Privacy notice
Last updated 27 October 2026
This notice explains how Doverty IT handles personal information when you use our website, contact us, or use our online services, such as our client portal or signing a document electronically.
Who we are
We are Doverty IT, the trading name of Martin Doverty. We are based in the United Kingdom and are responsible for the personal information described here. You can contact us about anything in this notice using our contact form.
If you contact us
This applies if you send an enquiry through our contact form or email us at hello@doverty.com. We don't send an automatic reply to enquiries.
What we collect
Your name, your email address and your message, plus your company name, what you need and the page you wrote from if you give them. If you email us, we also keep the email, including its attachments. Your IP address is used briefly to check for spam and to limit repeated submissions. We keep only a scrambled version that can't be turned back into your address.
How we use it, and why we're allowed to
Only to read and reply to your message, and to deal with anything you ask us to. This is our legitimate interest in responding to people who contact us. If your message is about work you'd like us to do, it's also necessary to take steps you've asked for before entering into a contract. We may prepare a quote for you, and if you accept it, your details become part of your client records (see the next section).
How long we keep it
If your enquiry doesn't lead to work, we delete it, and the emails in our mailbox, within 12 months of closing it (sooner if it's spam). If it does, it becomes part of the records for that work, kept as described below.
If you are a client of ours
This applies if you are a contact at a business that uses our client portal, or that we have sent a quote to. We hold this information about you because your employer or you have asked us for, or are using, our services.
What we collect
- Your contact details: your name, email address, phone number and role at your business.
- How you sign in: you sign in with a code we email you, and we don't use passwords. We keep a record of sign-in events (see the audit log below).
- Support tickets: what you write, the messages and replies on each ticket, and any files you attach. Staff can also add private notes, which you don't see.
- Approvals and quotes: your decisions on approvals, and when you accept a quote, the name you typed, the time, the options you chose and the IP address you accepted from.
- Time and invoice records: the work we log for your business and the invoices we raise, which are kept in our accounting software and shown to you in the portal.
How we use it, and why we're allowed to
- To provide support and the portal: signing you in, answering tickets, getting approvals, quoting and invoicing. This is necessary for the contract with your business, or our legitimate interest in running the service it has asked for.
- To keep accounting and other records, which we're sometimes required by law to keep.
- To keep the service secure and traceable, using the audit log and request logs below. This is our legitimate interest in protecting the service and the people using it.
Emailing our support addresses
You can open a ticket or reply to a ticket by emailing our support addresses. We add your message to the ticket and keep a complete copy of the original email, including its headers and attachments, for 365 days, so we can check what was actually sent. Email from someone we don't recognise isn't added to a ticket.
The audit log
The portal records changes to its records (what changed, who made the change and when) and sign-in events, such as signing in and out, role changes and invitations. The log doesn't include IP addresses or the text of ticket messages. It can't be edited or deleted by anyone using the portal, and only our administrator can read it. We keep it for 6 years, so we can show who did what if something is questioned. Because it records changes to contact details, your name and email address can stay in it for that time even after we delete the record they came from.
When someone leaves
If a contact leaves your business, you or we can switch off their access. Their name stays on the tickets and records they took part in, so those still make sense.
How long we keep it
- Contact details, tickets, messages, attachments, approvals, quotes, and time records: while your business is a client, and for 6 years after our work for it ends, so we can deal with any question or dispute.
- Invoices and accounting records: 6 years, which is how long we need to keep business accounts.
- Raw copies of emails to our support addresses: 365 days.
- The audit log: 6 years.
- Backups: 7 days.
If you sign a document electronically
This applies if we've asked you to sign a document using our online signing service.
What we collect
- Your name and email address, entered by the person who sent you the document.
- The document and anything it contains, plus any text you type into its fields.
- Your signature and initials, whether drawn or typed.
- An audit trail: when the document was sent, viewed and signed, when you confirmed your email address with a one-time code, and the IP address and browser details used for each step.
How we use it, and why we're allowed to
- To run the signing process: sending you the document, confirming it's really you, and collecting your signature. This is necessary for the agreement the document relates to, or for our legitimate interest in getting documents signed efficiently.
- To keep a reliable record that the document was signed, by whom and when, so the signature can be relied on if it is ever questioned. This is our legitimate interest, and sometimes a legal obligation to keep records.
- To keep the service secure, for example by limiting how often codes can be requested. This is our legitimate interest in protecting the service and the people using it.
Who else sees it
Everyone involved in the document. The completed document includes a certificate of completion showing each signer's name, email address, signing time and IP address. It is sent to the sender and every signer.
How long we keep it
- Documents, signatures and audit trails: 6 years after the document is completed or cancelled, so they're available if a signature is ever disputed. Then they're deleted.
- One-time codes: expire after 10 minutes and are deleted.
- Security counters (used to limit repeated requests): deleted within 24 hours.
Service providers
These types of company process information for us under contract, and only on our instructions: hosting and network providers, database and file storage providers, backup providers, email sending providers, an email mailbox provider and an accounting software provider. We keep a list of the companies we use, and we'll give it to you on request.
Your personal information is kept in the UK or the European Economic Area. We keep daily backups of the portal's database and stored files for 7 days, also in the UK or the European Economic Area.
We may also share information where the law requires it. Where information is processed outside the UK, it is protected by UK adequacy regulations (for the EU) or by appropriate safeguards such as the UK International Data Transfer Addendum.
We don't use your information for marketing, and we don't sell it.
Cookies and security checks
We use Cloudflare Web Analytics to count visits and see which pages are read, so we can improve the site. It doesn't use cookies, doesn't track you across other websites and doesn't build profiles of individual visitors. This is our legitimate interest in understanding how our website is used. We don't use advertising or tracking cookies. Our online services use cookies that are strictly necessary to keep you signed in after you confirm your email address. On our contact form and sign-in pages, a security check from our hosting provider checks that a real person is using the page, to stop automated spam.
Request logs
Our client portal keeps request logs, which are records of each visit made by our hosting provider so we can find and fix errors. They include your IP address, your browser details, the page requested and the time. They are kept for a short period, no more than 30 days. The messages our software writes to those logs never contain message content or secrets such as passwords, sign-in codes and access tokens. Our main website doesn't keep request logs.
Your rights
You can ask for a copy of your information, ask us to correct it, delete it or restrict how we use it, object to how we use it, or ask for it in a portable format. Use our contact form or email hello@doverty.com and we'll respond within one month. We don't charge for this. We may need to keep a signed document, or accounts and audit records, where it's needed to meet a legal duty or to establish or defend legal claims, and we'll explain if that applies.
If your business is our client, you can also ask for a copy of your business's data through the portal's Account page or by email. One copy a year is included in your support plan.
Complaints
If you're unhappy with how we've handled your information, please contact us first. You can also complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) at ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint or on 0303 123 1113.
Changes to this notice
We'll update this page if anything changes, and the date at the top will show when.