Privacy Policy

Last Updated: May 27, 2025

1. Introduction

Welcome to Plouta.com ("Website," "Site"), operated by Plouta Technologies Ltd ("Plouta," "we," "us," "our"). We are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy. This Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, disclose, and safeguard your personal information when you visit our Website and use our services, including when you seek to connect with financial advisers.

Plouta Technologies Ltd is a company registered in England and Wales with company number 16442984 and our registered office is at 189 Belmont Road, Erith, DA8 1LE.

For the purpose of the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018, Plouta Technologies Ltd is the data controller.

Please read this Privacy Policy carefully. If you do not agree with the terms of this Privacy Policy, please do not access the Site.

2. Contact Details

If you have any questions or concerns about this Privacy Policy or our data protection practices, please contact us at: Email: support@plouta.com Postal Address: 189 Belmont Road, Erith, DA8 1LE

3. Information We Collect

We may collect personal information from you in a variety of ways, including:

  • Personal Data You Provide to Us:

    • Contact Information: Such as your name, email address, and telephone number when you register on our Site, subscribe to our newsletter, or request to be connected with a financial adviser.

    • Information for Financial Advisers: Details you provide about your financial situation, goals, or needs (e.g., retirement planning, ISA investments, inheritance tax advice) to help us connect you with suitable financial advisers. You provide this information voluntarily.

    • Communications: Records and copies of your correspondence if you contact us.

  • Data We Collect Automatically:

    • Usage Data: Information about how you use our Website, such as your IP address, browser type, operating system, referral URLs, pages viewed, links clicked, and the dates and times of your visits.

    • Cookies and Tracking Technologies: We use cookies and similar tracking technologies to track user activity on our Site, personalise your experience, provide useful content based on your activities, and for marketing purposes. For more information, please see Section 7 ("Cookies and Tracking Technologies").

4. How We Use Your Information

We use the information we collect for various purposes, including:

  • To Provide and Manage Our Services:

    • To operate and maintain our Website.

    • To create and manage your account.

    • To connect you with FCA-verified financial advisers, only with your explicit permission to share your relevant details with them.

    • To provide you with educational content, articles, useful tips, and guidance.

  • To Communicate With You:

    • To respond to your inquiries and provide customer support.

    • To send you service-related announcements, updates, security alerts, and administrative messages.

  • For Marketing and Advertising:

    • To send you marketing emails and newsletters about our services, new features, and promotions, where you have consented to receive such communications. You can unsubscribe from these communications at any time by clicking the "unsubscribe" link in the email or by contacting us.

    • To understand your journey on our website and provide content and advertisements that may be of interest to you.

  • For Analytics and Improvement:

    • To monitor and analyse trends, usage, and activities in connection with our Website and services to improve our offerings.

    • To gather demographic information about our user base.

  • To Comply with Legal Obligations:

    • To comply with applicable laws, regulations, legal processes, or governmental requests.

    • To enforce our Terms and Conditions and protect our rights, privacy, safety, or property, and/or that of you or others.

5. Our Legal Basis for Processing Your Personal Information

Under UK GDPR, we rely on the following legal bases to process your personal information:

  • Consent: We rely on your consent to process your personal information for certain purposes, such as sharing your details with financial advisers or sending you direct marketing communications. You can withdraw your consent at any time.

  • Contractual Necessity: We process your personal information where it is necessary for the performance of a contract with you (e.g., to provide you with our services as described in our Terms and Conditions).

  • Legitimate Interests: We process your personal information for our legitimate interests, such as to operate and improve our Website and services, for analytics, fraud prevention, and to ensure our Website is secure, provided that such processing does not outweigh your rights and freedoms.

  • Legal Obligation: We may process your personal information to comply with our legal obligations.

6. Disclosure of Your Information

We may share your personal information in the following situations:

  • With Financial Advisers: With your explicit consent, we will share the information you provide (e.g., contact details, financial goals) with FCA-verified financial advisers to enable them to contact you and provide you with tailored advice. Plouta Technologies Ltd takes steps to verify advisers but is not responsible for the advice they provide.

  • With Service Providers: We may share your information with third-party vendors, service providers, contractors, or agents who perform services for us or on our behalf and require access to such information to do that work. These include:

    • Marketing Platforms: HubSpot, for managing our marketing campaigns and communications.

    • Website Hosting: Squarespace, for hosting our Website.

    • Analytics Providers: Google Analytics, to help us understand the use of our Site.

    • Advertising Partners: Google Ads, Meta Ads (Facebook/Instagram), LinkedIn Ads, to display advertisements on other websites. These service providers are contractually bound to protect your information and use it only for the purposes for which it was disclosed.

  • For Legal Reasons: We may disclose your information if required to do so by law or in response to valid requests by public authorities (e.g., a court or a government agency).

  • Business Transfers: In connection with any merger, sale of company assets, financing, or acquisition of all or a portion of our business by another company, your personal information may be transferred.

We do not sell your personal information to third parties.

7. Cookies and Tracking Technologies

We use cookies and similar tracking technologies (like web beacons and pixels) to collect and use personal information about you, including to understand user journeys, provide useful content, and serve interest-based advertising.

  • Types of Cookies We Use: Essential cookies (for website operation), analytics cookies (to understand usage), functionality cookies (to remember your preferences), and advertising/marketing cookies (to tailor content and ads).

  • Your Choices: Most web browsers are set to accept cookies by default. You can usually choose to set your browser to remove or reject browser cookies. Please note that if you choose to remove or reject cookies, this could affect the availability and functionality of our Website. You can opt out of marketing communications and associated tracking by using the unsubscribe links in our emails or by contacting us.

(You may wish to develop a separate, more detailed Cookie Policy that users can link to from here).

8. Data Security

We have implemented appropriate technical and organisational security measures designed to protect the security of any personal information we process. However, please also remember that we cannot guarantee that the internet itself is 100% secure. Although we will do our best to protect your personal information, transmission of personal information to and from our Site is at your own risk. You should only access the Site within a secure environment.

9. Data Retention

We will only retain your personal information for as long as necessary to fulfill the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements. To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal requirements.

When we have no ongoing legitimate business need to process your personal information, we will either delete or anonymise it, or, if this is not possible (for example, because your personal information has been stored in backup archives), then we will securely store your personal information and isolate it from any further processing until deletion is possible.

10. Your Data Protection Rights (UK GDPR)

Under UK data protection law, you have certain rights regarding your personal information, including:

  • Right to Access: You have the right to request copies of your personal information.

  • Right to Rectification: You have the right to request that we correct any information you believe is inaccurate or complete information you believe is incomplete.

  • Right to Erasure (Right to be Forgotten): You have the right to request that we erase your personal information, under certain conditions.

  • Right to Restrict Processing: You have the right to request that we restrict the processing of your personal information, under certain conditions.

  • Right to Object to Processing: You have the right to object to our processing of your personal information, under certain conditions (e.g., for direct marketing purposes).

  • Right to Data Portability: You have the right to request that we transfer the data that we have collected to another organisation, or directly to you, under certain conditions.

  • Right to Withdraw Consent: If we are relying on your consent to process your personal information, you have the right to withdraw your consent at any time.

To exercise any of these rights, please contact us at support@plouta.com. We will respond to your request within one month.

You also have the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority. In the UK, this is the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) (www.ico.org.uk).

11. International Data Transfers

Some of our third-party service providers (e.g., HubSpot, Google, Meta, LinkedIn) may be based outside the UK or European Economic Area (EEA), so their processing of your personal data will involve a transfer of data outside the UK/EEA.

Where this is the case, we will ensure that appropriate safeguards are in place to protect your personal data, such as by using Standard Contractual Clauses approved by the UK authorities, or by ensuring the provider is part of a recognised adequacy scheme.

12. Children's Privacy

Our Website and services are not intended for individuals under the age of 18. We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 18. If we become aware that we have collected personal information from a child under 18, we will take steps to delete such information.

13. Links to Other Websites

Our Website may contain links to other websites that are not operated by us. If you click on a third-party link, you will be directed to that third party's site. We strongly advise you to review the Privacy Policy of every site you visit. We have no control over and assume no responsibility for the content, privacy policies, or practices of any third-party sites or services.

14. Changes to This Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. We will notify you of any changes by posting the new Privacy Policy on this page and updating the "Last Updated" date at the top of this Privacy Policy. We may also notify you through email or a prominent notice on our Website prior to the change becoming effective. You are advised to review this Privacy Policy periodically for any changes.

15. Governing Law

This Privacy Policy and any disputes related thereto shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of England and Wales.