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Privacy notice

Help and rules

Version 1.0, last updated 5 Nov 2026

Privacy notice

In short

  • We run The Bench, a free community for the UK jewellery trade. We collect what we need to run it and no more.
  • We never sell your data. We do not use it for advertising.
  • Applying for a job goes straight to the employer. We do not take or keep your CV or your application.
  • The weekly letter is its own choice, with an empty box. Job alerts are a service you ask for.
  • We count visits without following you.
  • You can ask to see, fix or delete your data at any time. We answer within one month.
  • If you are 16 or 17, there is a short part just for you below.

1. Who we are

The Bench is run by Studio Saina Ltd, trading as Hamed Arab Academy (company number 12770445), based in Birmingham, UK. Our address is Victoria Mansions, 32-35 Hall Street, Birmingham B18 6BS. If you have any question about your data, email hi@hamedarab.academy.

2. If you are 16 or 17 (this part is for you)

You are welcome on The Bench. This part says what is different for you, in plain words.

  • You must be 16 or over. If you are younger, please do not sign up.
  • Your profile is private. Search engines like Google cannot find it. It shows no location. Employers never see it.
  • There are no private messages on The Bench. Nobody can message you in private through it.
  • You can ask and answer questions, save jobs, set alerts and apply for jobs. Your questions and answers are seen only by signed-in members, and search engines cannot find them.
  • When you apply for a job, your application goes to the employer, not to us. They see whatever you send them. Send only what you are happy for them to see. Never send bank details, a passport or your National Insurance number to get a job. Nobody should ask you to pay to get a job. If they do, press Report.
  • We do not sell your data and we do not use it for adverts.
  • The weekly letter is your choice. The box is empty until you tick it, and you can untick it any time.
  • You can ask us to show you your data, fix it or delete it, at any time. Email hi@hamedarab.academy. You can ask a parent, carer or teacher to help you, but you do not have to.
  • If something worries you, press Report. If you are unhappy with how we use your data, you can complain to us, or to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk.

The rest of this notice applies to you too.

You do not have to give us any of this. But without an email address and a display name we cannot make you an account.

  • Profile, adults: role, skills, software, pictures of work, your area (the first part of your postcode, for example B18), "taking freelance", badges. You choose what to add.
    • Why we use it: To show other members who you are
    • Our legal reason: Contract (you asked us to show it)
    • Kept for: While the account is open
  • Posts: questions, answers, comments
    • Why we use it: To run the Q and A, and to show your posts to others
    • Our legal reason: Contract; legitimate interests (a useful, safe community)
    • Kept for: While the account is open. When you close it, your name is taken off your posts and they show as "a former member", unless you ask us to delete a post.
  • Saved jobs, saved searches and alert settings: kind of work, distance from a postcode, daily or weekly, email or push
    • Why we use it: To send you the alerts you asked for
    • Our legal reason: Contract (a service you asked for)
    • Kept for: Until you delete them or close the account
  • Push alert subscription: a code from your browser that lets us send you an alert, and the type of browser
    • Why we use it: To send alerts to your device
    • Our legal reason: Consent (you tap to allow, then your browser asks)
    • Kept for: Until you turn alerts off, your browser says the code has expired, or you close the account
  • Job applications: nothing. Apply opens the employer's own email or form. We count Apply clicks in totals only, not linked to you.
  • Employers and businesses: business name and number, address, a contact name and work email, the text of each ad, when the employer made the lawful-ad statement and which wording version, the results of our ad screen
    • Why we use it: To run the Jobs section safely and keep a record that the employer stood behind the ad
    • Our legal reason: Contract; legitimate interests (preventing fraud); legal obligation (online safety duties)
    • Kept for: While the ad is live and 12 months after it closes; then the contact details are removed from the closed ad.
  • Business checks: the Companies House record (public), the name and role of the person applying, a code sent to a work email, our notes and the date. For sole traders: the result of an ID check or a video call, the trading address, two references from checked members or a trade body number. For extra badges: the result of a look-up with the NAJ, the RJC, HMRC (VAT number) or an assay office.
    • Why we use it: To make sure a badge is true, protect members from fraud, and re-check each year
    • Our legal reason: Legitimate interests (preventing fraud, keeping the badge true). For a face-matching ID check: your explicit consent (Article 9), and you can choose a video call instead.
    • Kept for: While the badge stands and 12 months after. We keep the result of an ID check (passed or not, and the date), not the images. We do not record video calls.
  • The weekly letter: your email address, that you ticked the box, the date and time, which page and which wording version
    • Why we use it: To send the letter, and to prove what you agreed to
    • Our legal reason: Consent (you tick an empty box; the regulations on electronic mail marketing need this)
    • Kept for: While you are subscribed and 6 years after you unsubscribe, as proof. Your address stays on a suppression list so we never email you again by mistake.
  • Reports and complaints: who reported, what, what we decided, who we told
    • Why we use it: To act on reports, protect people, keep the records the Online Safety Act expects, and defend legal claims
    • Our legal reason: Legal obligation; legitimate interests
    • Kept for: 2 years after the case closes; longer if there is a legal claim or we reported a crime.
  • Audit log: which person or program did what to which record, with the before and after, and which approval
    • Why we use it: To keep the service accountable and secure
    • Our legal reason: Legitimate interests
    • Kept for: 24 months, then personal details are removed from old entries.
  • Security logs: your IP address, device type, time of sign-in attempts and other requests
    • Why we use it: To stop abuse, bots and break-ins
    • Our legal reason: Legitimate interests
    • Kept for: 30 days
  • Visit counts: the kind of page you opened (never its exact address or anything after a question mark), the kind of site that sent you (search, social, email, direct or other), and whether you are on a phone, tablet or computer. No cookie, no IP address and nothing that identifies you.
    • Why we use it: To see which pages are useful and improve The Bench
    • Our legal reason: Legitimate interests; and the cookie rules allow it (see the cookies statement)
    • Kept for: 180 days
  • Messages you send us (email or a form)
    • Why we use it: To reply
    • Our legal reason: Legitimate interests
    • Kept for: As long as needed to deal with it, then deleted within 2 years

If you tell us something sensitive about yourself (for example a disability, when you ask for an accessible format), we use it only to help you and keep it no longer than needed.

Where it comes from. Mostly from you. Businesses' details come also from Companies House and the other public registers named above. Reports and references come from other members. An ID-check provider tells us only the result.

Our balancing note, where we rely on "legitimate interests". We use it for security, moderation, fraud prevention, checking businesses and counting visits. These are needed to keep The Bench safe and useful, and members would expect them. We keep what we collect small. We think about 16 and 17 year olds first, so for them we collect less and show less. You can object (part 8).

4. Who can see your data

  • Employers: nothing about you. If you apply, you contact them yourself.
  • Our service providers (processors), who act only on our instructions: see part 5.
  • The authorities: the police, Ofcom, the ICO, Report Fraud, JobsAware or a court, when the law requires it or allows it, for example to report fraud.
  • Our advisers: a solicitor or accountant, if we need one.
  • We never sell your data and never share it with advertisers.

5. Our service providers, and moving data outside the UK

  • Vercel
    • What it does for us: Hosts the website and passes each request on to our server
    • Notes: Vercel is a US company. Its data processing addendum includes the UK International Data Transfer Agreement as the safeguard for personal data moving from the UK.
  • Hetzner (servers in the EU)
    • What it does for us: Runs The Bench itself (its database and the server that answers requests) and our contact-management system, which holds letter subscribers and consent records
    • Notes: The Bench's own server and our contact-management system are both in Germany. Germany is in the European Economic Area, which the UK treats as adequate under its adequacy regulations, so UK law asks for no further safeguard for it.
  • Cloudflare
    • What it does for us: Stores the pictures and files members add (Cloudflare R2), and runs the robot check on forms (Cloudflare Turnstile), which sees your browser and IP address when the check runs
    • Notes: Cloudflare is a US company. Its data processing addendum names the EU-US Data Privacy Framework and the UK Addendum to the EU standard contractual clauses as its safeguards. We have not tied stored files to one country: Cloudflare chooses the storage region.
  • Resend
    • What it does for us: Sends our emails (sign-in codes, alerts, the letter)
    • Notes: Resend's main processing takes place in the United States. Its data processing addendum names the EU-US Data Privacy Framework and the UK Addendum to the EU standard contractual clauses as its safeguards.
  • postcodes.io
    • What it does for us: Turns a postcode into a rough map position for "jobs near me"
    • Notes: A public look-up. Our server sends only the postcode (a job's workplace postcode, or the postcode or first part of a postcode you type into the jobs search) and nothing else: no name, email address or account details. The request comes from our server, not from your device. We keep the answer so that we do not ask again.
  • The identity-check provider (named here before this route is offered)
    • What it does for us: Checks an ID document and a selfie for sole traders who choose that route
    • Notes: Biometric data: explicit consent, and a video call as the alternative.
  • Companies House
    • What it does for us: We look up public company data
    • Notes: We send a company number only.
  • Browser push services (Google, Apple, Mozilla, Microsoft)
    • What it does for us: Carry alerts to your device
    • Notes: They see that a message is going to your browser. Keep alerts short and free of anything sensitive.

6. How long we keep it

While an account is suspended, and if its owner closes it, we keep a coded form of the email address (not the address itself) until the suspension ends, so that a new account cannot be opened to get round it.

7. Software and AI

  • Software helps us moderate. It may take a first look at reports and hide plain spam at once. A person decides everything else, including every suspension or removal of an account. We do not make decisions about you that have legal or similarly significant effects by software alone.
  • Our AI assistant may reply to how-to questions under its own name, always marked "AI-assisted". The text of a question is sent to the AI provider to write the reply. Please do not put personal details in a question.
  • Your posts reach our software as text to read, never as instructions to follow.
  • We do not use your posts to train an AI model. See the terms, clause 7.5.

8. Your rights, and the one-month route

You can ask us to:

  • show you the data we hold about you, and give you a copy;
  • correct it;
  • delete it;
  • limit how we use it;
  • give it to you in a form you can move (where this applies);
  • stop using it where we rely on legitimate interests (you can object);
  • stop sending you the letter or alerts, and take back any consent you gave. This does not affect what we did before.

Email hi@hamedarab.academy. The quickest way to stop emails is the unsubscribe link in any email. We reply within one month. If your request is complex we may take up to two more months, and we tell you why within the first month. We may ask you to prove who you are. It is free.

9. Complaints

Tell us first: hi@hamedarab.academy. The law now requires us to have a way to take data protection complaints (in force from 19 June 2026), and to acknowledge a complaint within 30 days of receiving it. If you are not happy with our answer, you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk.

10. Keeping your data safe

11. Cookies and similar technologies

See the cookies and device storage statement. The Academy's present privacy page says the site uses no cookie and no local storage. That changes when The Bench opens, because you stay signed in with a cookie.

12. Changes to this notice

We will update this notice when what we do changes. We tell members by email or on the site before a change that matters. The version and the date are at the top of the page.

Who provides The Bench

The Bench, by Hamed Arab Academy, is provided by Studio Saina Ltd, company number 12770445, Victoria Mansions, 32-35 Hall Street, Birmingham B18 6BS. You can write to us at hi@hamedarab.academy.