The short version. Nothing optional runs on this site unless you say yes to it. There are no advertising cookies and nothing here follows you around the internet. The only optional thing we would like is a measure of how people find us, so we know which writing is worth doing more of.
Who we are
Lobster is a service of AI Finance Partners Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales, number 17128529, registered office Rivington House, 82 Great Eastern Street, London EC2A 3JF. VAT 517 2246 08. We are the data controller for everything described here and we are registered with the Information Commissioner's Office, reference ZC113373.
If you want to talk to a person about any of this, email andrew@aifinancepartners.co.uk.
What we collect on this website
Only what you type into the complimentary report form, plus a little technical information that comes with any web request.
| What | Why |
|---|---|
| Company number | To find and read your filed accounts at Companies House |
| Your name | So the report is addressed to somebody |
| Email address | To send you the report and to reply to you |
| Website address, if you give one | Context. What a business says about itself changes how we read the numbers |
| Whatever you write in the last box | It is the first thing we look for. It is also where the work starts if you carry on with us |
| IP address, country and browser | To stop the form being abused, and to limit how often it can be submitted from one place |
| The link you arrived on, and the site that sent you | So we know which article or post actually brought somebody here. Recorded once, when you send the form |
We do not ask for anything sensitive on this form and you should not put anything sensitive in it. If you become a client there is a separate conversation about what we hold and why, and you get a written engagement before any of that starts.
Why we are allowed to
- Because you asked us to. You filled in a form asking for a report, so we process what you gave us to take those steps at your request.
- Because we have a legitimate interest in keeping the form working and not being abused, which is the only reason we keep the technical information.
- Because the law requires it in a few places, mainly the money laundering rules once somebody actually becomes a client.
Who else sees it
Nobody buys it, nobody rents it, and we do not sell leads. It is handled by us, and by three suppliers who process it on our instructions:
- Cloudflare, who host this website and the database behind it. The database sits in a Western Europe region.
- Resend, who deliver our email. They are based in the United States, so your name and email address reach the US when we send you something. That transfer relies on the standard contractual clauses and the UK addendum.
- FirmCheck, but only if you go on to become a client, because the money laundering rules require us to verify who we are acting for. Nothing goes to them from a complimentary report enquiry.
We will also hand something over if a court or a regulator requires it, and we will make a report to the National Crime Agency if the law obliges us to. We would not be allowed to tell you about that second one.
Cookies
A cookie is a small file a website leaves on your device. Some are needed for a site to work at all. The rest are optional and, in this country, optional means you have to agree before they are set. So nothing optional runs here until you have chosen.
| Kind | What it does | Set without asking |
|---|---|---|
| Essential | Remembers the choice you made about this, so we stop asking. Nothing else. | Yes, because without it we could not honour your answer |
| Analytics | Google Analytics. Counts visits, tells us which page somebody landed on and roughly where in the country they were. We use it to see which writing brought somebody here and which fell flat. | No. Only if you say yes |
| Advertising | We do not use any. If that ever changes it will appear in this table and on the banner before it is switched on, not afterwards. | No, and none exist today |
Say no and the site works exactly the same. Nothing is withheld, nothing nags you again, and no feature is switched off. You can change your mind at any time with the Cookie settings link at the bottom of any page.
Analytics data goes to Google, who process it on our instructions, and some of it reaches the United States under the standard contractual clauses. We do not link it to your name, we do not use it for advertising, and we do not let anybody else use it.
How we know where you came from
When you send the complimentary report form we record the address you arrived on, including any campaign tag on the end of a link we shared, and the site that sent you. That is not a cookie and it does not follow you anywhere. It is recorded once, at the moment you choose to contact us, and it exists so we can tell whether an article was worth writing.
How long we keep it
- Complimentary report enquiries: twenty four months, then deleted. If you ask us to delete yours sooner we will, unless we are required to hold it.
- Clients: for the length of the relationship and then six years, which is what our professional and tax obligations require. The identity records the money laundering rules cover are kept for five years after the relationship ends and then deleted.
What you can ask us to do
You can ask for a copy of what we hold, ask us to correct it, ask us to delete it, ask us to stop using it in a particular way, or object to us using it at all. Ask by email and we will answer within one month.
If you think we have got this wrong, tell us first and we will try to put it right. You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk or on 0303 123 1113.
Inside the app
Once you are a client, what you write in Lobster is held in the same Western Europe region database and is reached by you and by your named accountant, nobody else. Every practice sits in its own space, so no client can see another's records. Your sign in uses a token held for the length of the session rather than a tracking cookie. You can leave whenever you like and take everything you have written with you.
Social media accounts you connect
Inside the app you can connect a Facebook Page, the Instagram account linked to it, and a personal LinkedIn profile, so that posts written in Lobster can be published from Lobster. Connecting is a sign in on Facebook or LinkedIn where you allow Lobster to act on that account. Nothing is connected until you do that, and you can undo it on the Connections screen at any time.
What we hold. An access token for each connected account, which is what lets Lobster publish as you. It is encrypted at rest with a key held outside the database, and it never appears on any screen, not even to us. The name and identifier of the Page or profile. The posts you publish through Lobster, and for each one the numbers the platform reports back: views, reactions, comments, shares and saves. The comments other people leave on those posts, including who left them, and the replies you or your rules send. A short description of what each post was about, produced by a language model reading only the text of the post.
What we do with it. Publish what you asked us to publish, when you asked. Show you how each post did. Show you comments and send the replies you set up, with a limit on how many can go out in an hour so a mistake cannot run away. Tell you when several posts in a row are about the same thing. Nothing here is used for advertising, sold, or shared with anybody except the platform the post is going to.
Acting on your behalf. AI Finance Partners can only publish or reply as your business if you have allowed it on the Connections screen. Every post and reply is recorded against the person or rule that sent it, and you can withdraw that permission whenever you like.
How long. Tokens are kept until you disconnect the account or they expire and cannot be refreshed. Posts, numbers, comments and replies are kept while you are a client and deleted with the rest of your record when you leave.
Deleting it. Disconnecting an account on the Connections screen deletes its token at once. To have everything held about a connected account removed, including comments and numbers, email andrew@aifinancepartners.co.uk from the address on your account and it is done within a week. Removing Lobster from your Facebook or LinkedIn settings also stops the token working, and we delete what we hold when we next see that it has.
Facebook and Instagram data is used in line with Meta's Platform Terms. LinkedIn data in line with LinkedIn's API Terms of Use.
Changes
If we change how any of this works we will change this page, and if the change matters we will tell the people it affects rather than quietly editing it.