Terms of use and privacy notice

This notice explains how we use information when you use Ask about heat pumps. The controller is Building Energy Consultants Ltd, trading as HeatLens. Contact us about your data at info@heatlens.co.uk.

• Your question, and any quote text you paste in.
• Any details you choose to give about your home or a quote: the first half of your postcode, property type, size, age, heating, gas use, and quote figures such as price, grant, heat pump size and make.
• The answer we give you, and the guidance and sources it used.
• A one-way coded version of your internet (IP) address, which changes every day and cannot be turned back into your address. We use it only to limit how many questions can be asked each day.
• The version of these terms you accepted, and your choice about keeping copies.

Before your question is processed or kept, we automatically remove names that follow a title or label (such as "Mrs Smith" or "Customer: Jane Smith"), email addresses, phone numbers, street addresses and the second half of postcodes. Automatic removal cannot catch everything, which is why we ask you not to include personal details. We never keep your full postcode.

• To answer your question. This is necessary to provide the service you ask for under these terms (UK GDPR Article 6(1)(b)).
• To keep the service secure and within fair use, using the daily coded IP address. This is in our legitimate interests in preventing misuse (Article 6(1)(f)).
• To keep copies of questions, answers and quote figures, with personal details removed, so we can improve our guidance, write answers to common questions, and build anonymised statistics on heat pump quote prices by region. This is in our legitimate interests in improving the service and helping homeowners judge quotes (Article 6(1)(f)). We have assessed that this has a limited impact on you, because the copies have personal details removed, are not linked to your identity, are seen only by a small number of authorised HeatLens staff, and are deleted on the schedule below. You can object at any time, as explained below.

If your question appears to include health or other sensitive information, we will ask you to confirm before it is processed. We use it only to answer you and never keep it.

If you choose Continue in HeatLens and create an account, your question and home details are copied into your project. From then on they are covered by the HeatLens account privacy terms.

Keeping copies is switched on by default. You can switch it off when you first use the service, for any single question, or at any time from Privacy settings on the page. Straight after an answer you can also delete that question with one click. For a question asked earlier, email us with the reference shown under the answer, and we will delete it.

We run this service on Base44, a Wix.com company, which hosts the site, stores the data and generates answers for us under a data processing agreement. To write an answer, Base44 sends your question, with personal details already removed, to its AI model providers, OpenAI and Anthropic. Base44 also uses other service providers for hosting, storage and logging.

Base44 states that, except on its Enterprise plan, data processed through its platform may be used to train AI models. This is one reason we remove personal details before your question is processed and ask you not to include them. Switching off "keep copies" stops HeatLens keeping your question; it does not change the processing Base44 does to answer it.

Base44's servers and its providers are in the United States, and Wix.com is in Israel. Israel is covered by UK adequacy regulations. Transfers to the United States rely on the standard contractual clauses in Base44's data processing agreement, applied to transfers from the UK.

We do not sell your data, and we do not use it for advertising.

We may publish anonymised statistics, such as the median quoted price for heat pumps in a region. We only publish figures based on at least five quotes, so no single quote can be identified.

• The daily coded IP address: 2 days.
• Question text, quote text, answers, home details and postcode districts: 12 months, then deleted.
• A record of the topic, region and outcome of each question: 24 months, then deleted.
• Quote figures (type of system, price, grant, size and region) may be kept after 12 months for long-term price statistics. By then they are not linked to any text, postcode district or coded address.

You have the right to access, correct or delete your information, to restrict or object to how we use it, and to complain to us. Because we do not know who asked a question, we can only find it if you give us the reference shown under your answer. To use your rights, email info@heatlens.co.uk.

You can also complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint or on 0303 123 1113.

We do not make decisions about you that have legal or similarly significant effects by automated means.

The service stores two items in your browser: your choice on this notice, so we do not ask again, and, if you choose Continue in HeatLens, the details to carry into your new project for up to seven days. Both are needed to do what you asked, so they do not require separate cookie consent. The Ask about heat pumps pages do not themselves add advertising or tracking cookies.