Privacy policy

1. Who we are. The Snug is operated by THE SNUG CLUB LTD (“we”, “us”, “The Snug”), a company registered in England and Wales, company number 17419416, registered office 1 Deodar Road, Putney, London SW15 2NP. We are the data controller for the personal data described here, and we are registered with the Information Commission (the ICO), reference ZC242610. Contact us at info@thesnug-club.co.uk.

2. What we collect. If you join as a member: your email address, a password (stored only as a one-way hash, never in plain text), a display name, your date of birth, and optionally your town or postcode. If you pay: your plan and billing status, and the reference numbers Stripe gives us — never your card number, which goes straight to Stripe and never reaches us. If you sign up a band: the same account details for you, and whatever you put on the band's page. If you sign up a pub: your email address and the pub's phone number, and whatever you put on the pub's page. When you use the site: the votes, reviews, posts and saves you make. When you contact us: whatever you send us.

3. Why we ask for your date of birth. Two reasons and no others. The Snug lists licensed premises, so members must be 18 or over. And every paying member gets one joining pint, ever — to stop a second one being claimed by closing an account and opening another, we keep a one-way fingerprint made from your email address and date of birth. It cannot be turned back into either, and it is the only thing we keep after you close your account (see clause 9).

4. How we use it. To create and run your account; to take payment for the plan you chose; to run vinyl-night voting; to send the emails the service needs — receipts, your joining pint, a parcel waiting at the bar, a reminder before a free period ends and your first payment is taken; to send the newsletter if you asked for it, with an unsubscribe link that works; to reply when you contact us; and to meet our legal obligations, such as keeping payment records for tax. We do not sell your personal data and we do not use it for advertising.

5. Our legal basis (UK GDPR). Contract — running the account and the plan you signed up for. Legal obligation — keeping payment records. Consent — the newsletter, which you can withdraw at any time. Legitimate interests — keeping the service secure, stopping the joining pint being claimed twice, and showing pubs and bands how their page is doing.

6. What pubs and bands can see about you. If you press Save on a pub's or a band's page, that pub or band can see your display name and when you saved them — not your email address, and nothing else. When a pub redeems your joining pint, it sees your name and the voucher code. Pubs and bands also see counts of how many people viewed, clicked and saved their page, and where visitors came from; those counts are described in clause 7 and do not identify anybody.

7. Page statistics. When somebody opens a pub's or band's page we record the visit, where it came from, and a short code made from a secret and the date that changes at midnight, so a day's visits can be counted without anybody being identifiable — it cannot be reversed and it means nothing the next day. We record who you are only when you deliberately save something while logged in. Separately, our host, Vercel, counts page views across the site without setting any cookie.

8. Who else handles your data for us. These companies process data on our behalf, under their own contracts with us, and may not use it for their own purposes: Vercel (hosting, and the cookie-free site statistics); Neon (our database, held in London); Stripe (payments — card details go to them directly); Resend (sending our emails); OpenAI (two narrow jobs. When a pub uses the “write it for me” button, the facts the pub typed are sent so a draft can be written. And when our automatic content check is switched on, the words and any photograph in a forum post are sent to be checked for illegal or abusive content before the post appears — that check can only hold a post for a person to read, never delete one. Nothing else goes to OpenAI: not your email address, not your name, not anything about what you have paid.); Esri (the map images — your browser fetches them from Esri, which sees your IP address as any site you load an image from does); and postcodes.io (turning a postcode or place name into a point on the map — your browser sends what you typed, and it sees your IP address the same way Esri does; it is a UK service and we send it nothing else). We do not share your data with advertisers. If that ever changes, this policy changes first, and prominently.

9. How long we keep it. Your account data, for as long as your account is open. When you close it, we delete it within a month. Payment records, for six years, because tax law requires it. The joining-pint fingerprint in clause 3, after that, so a closed account cannot claim a second pint — it identifies nobody. A save you made stays on the pub's or band's list until you take it back or close your account; view counts, which never identified anybody, stay with the page.

10. Where it is stored. Our database is in London. Some of the companies in clause 8 process data in the United States. Where they do, the transfer relies on the UK–US data bridge if the company is certified under it, and otherwise on the UK's International Data Transfer Agreement or Addendum.

11. Your rights. Under UK GDPR you can ask for a copy of what we hold about you, have it corrected, have it deleted, restrict or object to how we use it, and take it elsewhere. Email info@thesnug-club.co.uk and we will answer within a month. If you think we have got something wrong, you can complain to the ICO at ico.org.uk — though we would like the chance to put it right first.

12. Cookies. We use cookies only to keep you logged in (as a member, a pub or a band) and to remember your progress in the daily quiz and Crate Dive if you play without an account. There are no tracking or advertising cookies, and the site statistics set none. If that ever changes we will ask first.

13. Age. The Snug lists pubs and other licensed venues and is for people aged 18 and over.

14. Changes to this policy. We will post updates here and change the date at the top. If a change affects how your data is used, we will tell you before it takes effect.

15. Contact. Email: info@thesnug-club.co.uk. Post: THE SNUG CLUB LTD, 1 Deodar Road, Putney, London SW15 2NP.