Privacy Policy — Summarly

This policy explains what data Summarly collects, why, how long it is kept, and your rights under UK GDPR.

    The short version
    Summarly does not store the messages, documents or images you submit for analysis. They are sent to an AI service to generate a plain-English explanation and are not retained afterwards. Only anonymous technical metadata about the scan is logged.
  

1. Who is responsible for your data

Summarly is operated by Steven Matthews, trading as Summarly, United Kingdom.

For privacy questions, data rights requests, or questions about how Summarly handles information, contact: contact@summarly.co.uk

Please do not send sensitive personal information by email unless necessary.

2. What data we collect and why

2a. When you use the document checker

When you submit a message, document or image for analysis, Summarly sends the content to Anthropic's Claude AI API to generate a plain-English explanation. The submitted content is not stored by Summarly.

After each scan, Summarly logs the following anonymous technical metadata to a secure Google Sheet:

Data logged	Purpose	Contains personal data?
Scan ID (random)	Unique reference for the scan	No
Timestamp	When the scan occurred	No
Session ID (random)	Grouping scans in the same session	No
Input type (text or image)	Service improvement	No
Input length (character count)	Performance monitoring	No
Document type returned	Service improvement	No
Risk label returned	Service improvement	No
Processing time	Performance monitoring	No
Token usage	Cost monitoring	No
Success or error status	Service reliability	No

The submitted document content, any images, your IP address and any personal information in the submitted document are never included in the scan log.

Lawful basis: Legitimate interests — to monitor the performance, reliability and safety of the service.

2b. When you submit feedback

If you rate a scan result, Summarly logs the rating alongside the same anonymous technical metadata listed above. Your feedback comment (if provided) is stored. No personal details from the submitted document are included.

Lawful basis: Legitimate interests — to improve the quality of the service.

2c. When you use the contact form

When you submit the contact form, Summarly collects your name, email address, the topic you selected, and your message. This is stored securely in Netlify's form management system and used solely to respond to your enquiry.

Lawful basis: Legitimate interests — to respond to enquiries about the service.

3. How long we keep your data

Data type	Retention period
Scan metadata logs	12 months from the date of the scan
Feedback logs	12 months from the date of submission
Contact form submissions	24 months from the date of submission, or until you ask us to delete them

After the relevant retention period, data is deleted. Submitted documents and images are never stored and are therefore not subject to a retention period.

4. Who we share your data with

Summarly uses the following third-party services to operate:

Service	Purpose	Location
Anthropic (Claude API)	AI analysis of submitted documents	USA
Netlify	Website hosting and contact form processing	USA
Google (Google Sheets)	Secure storage of anonymous scan metadata	USA / EU

All three providers are subject to appropriate data transfer safeguards including standard contractual clauses. Submitted document content is processed by Anthropic under their API terms and is not used to train their models by default.

Summarly does not sell, rent or share your personal data with any third party for marketing purposes.

5. Cookies and tracking

Summarly does not use advertising cookies, analytics tools or behavioural tracking. Summarly uses Netlify for hosting, which may produce standard server access logs as part of normal web infrastructure operation. No advertising or cross-site tracking of any kind is used.

If this changes in future, this policy will be updated and you will be notified.

6. Your rights under UK GDPR

You have the following rights regarding your personal data:

Right of access — you can ask what personal data we hold about you
Right to rectification — you can ask us to correct inaccurate data
Right to erasure — you can ask us to delete your personal data
Right to restrict processing — you can ask us to limit how we use your data
Right to object — you can object to processing based on legitimate interests
Right to data portability — you can ask for your data in a portable format

To exercise any of these rights, email contact@summarly.co.uk. We will respond within 30 days.

If you are not satisfied with how we handle your data, you have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) at ico.org.uk or by calling 0303 123 1113.

7. Children

Summarly is not directed at children under the age of 13. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children. If you believe a child has submitted personal data through this service, please contact us and we will delete it promptly.

8. Changes to this policy

We may update this privacy policy from time to time. When we do, the date at the top of this page will be updated. Significant changes will be communicated via the website.

9. Contact

For any privacy-related questions or to exercise your rights:

Email: contact@summarly.co.uk
Response time: within 30 days as required by UK GDPR