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Y3 Studio

Privacy Notice

Last updated 24 October 2026

Who we are

This notice explains how Y3 Studio handles personal information when you use this website or contact us. Y3 Studio is an architecture, advisory and project delivery practice based in Dundrum, County Down, Northern Ireland. Our correspondence address is 17 Old Road, Dundrum, County Down, BT33 0NH.

The controller of your personal information is Shane Kavanagh, trading as Y3 Studio. Shane decides how and why your information is used and is responsible for it under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018, and is registered with the Information Commissioner's Office under registration number ZC279107. You can contact us about anything in this notice at shane@y3studio.co.uk.

Information we collect

We only collect information that you choose to give us, plus the limited technical information needed to deliver the website.

Enquiry form. When you send an enquiry through the website we receive:

  • your name and email address;
  • your telephone number and organisation, if you provide them;
  • the project location, project type and project outline;
  • the current stage, indicative budget and target timing, if you provide them;
  • any file you choose to attach (PDF, JPG or PNG, up to 3.5MB), such as drawings, photographs or a brief.

You do not have to give us any of this information, but without your name, email address, project location, project type and an outline we cannot respond to your enquiry. The other fields are optional.

Please only attach material you are happy for us to see, and avoid including other people's personal information unless it is needed for the enquiry.

Email and phone. If you contact us directly, we receive whatever you include in your message or tell us when we speak, along with your contact details.

Technical information. Like all websites, our hosting provider automatically processes basic technical data when you visit, such as your IP address, browser type, the pages requested and the date and time. This is used to deliver the site and keep it secure. We do not use it to identify or profile visitors.

What we do not do

  • We do not use analytics, tracking, advertising or social media plugins on this website.
  • The website does not set cookies. See our Cookie Notice for details.
  • We do not send marketing emails or newsletters.
  • We do not sell, rent or trade your personal information.
  • We do not make decisions about you using solely automated means, including profiling.

How we use your information and why

We use the information you send us to read, assess and reply to your enquiry, to discuss your project with you, and, if you go on to appoint us, to prepare a proposal and a written agreement.

Our lawful bases under UK GDPR are:

  • Steps before entering into a contract, where you ask us about a possible appointment and we respond, discuss your project or prepare a proposal.
  • Legitimate interests, in responding to enquiries and correspondence, running our practice, keeping records of our dealings, and protecting the website and our mailbox from misuse and spam. We have considered these interests against your rights and believe they are reasonable and expected.
  • Legal obligation, where we need to keep records for tax, accounting, insurance or professional purposes once work proceeds.

The statement on our enquiry form confirms that you have read this notice. We do not rely on consent to handle enquiries. If you would rather we stopped using your information, you can ask us at any time (see "Your rights" below).

How the enquiry form works

When you press submit, your details and any attached file are sent over an encrypted (HTTPS) connection to a small server function on our hosting platform. It checks the submission and then passes it as an email, with your file attached, to Y3 Studio's mailbox using an email delivery service. The website itself does not keep your submission or file in a database. Your enquiry is held in our email account.

When your enquiry has been sent, the same email delivery service sends a short automatic acknowledgement to the email address you gave, confirming that we have received it. The acknowledgement does not repeat the contents of your enquiry. We send it under the same lawful bases as the enquiry itself: it is a step in responding to you, and it is in our legitimate interest to confirm receipt.

To reduce spam, the form uses a hidden field and a timing check. These do not use cookies or third-party CAPTCHA services and do not track you.

Who we share your information with

We use a small number of service providers who process personal information on our behalf and only on our instructions:

  • Vercel Inc. (USA), which hosts the website and runs the enquiry form function. Vercel keeps short-term server logs, including IP addresses, for security and operation, and deletes them in line with its own retention periods.
  • Resend, Inc. (USA), which delivers enquiry form submissions to our mailbox by email and sends the automatic acknowledgement to you.
  • Microsoft (Microsoft 365, provided to us through GoDaddy), which hosts the Y3 Studio mailbox where enquiries and correspondence are stored.

If a project proceeds, and with your knowledge, we may share relevant information with others involved in it, such as consultants, contractors, planning and building control authorities, or our professional advisers and insurers. We may also disclose information where the law requires it. If Y3 Studio is sold or restructured, your information may pass to the new owner, who must use it only as this notice allows.

International transfers

Vercel and Resend are based in the United States, so your enquiry passes through their systems outside the UK. Our Microsoft 365 mailbox is stored in Microsoft's UK data centres, although Microsoft may access it from outside the UK for support and security purposes. Where this happens, we rely on the safeguards recognised by UK data protection law, such as the UK Extension to the EU-US Data Privacy Framework where the provider is certified under it, or the International Data Transfer Addendum to the EU Standard Contractual Clauses included in the provider's data processing terms.

How long we keep your information

  • Enquiries that do not lead to an appointment are deleted within 24 months of our last contact, unless you ask us to delete them sooner.
  • Where you appoint us, your enquiry becomes part of the project record. Project records are normally retained for seven years after completion and may be retained for longer where required by the terms of the appointment, applicable legal limitation periods, professional indemnity insurance requirements or an actual or potential claim.
  • Hosting logs are kept by Vercel for a short period in line with its own policies.

When information is no longer needed, we delete it securely. Deleted emails may remain in mailbox backups for a short period before they are purged.

Keeping your information secure

The website is served over HTTPS, the form function only passes your submission on to our mailbox, and access to the mailbox is restricted and password protected. No method of transmission over the internet is completely secure, so please do not send highly sensitive information through the form.

Your rights

Under UK data protection law you have the right to:

  • ask for a copy of the personal information we hold about you;
  • ask us to correct information that is wrong or incomplete;
  • ask us to delete your information;
  • ask us to restrict how we use your information;
  • object to our use of your information where we rely on legitimate interests;
  • ask for information you gave us to be transferred to you or another organisation, where this applies.

Some rights have conditions or exceptions, for example where we must keep records by law. To use any of these rights, email shane@y3studio.co.uk. There is normally no charge, and we will reply within one month.

Children

This website and our services are intended for adults and organisations. We do not knowingly collect information from children.

Complaints

If you have a concern about how we handle your information, please contact us first so we can try to put it right. You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), the UK data protection regulator, at ico.org.uk or on 0303 123 1113.

Changes to this notice

We will update this notice if the way we handle personal information changes, for example if we introduce new services or tools. The date at the top of the page shows when it was last updated.