How we handle your personal information. Last updated: 11 October 2026.
This privacy policy explains how Hark Tech ("we", "us", "our") collects, uses and protects your personal information when you contact us through this website or engage our repair and 3D printing services. We comply with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018.
Hark Tech is a sole trader business operated by Grant Harkness, based in Basingstoke, Hampshire, United Kingdom. We are the data controller for any personal information you provide to us.
Contact: repairs@harktech.co.uk
When you contact us through the website contact form or directly by email, we collect:
When you subsequently engage our services, we additionally collect and hold:
When you request a promotional print offer, we collect your email address, the campaign and referring source supplied with the landing-page link, the exact consent wording and version shown to you, and the times at which you requested and confirmed the email. We also record the private offer code issued and any print order that later uses it. A pending request is not treated as marketing consent. We do not retain your raw IP address in the offer-consent record.
When an AI assistant uses our quote links or the Hark Tech connector (https://harktech.co.uk/mcp) on your behalf, we receive what the assistant sends: a model link or a share link to your own 3D file, the material, quantity and speed requested, and the IP address and browser user-agent of the request, which we use for rate limiting and security. If a share link is sent, we download that one file from the sharing service and price it in the same way as an upload to our pricing tool. We do not receive your conversation with the assistant, and we do not collect your name or contact details through this route; those are only collected if you go on to check out on harktech.co.uk.
We describe the cookies, analytics and third-party services used on the website in section 3 below.
We use limited first-party measurement and a small number of third-party services to run and improve the website. Persistent attribution storage and all third-party analytics or advertising are gated behind the cookie consent banner.
A first-party cookie named harktech_session is used by the admin area so that signed-in staff stay signed in. It is not used for public visitor tracking. We store your cookie-banner choice in your browser’s localStorage under harktech-consent so we do not ask again.
Our server records a page-event log: the pages you view, the links and buttons you use, how far you scroll and how long a page stays open, and the quotes you request and parts you add to your basket, together with the coarse source or referring site, your browser’s user-agent and the request IP address. We use it to check pages work, filter automated traffic, see where visitors come from and look at how individual visits unfold, for example where someone gets stuck pricing a part, so we can improve the website and our service. Hark Tech staff can view a visit as it happens and for up to 24 hours afterwards.
Without analytics consent this log sets no cookies and stores nothing on your device, so it also covers visits where analytics cookies are rejected; those visits are grouped only by IP address and browser, for up to 24 hours. It never records what you type into forms, names, email addresses, uploaded file names or full external URLs, and raw page-event and page-view rows are deleted after 90 days.
You can switch this measurement off in this browser at any time: This saves one setting, harktech_measure_optout, in your browser’s localStorage, and the same button turns measurement back on.
If you accept analytics, we additionally set htk_attr for up to 90 days. It stores only your first and latest non-direct source, campaign label and the path of the Hark Tech landing page. A session cookie named htk_sid lasts until the browser session ends and lets us join that visit to an upload, enquiry, booking or order. An ephemeral htk_tab_id value in session storage distinguishes tabs for journey diagnostics without identifying you across browser sessions. If you reject analytics, these values are removed and nothing persistent is stored in your browser for attribution. When you send a print order, booking or enquiry, we still record the campaign label in the address of the Hark Tech page you sent it from (for example utm_source=chatgpt.com) and that page’s path. It is read from that one request, nothing is stored in your browser, and advertising click identifiers are never recorded without your consent.
If you click Accept all on the consent banner, we load Google Analytics 4 (property G-YGPE3HEDJ1) to understand which pages are useful. GA4 sets first-party cookies (names beginning _ga) that last up to 2 years. The data sent to Google includes anonymised IP address, the URL you visited, device type, and approximate geographic location. We do not receive your name, email, or any form data you enter on the site through this channel. Google’s own privacy information is at policies.google.com/privacy.
If you click Reject all, GA4 runs in Google’s Consent Mode v2 “denied” state: no cookies are set, and only anonymous, cookieless signals (page-view pings with no identifier) are sent.
We do not show ads on this website. Google AdSense was removed on 19 September 2026 and the loader script no longer runs on any page, so no AdSense cookies are set.
We may advertise Hark Tech on Bing and other Microsoft search sites. To see whether those ads lead to enquiries or orders, if you click Accept all we may load Microsoft Advertising’s Universal Event Tracking (UET) tag. It records which pages you visit on this site and whether you went on to pay for an order or send an enquiry, with its value, and may set cookies (names beginning _uet) that last up to 13 months. It does not receive your name, email, address or uploaded files. If you click Reject all, or have not made a choice, the UET tag is not loaded. Microsoft’s privacy statement is at privacy.microsoft.com.
If you click Accept all on the consent banner, we load the Meta Pixel (ID 2002597900345200) so that we can measure how well our Facebook and Instagram posts and ads bring people to the site. The pixel sends Meta a record of which pages you visited and may set cookies on your device.
If you then submit an enquiry while that choice remains active, we may also send a Lead event through Meta’s server-side Conversions API. This can include a one-way hashed version of your email address and phone number, your IP address and browser user-agent, and Meta click or browser identifiers. It does not include your enquiry description or uploaded files. We use this only to measure advertising performance.
If you click Reject all, or have not made a choice, the Meta Pixel is not loaded and no server-side Meta Lead event is sent. You can manage Meta’s use of off-Facebook activity at facebook.com/off_facebook_activity and read Meta’s policy at facebook.com/privacy/policy.
The website is served through Cloudflare, which acts as a content-delivery network and denial-of-service shield. Cloudflare sees your IP address and user-agent in order to protect the site from abuse. It is a data processor acting under our instructions and does not use this information for advertising. More details at cloudflare.com/privacy.
You can revoke or change your consent at any time by clearing your browser’s storage for harktech.co.uk (the banner will re-appear on your next visit), or by using your browser’s privacy controls to block cookies for this domain.
We use your personal information for the following purposes only:
We will never sell your data, share it with third-party marketers, or send you unsolicited marketing messages.
We process your personal data under the following UK GDPR lawful bases:
We share your information only where strictly necessary:
Customer and enquiry data is stored on systems we control directly. We do not use cloud CRM providers. Backups are encrypted and access-restricted.
We retain customer and job records for as long as they are needed to provide our services and for the statutory periods required by UK tax and accounting law, generally six years from the end of the tax year in which the transaction took place. After that period, records are securely deleted.
Contact form submissions that do not lead to a job are retained for up to 12 months and then deleted.
Unconfirmed promotional-offer requests are deleted after 30 days. Confirmed consent evidence is retained while we rely on that consent, and a minimal suppression record is retained after an unsubscribe so that we can honour the opt-out. Offer issuance and redemption records, including refer-a-friend links and the orders and credits linked to them, are retained for fraud prevention, accounting and campaign measurement where necessary.
Model files uploaded to the 3D-printing pricing tool but not used to place an order are kept for seven days from the latest quote or cart update, then deleted from our working systems. This allows us to honour your saved quote for seven days. Files priced through an AI assistant or the Hark Tech connector follow the same rule, so their checkout link works for seven days. Temporary upload chunks and copies created for pricing or preview are deleted after 24 hours. A short metadata record, such as file size, material, infill and the computed estimate, may be kept for analytics for up to 12 months.
When a print order is paid, we keep its production model while the order is open and for six calendar months after the order is completed. We then delete the original model and temporary or derived production copies from our working systems. The order, payment, invoice and production history remains subject to the record-retention periods above.
If a print file is refused under our safety policy, the order file and review evidence follow the normal print-order retention and dispute schedule. When the file itself is due for deletion, we retain only its SHA-256 fingerprint, refusal dates and policy version so that the same bytes can be recognised if renamed and submitted again. A SHA-256 fingerprint is a one-way technical identifier and does not contain the model geometry or filename.
A paid model can appear as a saved part in a Trade Account until its six-month production-file period ends. Repeat ordering and monthly scheduling stop when the saved production file expires. You can upload a fresh revision whenever you need production to continue. You can also ask us to archive a saved part or close the account sooner.
Encrypted, access-restricted backup copies age out under our backup schedule. A deleted model may therefore remain in a restricted backup until that backup expires, but it is not restored to the live service for ordinary use. Our deletion record is reapplied after a recovery so an expired model is removed from the working system again.
Under UK GDPR you have the right to:
To exercise any of these rights, please email repairs@harktech.co.uk. We will respond within one calendar month.
To request deletion of your personal data, including any data collected when you interact with us through Facebook, Instagram or other Meta services, email repairs@harktech.co.uk with the subject line "Data deletion request", including the name and email address (or social-media account name) you used with us. We will confirm and complete the deletion within one calendar month, except where UK tax and accounting law requires us to retain transaction records (see section 8). We do not sell your data, and no account is required to use our services.
If you send us a device for repair, please be aware that the work may involve powering it on and, in some cases, accessing the operating system in order to test the repair. We do not intentionally access, read or copy your personal files. If you have specific concerns about data privacy on a device, please tell us when you contact us, we can usually perform repairs without booting the operating system at all.
We strongly recommend you back up any important data before sending a device to us. We cannot be held responsible for loss of data that occurred before or during the course of diagnosing a hardware fault.
We take reasonable technical and organisational measures to protect your personal data, including encrypted transport (HTTPS), access controls on our admin systems, locked physical storage for customer devices, and regular security updates to our server software.
We may update this privacy policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices or legal obligations. The "last updated" date at the top of this page will always show the most recent version. Significant changes will be communicated via the website.
For any questions about this privacy policy or how we handle your data, please contact us at repairs@harktech.co.uk.
