Privacy Policy

Last updated: 22 September 2026

QI Resolved is in development and is not yet available to users. This policy explains how the app will handle personal data when it launches, and how this website handles data now. We will publish an updated version before release.

Placeholders in [square brackets] will be completed before launch.

1. Who we are

[Entity name] (“QI Resolved”, “we”, “us”, “our”) provides QI Resolved, an app for preparing quinquennial inspection reports on ecclesiastical buildings.

• Registered address: [registered office / trading address]
• Company number: [company number, once incorporated]
• ICO registration number: [ICO registration number]
• Data protection contact: [name or role], hello@qires.co.uk

We have not appointed a Data Protection Officer. We are not required to under Article 37 of the UK GDPR, because our core activities do not involve large-scale monitoring or large-scale processing of special category data. We will review that position as the service grows, and the contact above is responsible for data protection in the meantime.

This policy is governed by the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018.

2. Two different roles

QI Resolved handles two kinds of data, and our legal role is different for each. The distinction matters, because it determines who you should contact about your data.

Sections 3 and 5 to 11 describe the data we control. Section 4 describes the data we process for others.

3. Data we hold as controller

3.1 What we collect and why

We do not store card numbers. Payments are handled by a payment provider that is an independent controller for its own fraud and compliance purposes.

3.2 Our legitimate interests

Where we rely on legitimate interests, we have weighed our interest in running a secure, functioning and improving service against your rights. We use the minimum data needed, we do not use it to make decisions with a legal or similarly significant effect, and you can object at any time under section 10.

3.3 Automated decision-making

We do not make decisions producing legal or similarly significant effects about you by automated means, and we do not carry out profiling of that kind.

4. Data we process for inspecting practices

When you use QI Resolved to record an inspection, the inspecting practice is the controller for what you enter. We hold it as a processor, under a written contract that meets Article 28 of the UK GDPR.

4.1 What inspection records contain

• Building and site records — church name, address, listing grade, denomination, diocese or parish, inspection date, weather conditions
• Client contacts — names, roles, email addresses and telephone numbers for churchwardens, PCC or fabric officers, incumbents and other correspondents
• Plans — uploaded floor plans and site plans, and the pin coordinates placed on them
• Defect records — descriptions, location references, defect identifiers, urgency ratings and estimated cost ranges
• Photographs — images taken on site, together with captions and any metadata the camera records, which can include time, device and location coordinates
• Historic records — defect data carried forward from previous quinquennial cycles
• Appendices and supporting documents — PAT testing and lightning conductor certificates, risk assessments, asbestos registers and reports, burial ground surveys, log books
• Report drafts and generated PDFs

4.2 Sensitive material that can appear in inspection records

Inspection material can contain more than building fabric, and practices should be aware of it:

• Photographs may capture people — congregation members, staff, contractors or visitors who happen to be present. An identifiable person photographed inside a place of worship may amount to data revealing religious belief, which is special category data under Article 9.
• Named roles within a religious organisation can themselves reveal religious belief. A churchwarden’s name and email held against a named parish is an example.
• Burial ground surveys may identify living people, such as grave owners, faculty applicants or next of kin, even though data protection law does not apply to the deceased.
• Risk assessments, accident records and asbestos documents may name individuals and may include health information, which is also special category data.
• Security-sensitive detail — alarm and key-holder arrangements, lead roof coverings, the location of valuables — is not personal data but is treated as confidential.

We do not ask for special category data, and it is not a designed feature of the app. Where it arises incidentally, the inspecting practice is responsible for identifying its Article 9 condition. Practices should record only what the inspection requires, and should avoid photographing people where it can reasonably be avoided.

4.3 What we do as processor

We will:

• process inspection data only on the documented instructions of the practice;
• keep it confidential, and bind our staff to confidentiality;
• apply the security measures in section 8;
• engage sub-processors only with the practice’s authorisation, and pass our own obligations down to them;
• help the practice respond to requests from individuals, and with data protection impact assessments and breach notification;
• notify the practice without undue delay if we become aware of a personal data breach; and
• delete or return inspection data at the end of the contract, except where we must keep it by law.

4.4 If you are a church, parish or client contact

If your details or photographs appear in an inspection because a practice inspected your building, that practice is the controller. Please contact them first. If you contact us, we will pass your request to the relevant practice and help them answer it, but we cannot act on their data without their instruction.

5. Anonymised and aggregated data

This section explains a commercial use we expressly reserve, and we would rather state it plainly than bury it.

We may create anonymised and aggregated datasets from data held in the app, including inspection records, and we reserve the right to use those datasets for any lawful purpose, including commercially.

5.1 What anonymisation means here

Before data enters an anonymised dataset we remove the information that identifies a person, a practice or a specific building. That includes church names and addresses, grid references and location coordinates, plan images, client and inspector contact details, practice identity, and metadata embedded in photographs. Free-text fields are stripped or reviewed, and figures are aggregated so that no individual, practice or building can be picked out of them.

We apply the Information Commissioner’s guidance on anonymisation, including the motivated intruder test, and we treat the process as irreversible: we do not keep a key that would let us re-identify the data.

5.2 What we use it for

• Statistics on defect prevalence by building type, age, material and denomination
• Rates of deterioration between inspection cycles
• Repair cost benchmarks and the observed performance of repair types
• Product development, testing and quality assurance
• Training and evaluating machine learning models, including models that recognise defects in photographs
• Research, sector reporting and published findings
• Commercial products and services, including benchmark and market reports supplied to third parties

Photographs used to train models have their metadata removed and are filtered to exclude images containing identifiable people. An image of building fabric alone is not personal data.

5.3 What this means for your rights

Once data has been irreversibly anonymised it is no longer personal data under the UK GDPR. This policy and the rights in section 10 do not apply to it, we may keep and use it indefinitely, and it is not deleted when an account closes. Anonymisation is itself a form of processing, and we carry it out on the bases set out in sections 3 and 4.

5.4 The limit on inspection data

Inspection data is held on behalf of an inspecting practice, and the practice is its controller. We anonymise and reuse that data only where our contract with the practice permits it. The terms will set this out, and a practice will be able to ask what is included or object to it. Nothing in this policy overrides that contract.

5.5 What we do not do

We do not sell personal data. We do not share identifiable inspection records, client contact details or photographs of identifiable people with third parties for their own commercial purposes.

6. Who we share data with

We share personal data only with:

• Service providers acting for us — hosting, error reporting, email delivery, payment processing, customer support and professional advisers. Each is bound by contract to act only on our instructions, except where they are independent controllers in their own right, such as our payment provider.
• Inspecting practices — where we hold data as their processor.
• Authorities and advisers — where we are required to disclose by law, or need to establish or defend legal claims.
• A buyer — if the business or its assets are sold or reorganised, under confidentiality terms and subject to this policy.

We will publish a current list of sub-processors before launch and notify practices before adding a new one.

7. Where data is held

Personal data in the app is stored and processed in the United Kingdom. We do not routinely transfer it outside the UK.

If that changes, we will only transfer personal data to a country covered by UK adequacy regulations, or under appropriate safeguards such as the UK International Data Transfer Agreement or the UK Addendum to the EU Standard Contractual Clauses, and we will update this policy and tell practices in advance.

Section 11 covers this website, which is hosted and served differently from the app.

8. Security

We protect data with measures appropriate to the risk, including:

• encryption in transit and at rest;
• access control on a least-privilege basis, with multi-factor authentication for administrative access;
• separation of each practice’s data from every other practice’s;
• logging and monitoring of administrative access;
• backups, tested restoration and a documented incident response procedure;
• confidentiality obligations and data protection training for staff; and
• security review of changes before release.

No system is completely secure. If a personal data breach is likely to result in a risk to people’s rights, we will report it to the ICO within 72 hours of becoming aware of it, and tell affected individuals where the risk is high. Where we are a processor, we will notify the practice without undue delay and support their reporting.

9. How long we keep data

We may keep data for longer where we need it for a legal claim or are required to by law.

10. Your rights

For data we control, you have the right to:

1. Be informed about how we use your data — this policy.
2. Access a copy of your data.
3. Rectification of data that is inaccurate or incomplete.
4. Erasure of your data in certain circumstances.
5. Restrict processing while a concern is resolved.
6. Portability — receive data you gave us in a machine-readable format, or have it sent to another provider.
7. Object to processing based on legitimate interests, and to direct marketing at any time, which we will always honour.
8. Withdraw consent where we relied on it, without affecting what we did beforehand.

You also have rights in relation to automated decision-making, although we do not carry out the kind described in Article 22.

To exercise any of these, email hello@qires.co.uk. We will respond within one month, and will tell you if we need longer because the request is complex. There is no charge unless a request is manifestly unfounded or excessive. We may ask you to confirm your identity.

For data held in inspection records, contact the inspecting practice — see section 4.4.

Complaints

Please raise any concern with us first. You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office:

Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF
Helpline: 0303 123 1113 · ico.org.uk

11. This website

This website is a holding page. It has no accounts, no forms and no login.

• We set no cookies and use no analytics or tracking.
• Hosting — the site is served by GitHub Pages. GitHub records the IP address and request details of visitors in its server logs, for security and to deliver the site.
• No third-party resources — every file a page needs is served from this domain: stylesheets, the Inter typeface, images and icons. No content delivery network, webfont host, analytics service or icon library receives a request when you view the site, so viewing a page discloses nothing about you to anyone but our host.
• Social links — the footer links to our Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram pages. These are ordinary links, not embedded widgets, buttons or tracking pixels, so nothing is sent to those platforms unless you choose to follow one. Once you do, that platform’s own privacy policy applies.
• Email links — if you email us using an address on this site, we hold that correspondence under section 3.

12. Children

QI Resolved is a professional tool and is not directed at children. We do not knowingly collect data about anyone under 18. If you believe a child’s data has reached us, please tell us and we will delete it.

13. Changes to this policy

We will update this policy as the app develops, and will publish a new version here with a revised date. Where a change materially affects how we use personal data we control, we will tell account holders directly before it takes effect. Changes affecting data we process for practices will be handled through the contract with that practice.

14. Contact

Questions about this policy, or about data we hold:

[Entity name]
[Registered address]
hello@qires.co.uk