Privacy Policy

The Association of Independent Personal Search Agents Ltd

Last updated: 24/07/2026

1. Who we are

This privacy policy explains how The Association of Independent Personal Search Agents Ltd (“IPSA”, “we”, “us”, “our”) collects, uses, and protects personal data when you use our websites at www.ipsa-online.org.uk and www.ipsasearches.co.uk (together, the “Sites”), apply for or hold membership of IPSA, attend our events, or otherwise interact with us.

IPSA is a company registered in England and Wales under company number 05547806. Our registered office is at 78 Chorley New Road, Bolton, England, BL1 4BY. For the purposes of the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018, IPSA is the controller of the personal data described in this policy.

Contact: if you have any questions about this policy or how we handle your personal data, contact us at [INSERT CONTACT EMAIL] or by writing to us at our registered office address above.

2. The personal data we collect

We collect personal data in the following ways:

Information you give us

• Membership information: name, business name, job title, postal address, email address, and telephone number provided when you apply for or renew IPSA membership
• Account information: details you provide when you register for an account on our Sites, including name, email address, username, and password
• Event information: details you provide when you register for IPSA events such as our conferences and Members’ Day, including any dietary or access requirements you choose to tell us about
• Correspondence: personal data contained in emails, phone calls, forms, or other communications with us, including when you report a problem or ask for support
• Content you submit: personal data contained in any comment, article, photograph, or other material you submit to us or our Sites

Information we collect automatically

When you visit our Sites, we automatically collect certain technical information about your device and your visit, such as your IP address, browser type and version, operating system, the pages you viewed, how long you spent on them, and the website that referred you to us. We collect this information using cookies and similar technologies, described in section 6.

Information from other sources

If you interact with us through social media platforms such as LinkedIn or Facebook, we may receive information from those platforms in accordance with your settings on them. Their use of your data is governed by their own privacy policies.

3. How we use your personal data and our legal bases

Under UK GDPR we must have a legal basis for each use of your personal data. We use your personal data as follows:

• To administer your membership: processing applications and renewals, maintaining membership records, collecting membership fees, and providing member services. Legal basis: performance of a contract with you.
• To operate the member directory: where applicable, publishing your firm’s details on our Sites so that conveyancing professionals and the public can find IPSA member firms. Legal basis: our legitimate interest in promoting our members and the personal search industry, or your consent where we ask for it.
• To run our events: managing registrations, communicating event details, and meeting any requirements you tell us about. Legal basis: performance of a contract; for any special category data such as dietary or access requirements, your explicit consent.
• To communicate with you: responding to enquiries, providing support, and sending administrative or service messages. Legal basis: performance of a contract or our legitimate interest in managing our relationship with you.
• To send news and marketing: sending newsletters, industry updates, and information about IPSA events and services. Legal basis: your consent, or our legitimate interest in keeping members informed. You can opt out at any time using the link in any such email or by contacting us.
• To operate and improve our Sites: maintaining, securing, and improving the Sites and analysing how they are used. Legal basis: our legitimate interest in running effective and secure websites.
• To comply with the law: meeting our legal and regulatory obligations, responding to lawful requests from public authorities, and establishing, exercising, or defending legal claims. Legal basis: legal obligation or legitimate interest.

We do not use your personal data for automated decision making that produces legal or similarly significant effects about you.

4. Who we share your personal data with

We do not sell your personal data. We share it only as follows:

• Service providers: third parties who provide services to us such as website hosting, IT support, email delivery, event management, payment processing, and accountancy. They may only use your data on our instructions and are required to keep it secure.
• Member directory: business contact details of member firms are published on our Sites as part of the membership listing.
• Professional advisers: our lawyers, accountants, auditors, and insurers where necessary.
• Authorities: courts, regulators, and law enforcement where we are required to do so by law.
• With your consent: any other third party where you have agreed to the sharing.

5. Third party websites

Our Sites contain links to third party websites, including member firms, sponsors, and social media platforms. This policy does not cover those websites. We are not responsible for their privacy practices, and we encourage you to read their privacy policies before providing any personal data to them.

6. Cookies

Cookies are small data files placed on your device by a website. Our Sites use the following types:

• Essential cookies: required for the Sites to function, for example to allow you to log in to secure areas. These cannot be switched off through our Sites.
• Functionality cookies: remember the choices you make, such as login details and preferences, so you do not have to re-enter them on each visit.
• Analytics cookies: collect information about how visitors use our Sites, such as which pages are visited and for how long. We use this to improve the Sites. The information is aggregated and does not directly identify individual visitors. We use Google Analytics for this purpose; you can opt out of Google Analytics at https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout
• Social media cookies: set when you share our content or interact with embedded social media features such as LinkedIn or Facebook buttons. The relevant platform will record that activity under its own privacy policy.

You can remove or block cookies through your browser settings. If you do so, some parts of our Sites may not work properly, and you may need to log in on each visit.

7. International transfers

We store and process personal data in the United Kingdom wherever possible. Where a service provider processes data outside the UK, we ensure appropriate safeguards are in place, such as a UK adequacy regulation covering the destination country or the International Data Transfer Agreement or Addendum approved for use in the UK, so that your data receives an equivalent standard of protection.

8. How long we keep your personal data

We keep personal data only for as long as we need it for the purposes set out in this policy. In general, membership records are kept for the duration of membership and for a reasonable period afterwards to deal with any follow up matters, and financial records are kept for the periods required by law. Where data is no longer needed, we securely delete or anonymise it.

9. Security

We use appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect personal data against loss, misuse, and unauthorised access, alteration, or disclosure. No transmission or storage system can be guaranteed completely secure. If you believe your interaction with us is no longer secure, please contact us immediately using the details in section 1.

10. Children

Our Sites and services are directed at businesses and professionals and are not intended for children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children. If you believe a child has provided us with personal data, please contact us and we will delete it as soon as reasonably practicable.

11. Your rights

Under UK GDPR you have the following rights in relation to your personal data:

• Access: to request a copy of the personal data we hold about you.
• Rectification: to have inaccurate or incomplete data corrected.
• Erasure: to have your data deleted in certain circumstances, for example where it is no longer needed.
• Restriction: to limit how we use your data in certain circumstances.
• Objection: to object to processing based on our legitimate interests, and to object at any time to direct marketing.
• Portability: to receive certain data in a structured, commonly used, machine readable format and to have it transmitted to another controller.
• Withdraw consent: where we rely on your consent, to withdraw it at any time. This does not affect the lawfulness of processing before withdrawal.

To exercise any of these rights, contact us using the details in section 1. Please make clear which right you wish to exercise and which personal data your request concerns. We may need to verify your identity before acting on a request. We will respond within one month, or tell you if we need longer and why.

12. Complaints

If you have a complaint about how we handle your personal data, please contact us first and we will do our best to resolve it. You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK supervisory authority for data protection, at www.ico.org.uk or by calling 0303 123 1113.

13. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. The latest version will always be available on our Sites, with the date of the most recent update shown at the top. Where changes are significant, we will take reasonable steps to bring them to your attention.