Privacy notice.

Who we are

Ostara Ecological Services Ltd is the data controller for the personal information described here. We are registered in England and Wales, company number 13824359.

Questions about this notice or your information: email enquiries@ostara.eco. For the field app, email support@ostara.eco. ICO registration number 00016067853.

Clients and website visitors

What we collect

• What you send through our quote form: your name, email, phone number, site postcode, the services you need, your timescale and your message.
• What you tell us by email or phone, and the details needed to deliver and invoice the work.

Why we use it

• To reply to your enquiry and prepare a quote, as a step before entering a contract.
• To carry out the work you've asked for, under our contract with you.
• To keep business and tax records, where the law requires it.

Surveyors and the field app

What we collect

• Your name, email address and profile photo from your Google sign-in.
• Your profile: phone number, qualifications, licences, years of experience and the regions you cover.
• The survey data you record, including findings, photos and voice notes.
• Your location while you use the app, to tag survey sites and record your walked path during a survey.
• Technical data: a notification token for your device, and crash reports that help us fix problems.

Why we use it

• To review your application and, once approved, offer you survey work in your regions.
• To produce accurate survey reports for our clients.
• To keep the app secure and working well.

We rely on our contract with you and our legitimate interest in running accurate, well-evidenced surveys.

Who we share it with

• Our clients. Survey reports may name the surveyor who carried out the work.
• Planning authorities and Natural England, where a report or licence application requires it.
• DEFRA's MAGIC map, which we check site locations against to find ecological constraints.
• Service providers who run our systems for us: Google (hosting, sign-in, database, file storage, email, notifications, crash reports and the AI tools that help us draft reports), Algolia (search in our internal system), Mapbox (maps in the field app) and Cloudflare (the check on our quote form that stops spam bots).

We never sell your information.

Some providers process data outside the UK. Where they do, the transfer is protected by UK adequacy regulations or the ICO's approved contract terms.

How long we keep it

• Enquiries that don't go ahead: 6 months.
• Survey findings delivered to a client: typically 7 years from delivery.
• Financial records: 6 years from the end of the tax year.
• Surveyor accounts and profiles: until you delete your account.
• Survey records: kept with the client's project after a surveyor account is deleted, as professional standards and planning requirements need. See deleting your field app account.
• Crash reports: 90 days. Security and audit logs: 400 days.
• Backups: up to 30 days, on a rolling basis.

Your rights

You can ask us to:

• give you a copy of your information
• correct anything that's wrong
• delete your information, where we don't need to keep it
• limit or object to how we use it
• send your information to you or another organisation

Email enquiries@ostara.eco. We'll reply within one month.

If you're unhappy with how we've handled your information, you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk or on 0303 123 1113.

Cookies

We only use cookies the site needs to work, such as keeping surveyors signed in. We don't use advertising cookies.

We don't use website analytics. If we ever add them, we'll name the provider here and ask for your consent first, unless they're cookie-free.

Changes to this notice

We'll update this page if anything changes. This version was last updated on 24 October 2026.