Privacy Policy

1. Who we are

This privacy policy explains how Forecourt Prices ("we", "us", "our"), accessible at forecourtprices.co.uk, collects, uses and protects information when you use our website. We are the data controller for the purposes of UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018. You can contact us about anything in this policy at [email protected].

2. No accounts, minimal personal data

Forecourt Prices doesn't require you to register or create an account, and we don't ask you for your name, address or payment details. When you search, we process the postcode, place name or coordinates you enter only to find nearby fuel stations and show you results — we don't build a profile of you or store your search history against an identity.

3. Information we collect automatically

Like most websites, some technical information is collected automatically as you browse:

• Usage analytics — page views, approximate location (derived from IP address, never stored precisely), device and browser type, and how you navigate the site. This helps us understand which pages are useful and fix problems.
• Location, if you allow it — if you use "find near me", your browser asks your permission before sharing your device location with us; it's used only to return nearby results and isn't stored beyond your session.
• Postcode and place lookups — searches are sent to third-party geocoding services (see section 5) to convert them into map coordinates.

4. Cookies and similar technologies

We try to use as few cookies as possible:

• Strictly necessary — a small amount of browser local storage remembers your light/dark theme choice and your cookie consent decision. These don't require consent as they're essential to the site working as you'd expect.
• Analytics — we use privacy-focused analytics that avoid setting identifying cookies and don't track you across other websites.
• Advertising — if advertising is enabled on the site, ad-related cookies are only set after you actively accept them through our cookie consent banner. You can withdraw consent at any time by clearing your browser's site data for forecourtprices.co.uk.

5. Third-party services we use

We rely on a small number of third-party services to run the site. Each only receives the minimum data it needs to do its job:

• UK Government Fuel Finder feed — the source of station and price data we display; see how our data works.
• Postcodes.io and Google Places — used to convert a postcode, place name or address you search into map coordinates.
• OpenStreetMap — used for map tiles and station location data.
• Privacy-conscious analytics — used to understand site traffic without invasive tracking.
• Google AdSense — where advertising is shown, Google may process data as described in its own privacy policy, only once you've consented to advertising cookies.

Postcodes.io and OpenStreetMap are UK-based and don't involve an international transfer of your data. Google, which powers Places autocomplete and AdSense, is a US company; where it processes data outside the UK, the safeguard it currently relies on is the UK Extension to the EU-US Data Privacy Framework (the "UK-US Data Bridge") — see Google's own disclosure at policies.google.com/privacy/frameworks. We haven't independently verified this beyond what Google publishes. For a copy of the safeguard details for any provider we use, email [email protected].

6. Legal basis for processing

We process the limited data described above under the legal bases of legitimate interests (running, securing and improving the site) and, for optional cookies such as advertising, your consent, which you can withdraw at any time.

7. Data retention

We keep aggregated analytics data for no longer than 12 months from collection, after which it's deleted or fully anonymised. We don't retain individual search queries once they've been used to return results. Fuel price and station data is refreshed continually from the Fuel Finder feed and superseded by newer imports rather than kept indefinitely.

8. Your rights

Under UK GDPR, you have the right to:

• Ask what personal data we hold about you and receive a copy of it.
• Ask us to correct inaccurate data.
• Ask us to delete data we hold about you.
• Object to, or ask us to restrict, certain processing.
• Withdraw consent for anything we process on the basis of consent, such as advertising cookies.

To exercise any of these rights, email [email protected]. If you're unhappy with how we've handled your data, you also have the right to complain to the UK's data protection regulator, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO).

9. Children's privacy

Forecourt Prices is a general-audience tool and isn't directed at children. We don't knowingly collect personal data from children.