Who we are
Kerbrank is a UK service that measures how visible local businesses are on Google Maps and in ChatGPT. It is run by Kolapo Oguntade, trading as Kerbrank, a sole trader in England, at 1A Auckland Road East, Southsea, Portsmouth PO5 2HA.
For the account data described below, Kolapo Oguntade, trading as Kerbrank, is the data controller under UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018. You can reach us about anything on this page at support@kerbrank.co.uk, or by post at the address above. If you are not happy with our answer you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office.
What we store, and why
| Data | Why we hold it | Lawful basis |
|---|---|---|
| Your name or business name, email address and password | To run your account and sign you in. Passwords are stored only as a salted scrypt hash, never in readable form. | Contract |
| Businesses you track | Names, addresses, websites, categories and the searches you choose. These describe businesses, but a sole trader's details can still be personal data. | Contract, and our legitimate interest in providing the service |
| Scan results | Map positions, competitor listings as Google shows them publicly, ChatGPT answers, search volumes and website checks. We keep the raw results so history stays comparable. | Contract |
| Sign in with Google (optional) | If you sign in with Google, Google tells us your name, your email address (only if Google has verified it) and an ID for your Google account, so we can recognise you next time. We ask Google for nothing else at sign-in and store no Google password or token for it. | Contract: it is how you sign in |
| Google connection (optional) | If you connect Search Console, Business Profile or Google Analytics, we store a Google refresh token, encrypted, and the email address of the Google account. We read from Google. The only thing we send to Google is a post you write in Kerbrank and choose to publish or schedule; we change nothing else. See How we use Google user data. | Consent, which you can withdraw by disconnecting |
| Messages you send us | When you use the contact form or the Questions button, or reply to one of our support emails, we keep your email address, your name if you give it, and your message, so we can reply. We delete them 12 months after they arrive. | Legitimate interest in answering you |
| Tips and product news (optional) | If you leave the “no thanks” box unticked when you sign up, or switch it on in Account, we send the odd email with local search tips and news about Kerbrank. We keep your choice and when you made it, and give your email address to Resend, which sends them. Every one has an unsubscribe link, and the switch in Account works too. If you sign up with Google, you get none unless you switch them on. | Legitimate interest, with the chance to say no when you sign up and in every email |
| The free rank check | When you use the free check without an account, we keep the listing and search you checked, and the result, for a week, so the same check doesn't cost twice. To limit each visitor to two checks a day, we keep a scrambled form of your connection's IP address (a keyed hash that can't be turned back into the address) for 30 days. Nothing else about you is kept. | Legitimate interest in offering a free check and preventing abuse |
| Questions asked of the assistant | The text of questions typed into the instant-answers assistant, without any name, email or identifier, so we can see which answers are missing and write them. Deleted after 12 months. Answers come from our own help text. Questions are sent to TypeSafe, our answer-matching provider, when that service is switched on, and a question none of our written answers fits may be sent to Anthropic, which writes a short answer from our help text only. To limit how many of those answers each visitor gets a day, we keep a scrambled form of your connection's IP address (a keyed hash that can't be turned back into the address) with a count, and delete it the next day. | Legitimate interest in improving our help |
| Steps your account reaches | When your account reaches a step, such as your first finished scan, your first job ticked off or a payment, we record which step and when, against your account, so we can see where people get stuck and fix it. Presses of the free-trial buttons and free checks are counted with no identifier at all. When your account is deleted, the steps stay only as counts, no longer linked to you. | Legitimate interest in improving the service |
| Visit counts | To see which pages help people and which don't, we count page views: the page address, the website that sent you (its domain only) and whether you were on a phone, tablet or computer. Our own counter stores no cookie, no IP address and no identifier, so a visit cannot be linked to you or to your next visit. If you arrive from a tagged link (one with utm_source or utm_campaign in the address, such as our Instagram bio), we also add one to a daily count for that link, and for a free check or a new account started from it. The tag is carried in the page address only, nothing is stored on your device, and the counts hold no identifier. Ahrefs, below, counts differently. | Legitimate interest in improving the site |
| Payments | When you choose a plan, Stripe takes the payment. We never see or store your card number. We keep the Stripe customer and subscription references, your plan, and when it renews or ends, so we can show your account and stop scans when a plan ends. | Contract, and our legal duty to keep business records |
| Sign-in attempts and sign-ups | Your IP address is held in memory only: for up to 15 minutes to slow down password guessing, an hour for contact messages and until the end of the day for new accounts, to stop spam. It is not written to our database. Wrong passwords are also counted against the account itself, without any IP address, and the count is deleted after a day. | Legitimate interest in security |
We do not buy or build lists of personal contacts, we do not sell data, and we do not use your data for advertising.
How we use Google user data
You can choose to connect a Google account to Kerbrank. We ask only for the parts you connect:
- Search Console (view Search Console data): the searches that bring people to your website, with clicks, impressions and position, for the site you pick.
Business Profile (manage your business listings): your listing details and its performance figures, such as calls, direction requests, website clicks and the searches people used to find it.
On Pro and above, when you write a post in Kerbrank and press Publish or schedule it, we send that post to the profile you linked. We never post on our own, and we don’t change your details, hours, photos or reviews.
Google Analytics (see your Analytics data): the names and websites of your Analytics properties, so we can suggest the right one, and report totals for the property you pick: visits, and the enquiries and bookings you've marked as key events, split into Google search and, once your listing's website link is tagged, your Business Profile.
We don't read anything about individual visitors.
Apart from sending the posts you choose to publish, we use this data only to show you, in your own Kerbrank reports, how your visibility on Google turns into visits and customers.
We don't use it for advertising, we don't sell it, we don't use it to train AI models, and we don't share it with anyone except the suppliers who run the service for us, under contract, as listed below.
People at Kerbrank look at it only when you ask us to, when we need to for security or to fix a problem, or when the law requires it.
Kerbrank's use and transfer of information received from Google APIs to any other app will adhere to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements.
You can disconnect Google at any time from your account page, or remove Google Analytics on its own there: that unlinks it from your businesses and deletes the Analytics figures we stored (Google lets an app give up its access only all at once, so the access itself ends when you disconnect Google).
We then delete the stored token straight away, and you can also remove Kerbrank's access from your Google account at myaccount.google.com/
Cookies
We set one cookie, kr_session, when you sign in. It keeps you signed in for up to 30 days and cannot be read by scripts on the page. If you sign in with Google, a second cookie, kr_oauth, lasts ten minutes and only checks that the reply really came from the sign-in you started.
Both are strictly necessary under the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations, so they do not need your consent, and that is why there is no cookie banner. There are no analytics, advertising or tracking cookies.
Our public pages (not the app, sign-in or report links) load one outside script, Ahrefs Web Analytics, which counts visits with no cookies and stores nothing on your device; see Who else sees it.
Our public pages and the sign-in page also send a short error report to PostHog when something on the page breaks, so we can fix it. That uses no cookies either, stores nothing on your device, and sends no page views, clicks or recordings. Our fonts are served from our own server.
Your browser also keeps a few things you asked for on your own device.
These are the business name and postcode you typed on the homepage, carried to the sign-up form; a half-finished business you were adding; whether you closed the getting-started list; and, if you send us a message from the Questions? button, a key to that conversation so our replies can show there.
They stay on your device and are not used to track you.
Who else sees it
We use a small number of suppliers to run the service. Each only receives what it needs.
- DataForSEO runs the Google Maps searches, ChatGPT questions and search-volume lookups. It receives the business name, search phrases and grid coordinates, not your account details.
TypeSafe helps judge which search ideas and review topics fit a business, and helps the instant-answers assistant pick the right stored answer.
It receives the business name, its Google categories, search phrases, the review topics Google shows publicly, the text of questions typed into the assistant, and the text of support requests and replies so we can see which need answering first. It doesn’t receive your account details.
Anthropic (its AI, Claude) writes some of the text you see.
It writes the plain-English paragraphs in reports, the one-line summary of your week and a sentence on what ChatGPT's answers mean for you, from the reading's figures (including who ChatGPT named and the websites its answers cited), the business's name, town and area, the names of competitors on its map and the jobs on its fix list.
When you ask for post drafts, it writes them from the business's name, town, category, the area named in its latest reading and the services in its searches.
It never sends Claude any data from your Google connection, such as Search Console, Business Profile or Google Analytics figures. It answers questions typed into the instant-answers assistant that our own help pages don't cover, from the question as typed and our help text.
It also drafts replies to support messages, which we read and edit before anything is sent: for that it receives the message thread, which can include any names, email addresses or phone numbers written in it, the name you gave us, and your account's plan and billing status.
Anthropic processes this to give us the answer. We never send it passwords or card details.
Resend sends our emails, such as password reset links and the notification when you send us a message, and receives your replies to our support emails. It receives the email address and the message.
If you agreed to tips and product news, it also keeps your email address on our list for those. When you unsubscribe, the address stays on the list marked as unsubscribed, so it is never emailed again; it is deleted with your account.
- postcodes.io tells us which grid points are near a postcode, so we can leave out spots with no postcode nearby and name each area. It receives map coordinates only.
- Ordnance Survey (OS Names API) gives the local place name for each grid point. It receives map coordinates only.
- Google Places suggests matching businesses while you type a business name when adding one. It receives what you type and the postcode or town you entered, not your account details. We keep only the listing's Google place ID.
- Public registers: the Food Standards Agency (food hygiene ratings), Companies House and the Care Quality Commission. Depending on the business's sector, they receive business names and map coordinates, or a CQC location ID, and nothing about you.
Ahrefs gives the Domain Rating shown beside each website in the competitor comparison, and receives website addresses only for that. Ahrefs Web Analytics also counts visits to our public pages, never the app, sign-in or report links. It receives the page address, the site that sent you, your browser and device type, your language and your approximate location.
Ahrefs says it sets no cookies, discards the raw IP address, and counts unique visitors with a code that changes every day, so a visit can't be followed from one day to the next. Our lawful basis is legitimate interest in knowing which pages help people.
PostHog receives an error report when a script on our public pages or the sign-in page fails in your browser: the error message and where in our code it happened, the page address without anything after a ? or #, and your browser and device type.
It sets no cookies, stores nothing on your device and is told to drop your IP address. It receives no page views, clicks, typing or screen recordings, and no account details. PostHog is based in the US, so these reports are processed there. Our lawful basis is legitimate interest in finding and fixing faults on the site.
- Google, only if you choose to sign in with Google or to connect Search Console, Business Profile or Google Analytics.
- Stripe takes card payments and manages subscriptions. It receives your email address, the plan you choose and your card details, which go straight to Stripe and never to us.
- Fly.io, our hosting provider, runs the servers and database in London.
- OpenStreetMap supplies the map tiles on shared reports. Someone viewing a report or the map designer loads those tiles from OpenStreetMap's servers, which see the viewer's IP address. The map library itself is served by Kerbrank.
Some of these suppliers may process data outside the UK. Where they do, we rely on the safeguards UK law requires, such as the UK International Data Transfer Agreement or an adequacy decision.
Report links are private but not password-protected: anyone you send a link to can open it. Only share them with people you mean to.
How long we keep it
We keep your account and scan history while your account is open, because the history is what makes weekly tracking useful. When you delete a client or a business, its scans are deleted with it. When you disconnect Google, the stored token is deleted.
If you close your account, we delete your data 14 days later, unless you sign in before then and keep the account. Anything we must keep by law, such as billing records, we keep for six years.
Your rights
You can ask us for a copy of your data, ask us to correct or delete it, object to how we use it, or ask us to restrict it. Email the address above and we will reply within one month.
If you are unhappy with how we handle your data, you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk. We would appreciate the chance to put it right first.