This data privacy notice explains how RX Architects LTD collects, uses, stores and protects personal information in the course of its business activities.

RX Architects Ltd (“RXA”, “we”, “us”) is responsible for the personal data we hold about our clients and the people we deal with on projects. In data protection terms we are the “controller”. This notice explains what we do with that information. It covers clients and prospective clients, and people involved in projects such as consultants and contractors

• Company: RX Architects Ltd, company number 10427764
• Address: Coal Yard, 4 Winchelsea Road, Rye, TN31 7EL
• Email: studio@rxarchitects.com
• Phone: 01797 217220
• Data protection contact: Robert Pollard
• ICO registration number: ZC224628

We collect the information we need to run your project, mostly from you directly. Depending on the work, this includes:

• Contact details: your name, address, email address and phone number.
• Project information: the address of the property, site photographs, survey information, drawings, your brief and your instructions to us.
• Information about ownership and the property, such as title details or planning history, where we need it.
• Contract and payment information: appointment terms, fee proposals and invoices.

We also receive information about you and your project from others, such as consultants, contractors, the local planning authority and building control.

UK data protection law requires us to have a lawful basis for each way we use your information. These are ours:

What we do: Provide our architectural services, including design, drawings, planning and building control applications, and managing the appointment
Our lawful basis: Performing our contract with you, or taking steps you ask for before a contract

What we do: Keep project records, deal with queries and protect ourselves if there is a dispute
Our lawful basis: Our legitimate interests in running our business and defending legal claims

What we do: Meet legal and regulatory duties, such as accounting and tax records and health and safety responsibilities
Our lawful basis: Legal obligation

What we do: Publish photographs or drawings of your project, for example on our website or in the press
Our lawful basis: Your consent, which you can withdraw at any time

What we do: Use software tools, including AI tools, to help us draft, review and manage documents and correspondence
Our lawful basis: Our legitimate interests in working efficiently, and performing our contract with you

We do not use AI tools to make decisions about you without a person being involved. A member of our team reviews anything produced with AI before we rely on it or send it to anyone. We limit what we put into AI tools and keep sensitive details out wherever we can.

We only share your information where we need to, and we do not sell it. Depending on your project, we share it with:

• Other professionals working on your project, such as structural engineers, surveyors and other consultants, and your contractor.
• Public bodies, such as the local planning authority, building control and other regulators.
• Our professional advisers and insurers, including our accountants and professional indemnity insurers.
• Our service providers, who process information on our behalf under contract. These include providers of email, cloud storage, design and drawing software, AI processing tools, accounting and website services.

Some of our service providers process information outside the UK, including in the United States. Where this happens we make sure the transfer is protected by an approved safeguard, such as the UK Addendum to the standard contractual clauses issued by the Information Commissioner’s Office, or a UK adequacy decision.

We keep project records for 6 years as per the liability period within our fee agreement, projects are then typically archived to a separate server for a further 6 years for record so that we can answer questions, meet our legal and insurance obligations and deal with any claims. Accounting records are kept for the period the law requires. We then delete or securely destroy the information.

We use appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect your information, including controlled access to our systems, secure accounts for our software tools, and contracts with suppliers who handle information for us.

You have the following rights over your personal information. To use any of them, contact us using the details above.

• Access: you can ask for a copy of the information we hold about you. We do not normally charge for this.
• Correction: you can ask us to correct information that is inaccurate or incomplete.
• Erasure: you can ask us to delete your information in certain circumstances.
• Restriction: you can ask us to limit how we use your information in certain circumstances.
• Objection: you can object to us using your information where we rely on our legitimate interests.
• Portability: you can ask for information you gave us to be provided to you or another organisation in certain circumstances.
• Withdrawing consent: where we rely on your consent, such as for publishing photographs of your project, you can withdraw it at any time.

If you have a concern about how we have handled your information, please tell us first so that we can put it right. You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) at ico.org.uk or by phone on 0303 123 1113.