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House Biography

Legal

Privacy Policy

Last updated: October 2026

Who we are

Famhisto is a family history research service operated by Ian Andrews. Famhisto is a trading name of Exmoor AI Labs Ltd (Reg. No. 17177556, registered in England & Wales, 71–75 Shelton Street, London WC2H 9JQ), which is the data controller and is registered with the UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), registration reference ZC133034. House Biography (housebiography.co.uk) is also a trading name of Exmoor AI Labs Ltd, for its house history service, and is covered by this policy. Research is based in Wokingham, Berkshire. Contact: [email protected] · 07356 254302.

What we collect, and why

  • Enquiries and call bookings: your name, contact details and message — used solely to respond and arrange your call.
  • Website chat: your messages, and your name, email address, phone number or organisation only if you choose to type them. Replies are written by an AI assistant (Anthropic's Claude) and you can ask for a person at any time; Ian can read and reply to the conversation. The assistant may note that you seem interested in a service so that Ian can follow up; this never leads to any decision with a legal or similarly significant effect on you. We also use your IP address for rate limiting and abuse prevention.
  • Free guide requests: your email address — used to send your downloads and, unless you unsubscribe, monthly research notes.
  • Purchases: payment is processed by Stripe; card details never touch our systems. We retain your name, email and order details to fulfil the commission and meet accounting obligations.
  • Research projects: the family information you provide is used only to conduct your research. Living individuals' details are handled with particular care and never published.
  • Postcards about house histories: we sometimes post a card to "The Owner" of an older house. We take only the property's address from the planning register that the local council publishes, never anyone's name, and keep it so that each house receives no more than one card. The code printed beside the address is unique to that card, so we can tell when a card leads to a visit to our website. To stop any further post, email [email protected] with the address and we will add it to our do-not-mail list.
  • Website analytics: if you accept it, Google Analytics with IP anonymisation, to understand which pages help visitors. It is off unless you accept, and you can withdraw at any time via Cookie settings in the footer.
  • Advertising measurement: if you accept it, the Meta (Facebook) pixel, which tells us how many people who saw one of our adverts went on to visit or enquire. It is off unless you accept, and you can withdraw at any time via Cookie settings in the footer.

Lawful basis

We process enquiry and order data under contract and legitimate interest; newsletter signups under consent (withdrawable any time via the unsubscribe link or by email); the analytics and advertising cookies described below strictly under consent, which we ask for before they are set and which you can withdraw at any time. Website chat messages are processed under legitimate interest in answering enquiries from anyone who contacts us. Postcards to older houses are sent under legitimate interest, and you can object at any time.

Sharing

Your data is never sold. It is shared only with the processors needed to run the service: Stripe (payments), Zoho (email), and record offices where copies of historic documents are ordered for your project (your ancestors' details, not yours). If you accept the advertising cookie, Meta Platforms Ireland also receives the page you viewed and the identifier described under Cookies below; Meta acts as an independent controller for that data, and their own policy at facebook.com/privacy/policy governs it.

The website chat, including the chat button shown on each page, is provided from chat.exmoorlabs.com, which Exmoor AI Labs Ltd operates on servers hosted by Amazon Web Services. Messages you type in the chat are sent to Anthropic so the assistant can reply, using a separate Anthropic workspace used only for website chat; under that workspace's current setting Anthropic keeps them for up to 30 days and then deletes them, and under Anthropic's commercial (API) terms they are not used to train its models by default. Website and chat traffic passes through Cloudflare (security, DNS and content delivery). Anthropic and Cloudflare may process this data outside the UK; where required, these transfers are protected by appropriate safeguards, including the UK Addendum to the EU Standard Contractual Clauses and, where applicable, the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework.

Retention

Enquiries: up to 2 years. Order and accounting records: 6 years (HMRC requirement). Research files: retained so your family can return for extensions, unless you ask us to delete them. Website chat conversations: 12 months after the last message, or 24 months if the assistant noted interest for follow-up, then deleted automatically; contact details typed in the chat are deleted once nothing refers to them. Records of actions taken on chats (no message content): 24 months. Chat server access logs: 14 days. Encrypted backups: up to 30 days. Addresses used for postcards: 2 years, except do-not-mail requests, which we keep so that we never write again.

Your rights (UK GDPR)

You may request access to, correction of, or deletion of your personal data, restrict or object to processing, and request portability. Email [email protected]. If you believe we have mishandled your data, you have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO): ico.org.uk / 0303 123 1113.

Cookies

A session cookie is used for the client portal sign-in only. The website chat sets no cookies: once you open it, a random identifier is kept in your browser for that tab only, to keep the conversation together, and is cleared when you close the tab. It is not used for analytics or advertising. Stripe sets cookies on its own checkout pages. Google Analytics cookies (_ga and one named after our measurement ID) are set only if you accept them, and are removed if you decline or withdraw.

If you reach us from a printed leaflet or a similar offer, a small cookie remembers which offer you arrived with, so the discount is still applied when you come back to order. It records the name of the offer and nothing else — no identifier, and nothing that can be used to recognise you anywhere else — and it clears itself after 60 days. Declining the advertising cookie does not affect it, and deleting it simply means the offer is no longer applied.

We set one marketing cookie, and only if you say yes. Accepting the cookie notice lets the Meta (Facebook) pixel store an identifier (_fbp) in your browser so we can measure how our adverts perform. Declining means it is never set, and nothing else on the site changes. To change your answer later, use Cookie settings in the footer — withdrawing is as easy as agreeing, and takes effect immediately.

Your choice is remembered in your browser's local storage, not on our servers, so clearing your browser data will simply mean we ask again.