, or read anyone's private accounts, inboxes or messages.

Why, and our lawful basis

To identify when a business owner may benefit from a conversation with a local, independent financial adviser, and to draft a short, relevant email for that adviser firm to consider sending. Our lawful basis is legitimate interests (Article 6(1)(f) UK GDPR): the interest of a regulated adviser firm in making a relevant, one-to-one business approach, and the interest of a business owner in hearing about advice at a moment when it is likely to matter. We have carried out and documented a legitimate interests assessment and will provide it on request.

Who sends the email

Patchlight drafts. The adviser firm decides. Every email is sent under the adviser firm's approval: either read and approved individually by a named person at the firm, or sent from wording and targeting rules that a named person at the firm has approved in advance as a versioned template. Either way it is sent from that firm's own mailbox, in that firm's own name, and the firm keeps an audit trail of who approved what, when, and what was sent to whom. The adviser firm is responsible for the emails it sends and for its own communications with you; its privacy notice applies to those.

Who we share it with

The adviser firm that holds the county in which your company trades, and only for the purpose above. Our service runs on licensed software hosted in the UK or EU. We do not sell personal data and we do not share it with anyone else.

How long we keep it

While the company remains within a county we serve and the information remains current on the public register. If you object, we keep the minimum needed to make sure you are not contacted again, and nothing else.

If you use this website

• No cookies, no analytics. This site sets no cookies and runs no tracking or analytics. Fonts are loaded from Google Fonts, which means your browser requests the font files from Google's servers; Google's privacy policy applies to that request.
• The county request form. If you submit the form, we collect your firm name, your name, your work email address, the county or area you asked about, and any message you chose to include. We use them only to reply to you and to discuss the service you asked about. Our lawful bases are your request (steps prior to a contract) and our legitimate interest in responding to you.
• Delivery. Your submission is delivered to our mailbox by an email delivery provider and a short confirmation is sent to the address you gave. Submissions are not stored on this website.
• Retention. We keep form submissions for as long as the conversation you started is live. Ask us to delete them at any time and we will.

If you are an adviser firm that uses Patchlight

We hold the contact details of the people at your firm we deal with, the letter of intent or agreement between us, and the record of which drafts were approved, edited or declined. We hold these to provide the service and to keep a record of what was sent and by whom. Our lawful basis is the performance of our contract with your firm.

Your rights

• Object at any time. You have the right to object to processing based on legitimate interests. Reply to any email and say so, or contact us below. We will stop, confirm that we have stopped, and make sure you are not contacted again.
• Access, correction, erasure and restriction. Ask and we will respond within one month.
• Complain. You can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk if you are unhappy with how we have handled your data. We would appreciate the chance to deal with your concern first.