Three things pass through this site when you use it: the brief you write, the chat you write it in, and the files the build produces.

The brief

The brief is the description you type of the site you want. It is the main thing the AI works from, so it holds whatever you choose to put in it: your business name, what the site is for, the pages you want, and anything else you decide to include.

The chat

The chat is the full exchange between you and the AI while the brief is being written. It is kept alongside the brief itself, as a record of how the brief came together. We also keep your IP address with it, for as long as we keep the chat.

What you type in the chat is sent to an AI provider that processes it on our behalf. That processing happens on computers outside the UK, under a contract that sets out what the provider may and may not do with what it receives.

The finished site files

Once the build is done, the files that make up your site are kept too. These are the same files you own and can take elsewhere, as described on the what you get page.

Chats on our other sites

Scrappy Websites also runs the chat boxes on some other sites. Each of those chat boxes gives scrappywebsites.com as the place to read about privacy.

On those sites, we look for personal details in a chat before we save any of it. We don't save your IP address with it. We take out any names, email addresses, phone numbers and postcodes that we find in what you typed.

If a message seems to be about health or another private matter, we save a note saying so in place of the message and the reply. Our checks are automatic and can miss things, so it's best not to type anything private into those chat boxes.

We use what we save to see what people ask about. We keep it for 12 months, then delete it.

A chat on those sites is answered by AI, through the same AI provider and the same contract described under "The chat" above.

To ask about a chat you had, write to the email address shown beside it. If none is shown, use the address under Contact at the bottom of this page.

Everything collected here has a point at which it is deleted. None of it sits on file forever, and the periods below are the ones that actually apply.

Your brief and the chat it came from

The brief you write, and the chat it came from, are kept while your site is hosted. After that, they're kept for a further 12 months and then deleted.

If you write a brief and never pay, the same 12 months applies, counted from the day the chat stops.

Your website's pages, words and pictures

They're kept while your site is live, and for 12 months after it comes down. Then they're deleted.

Order records

Records of each order are kept for 6 years. That period is set by tax law, not chosen by us, which is why it runs longer than anything else here.

Paying for the build means entering your card details once, and that information goes to the payment processor. The processor is the only place your card number, expiry date and billing address are ever held.

What Scrappy Websites receives instead

What reaches Scrappy Websites is confirmation that the payment went through, the amount, and the email address used to pay. That is enough to match your payment to your brief and start the build. There is no card number sitting in our records to be lost or misused.

The same applies when hosting renews each year. The processor takes the payment and tells us it happened. If a card has expired or a payment has failed, that shows up as a failed renewal.