Privacy notice
Last updated 28 October 2026.
In short: we use your details only to answer you and, if you become a client, to find and set up a home for the student. We never sell them or use them for marketing. This website sets no cookies, runs no third-party analytics or tracking, and stores nothing you type in the form. The server keeps a short access log with shortened IP addresses for 90 days (see Cookies and this website).
Who we are
The controller of your personal data is KEYS2BIGBEN LTD (trading as Keys To Big Ben), a company registered in England and Wales, company number 17474453, registered office 25d Danvers Street, London SW3 5AY. Email: info@keys2bigben.com.
ICO registration number: pending. It will be shown here.
What we collect
- The enquiry form: the details you choose to fill in: your name, whether you are a parent or the student, the university, preferred areas, move-in date, length of stay, monthly budget and your message. The form does not send anything to this website. When you press Send, your device opens WhatsApp with the message filled in, and you decide whether to send it.
- WhatsApp, email and calls: your name, phone number or email address, and what you write to us.
- If you become a client: the details in our service agreement (names, contact details and addresses of the client, the payer and, for a student under 18, the student), the search brief, and the documents a landlord or agent asks for, such as passport and visa copies, a UKVI share code and the university offer letter.
Please do not send passport or visa copies before we ask for them. If you tell us something sensitive to help the search (for example about health or religion), we use it only for that, and only with your agreement.
WhatsApp is run by Meta. When you message us on WhatsApp, WhatsApp handles the chat under its own terms and privacy policy, as a separate controller: whatsapp.com/legal/privacy-policy. If you prefer, email us instead.
Why we use it, and our legal basis
- To answer your enquiry and explain our service: steps you ask us to take before a contract (UK GDPR Article 6(1)(b)); where the person writing is not the future client, for example a parent asking for a student, our legitimate interest in answering (Article 6(1)(f)).
- To provide the service in our agreement (the search, viewings, the tenancy check and setting up the home): performance of the contract (Article 6(1)(b)); for a payer or family member who is not the client, our legitimate interest in providing the service they asked for (Article 6(1)(f)).
- To keep accounts and records the law requires: legal obligation (Article 6(1)(c)).
Who we share it with
- Landlords and letting agents, only for homes you have chosen to go ahead with, and only what they need (for example to apply or for the Right to Rent check).
- Councils and suppliers (gas, electricity, water, internet, TV licence), only when we set up the home with your consent.
- The providers we use to run the business: our email provider and WhatsApp (Meta), and our accountant or solicitor when needed.
- The redress scheme or the courts, if there is a complaint or a dispute, and anyone the law requires us to tell.
We never sell your data, and we never share it for marketing.
Outside the UK
We send information to you and your family abroad when you ask us to. Where a provider we use processes data outside the UK, it is done in a country with UK adequacy regulations or under the safeguards UK law approves.
How long we keep it
- Enquiries that do not lead to an agreement: up to 12 months after our last message, then deleted.
- Passport, visa and similar copies: deleted within 3 months after the student moves in, or after the agreement ends if no home is found.
- The agreement, invoices and our correspondence with clients: 6 years, for legal and tax reasons.
- The server's access log (with shortened IP addresses): 90 days, then deleted.
Your rights
Under the UK GDPR you can ask us to see your data, to correct it, to delete it, to limit how we use it, or to give it to you in a portable form, and you can object to how we use it. Where we rely on your consent, you can withdraw it at any time. Email info@keys2bigben.com. It is free, and we reply within one month.
Complaints
Please tell us first, so we can put it right. You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), the UK data protection regulator: ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint, telephone 0303 123 1113.
Cookies and this website
This website sets no cookies and uses no third-party analytics, advertising or tracking. Its fonts and images are served from this website itself, so opening a page sends nothing to Google or any other third party. Like most websites, the server keeps an access log: for each request, the date and time, the page or file asked for (including clicks on the WhatsApp buttons, which pass through a short link on this website), the type of browser, the page you came from, and a shortened IP address (the last part removed, so it does not identify your device). We keep it 90 days, then it is deleted, and use it only to keep the website secure and to count visits in total (our legitimate interests, UK GDPR Article 6(1)(f)). What you type in the form is never in it. Your browser keeps, on your device only: your language choice (if you press the language button), whether you closed the install-the-app message, and an offline copy of the site so it opens without a connection. None of this reaches us, and you can clear it in your browser settings. Links to Rightmove, Wikimedia Commons, WhatsApp and other sites take you to their own pages and privacy policies. The admin area of this website (for us only) uses one strictly necessary session cookie for its login, which visitors never get. Logging in there sends no emails and no codes by email.
Changes
If we change this notice, we update this page and the date at the top.
Last updated: 28 October 2026