Effective date: 29 June 2026
Last updated: 29 June 2026
1. About this policy
This privacy policy explains how 80 HERTZ Studios Limited collects, uses, shares and protects personal data when you:
- visit our website at 80hertz.com;
- enquire about, book, or attend a session at our studios;
- send us material in connection with a project (for example, scripts, picture files, talent details or production schedules);
- engage us as a supplier under a purchase order or written agreement;
- subscribe to any newsletter or marketing communications we may operate;
- communicate with us by email, telephone or in person.
This policy is written to comply with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (“UK GDPR”), the Data Protection Act 2018, and the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003 (“PECR”).
If you are in the European Economic Area, the EU GDPR also applies and we treat your personal data to the same standard.
2. Who we are (the data controller)
The data controller responsible for your personal data is:
80 HERTZ Studios Limited
The Sharp Project, Thorp Road, Manchester M40 5BJ, United Kingdom
Registered in England and Wales, company number 07086809
Registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office, registration number 00010713276
Email: info@80hertz.com
Telephone: +44 (0) 161 850 8088
For privacy-related queries — including requests to access, correct or delete your personal data — please contact us at info@80hertz.com.
We are not required to appoint a Data Protection Officer under UK GDPR. The contact above is our designated point of contact for privacy matters.
3. The personal data we collect
We collect and process the following categories of personal data.
3.1 Information you give us
When you enquire about, book, or attend a session, or otherwise interact with us, you may provide:
- name, job title and the organisation you represent;
- business contact details (email address, telephone number, postal or invoicing address);
- information about the production or project (titles, schedules, technical requirements);
- talent details where shared by you for the purpose of the session (for example, performer names, agent contact details, scheduling requirements);
- project materials such as scripts, picture files, session sets and reference material;
- purchase order details, payment references and other commercial information needed to invoice and be paid;
- any other information you choose to share with us by email, telephone, or in writing.
We treat all project materials, scripts, picture files, talent details and the existence of sessions as strictly confidential, as set out in our standard terms.
3.2 Information we collect automatically
When you visit 80hertz.com we may collect:
- technical information about your device and connection, including IP address, browser type and version, operating system, and referring page;
- information about your visit, including pages viewed, time on site, and navigation paths;
- cookies and similar technologies (see section 8).
Analytics data is collected through Google Analytics 4 only where you have given consent through our cookie banner.
3.3 Information we receive from others
We may receive information about you from:
- your employer or production company, where they make a booking on your behalf;
- agents, casting directors, or production coordinators arranging sessions involving talent;
- publicly available sources such as IMDb, LinkedIn or company websites, where this is relevant to identifying or verifying a business contact;
- our payment processors and bank in connection with invoice settlement.
3.4 Special category data
We do not seek to collect special category personal data (such as health data or biometric data) in the ordinary course of our business. If such data is shared with us as part of a production — for example, a voice recording that captures information about a contributor’s health — we process it only for the purpose for which it was provided, treat it as confidential, and delete it in accordance with our retention schedule.
4. How we use your personal data and our lawful bases
Under UK GDPR we must have a lawful basis for each processing activity. The following sets out what we do, why, and on what basis.
4.1 Quoting, booking and delivering studio services
Purpose: Responding to enquiries, providing quotes, holding pencil bookings, confirming sessions, and delivering ADR, voice-over, music recording, mixing, mastering, audio post-production, audio transfer and podcast services to you or to the production company you represent.
Lawful basis: Performance of a contract with you, or steps taken at your request prior to entering a contract. Where you are an employee or agent of the contracting party rather than the contracting party itself, our basis is our legitimate interest in delivering services efficiently to our client.
4.2 Invoicing, accounting and tax records
Purpose: Raising invoices, processing payments, maintaining accounting records, and meeting our obligations to HM Revenue and Customs and under the Companies Act 2006.
Lawful basis: Compliance with our legal obligations, and our legitimate interest in running our business.
4.3 Communicating with you about your project
Purpose: Sending session confirmations, technical specifications, delivery details, follow-up after a session, and project-specific updates.
Lawful basis: Performance of a contract, or our legitimate interest in providing the service.
4.4 Marketing communications
Purpose: Sending occasional newsletters, studio updates or news about our services to people who have actively asked to hear from us, for example by ticking an opt-in box on a form or by emailing us to request to be added to our mailing list.
Lawful basis: Your consent. We rely on consent only and we will not send you marketing communications without it. You can withdraw your consent at any time, using the unsubscribe link in any marketing email we send you, or by contacting us at info@80hertz.com. Withdrawing consent does not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before you withdrew it.
4.5 Website operation and security
Purpose: Keeping the website running, diagnosing technical issues, preventing fraud and abuse, and improving the site.
Lawful basis: Our legitimate interest in operating a secure and functional website.
4.6 Website analytics
Purpose: Understanding how visitors use 80hertz.com so that we can improve it. We use Google Analytics 4.
Lawful basis: Your consent, obtained via our cookie banner. Analytics cookies are not set unless you give consent, and you can withdraw consent at any time by clicking the cookie settings link in the footer of the site.
4.7 Confidentiality and record-keeping
Purpose: Maintaining records of who attended which session, on what date, for what project, to honour our confidentiality undertakings and to evidence the services delivered.
Lawful basis: Performance of a contract, compliance with legal obligations, and our legitimate interest in maintaining a robust audit trail.
4.8 Safety and security on our premises
Purpose: Operating CCTV in the common areas of our premises (such as the reception area and corridors leading to our studios) to keep staff, clients, talent and our property safe.
Lawful basis: Our legitimate interest in the safety and security of people and property on our premises.
4.9 Establishing, exercising or defending legal claims
Purpose: Resolving disputes, enforcing our terms, and protecting our legal rights.
Lawful basis: Our legitimate interest, and where applicable, compliance with a legal obligation.
5. Who we share your personal data with
We do not sell your personal data. We share it only with the following categories of recipient, and only where necessary:
- Our staff and engineers, on a need-to-know basis to deliver the services you have booked.
- Onyx, who provide the managed WordPress hosting for 80hertz.com.
- BunnyCDN, our content delivery network, which caches and serves the static assets of the website.
- Google Ireland Limited and Google LLC, in respect of Google Workspace (email, calendar and document collaboration), Google Drive (file storage and backup), and Google Analytics 4 (website analytics, subject to your consent).
- Microsoft Ireland Operations Limited and Microsoft Corporation, in respect of Microsoft 365 (email, document collaboration and storage) used alongside Google Workspace for certain workflows.
- Xero (UK) Limited and Xero Limited, our accounting and bookkeeping platform.
- Stripe Payments UK Limited, Stripe Payments Europe Limited and Stripe, Inc., in respect of card and online payment processing.
- PayPal (Europe) S.à r.l. et Cie, S.C.A., in respect of PayPal payment processing.
- Adobe (Frame.io), which we use to receive and exchange picture files and project media with clients.
- WeTransfer B.V., which we and our clients use to exchange large files.
- Professional advisers, including our solicitors, accountants and insurers, where reasonably necessary.
- Regulatory and law-enforcement bodies, where we are required by law to share information, or where it is necessary to protect our legal rights.
- Successors or acquirers of all or part of our business, in the event of a sale, restructure, merger or insolvency.
All our processors are required by written contract to process personal data only on our instructions and to maintain appropriate security measures.
We do not share project materials, talent details, or the fact of a session, with anyone outside the parties to that session, save where you have authorised us in writing or where required by law.
6. International transfers
Several of our processors are based outside the United Kingdom, or store and process data outside the United Kingdom. This includes processors in the European Economic Area (Ireland, Luxembourg and the Netherlands) and in the United States.
Where personal data is transferred outside the UK, we ensure that an appropriate safeguard is in place. This may include:
- the country having a UK “adequacy” decision (for example, the European Economic Area);
- the recipient being certified under the UK Extension to the EU–US Data Privacy Framework;
- the use of the UK International Data Transfer Agreement, or the UK Addendum to the EU Standard Contractual Clauses, together with a transfer risk assessment where appropriate.
You can request further information about the specific safeguards in place for any transfer by contacting us at info@80hertz.com.
7. How long we keep your personal data
We retain personal data only for as long as we need it for the purposes set out in this policy, and to comply with our legal obligations.
| Category of data | Typical retention period |
|---|---|
| Enquiries that do not result in a booking | 12 months from last contact |
| Booking and session records, including production and talent details | 7 years from the end of the project, in line with our standard contractual confidentiality terms |
| Accounting records (including invoices, payment records, bank statements and supporting documentation) | 6 years from the end of the company financial year to which they relate, in accordance with section 388 of the Companies Act 2006 and HMRC requirements |
| VAT records | 6 years, in accordance with HMRC requirements |
| PAYE and payroll records (where applicable) | 3 years from the end of the tax year to which they relate, in accordance with HMRC requirements |
| Marketing contact records | Until you unsubscribe, after which we keep a minimal suppression record indefinitely so that we do not contact you again |
| Website server logs | Up to 12 months |
| Google Analytics 4 data | 14 months from the last user interaction |
| CCTV footage from common areas of our premises | Up to 30 days, unless retained longer in connection with an incident or a lawful request |
| Trade secrets and personally identifiable information held under our confidentiality obligations | Held confidentially in line with our standard terms, which provide for perpetual confidentiality of trade secrets and personally identifiable information |
At the end of the retention period, we securely delete or anonymise the data.
8. Cookies
80hertz.com uses cookies and similar technologies. A small number of cookies are strictly necessary for the site to function (for example, to remember that you have dismissed the cookie banner). These do not require your consent.
Cookies used for analytics or any other non-essential purpose are set only with your consent, given through our cookie banner. We currently use Google Analytics 4, which sets cookies such as _ga and _ga_<container-id> with a typical lifetime of up to 13 months.
The full list of cookies in use, what each one does, who sets it, and how long it lasts, is set out in our separate Cookie Policy at 80hertz.com/cookie-policy.
You can withdraw or change your cookie preferences at any time by clicking the cookie settings link in the footer of the site.
9. CCTV
CCTV is in operation in the common areas of our premises only, such as the reception area and the corridor leading to our studios. CCTV is not used inside our recording rooms, mixing rooms, sound stages, voice-over booths or other production spaces.
The purpose of CCTV is to keep staff, clients, talent and our property safe, and our lawful basis for operating it is our legitimate interest in safety and security. Signage is displayed at the relevant entry points.
CCTV footage is typically retained for up to 30 days and is then automatically overwritten, unless we need to retain it for longer in connection with an incident or a lawful request. Access to footage is restricted to a small number of authorised personnel.
If you would like to request a copy of CCTV footage in which you appear, please contact us at info@80hertz.com. We may need to verify your identity before responding, and we may need to obscure other individuals shown in the footage.
10. Your rights
You have a number of rights under UK GDPR in relation to your personal data:
- The right to be informed about how we use your personal data — this policy is part of how we meet that right.
- The right of access to a copy of the personal data we hold about you.
- The right to rectification of inaccurate or incomplete personal data.
- The right to erasure (“right to be forgotten”) in certain circumstances.
- The right to restriction of processing in certain circumstances.
- The right to data portability of personal data you have provided to us, in certain circumstances.
- The right to object to processing carried out on the basis of our legitimate interests, and to direct marketing at any time.
- The right to withdraw consent at any time where we rely on consent as our lawful basis.
- Rights in relation to automated decision-making and profiling — we do not carry out any automated decision-making that produces legal or similarly significant effects on you.
To exercise any of these rights, please contact us at info@80hertz.com. We will respond within one month. There is normally no charge.
We may need to verify your identity before we act on your request.
11. How we protect your personal data
We maintain appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect personal data against accidental or unlawful loss, alteration, disclosure or access. These include:
- access controls and authentication on our internal systems;
- encryption in transit (HTTPS / TLS) for our website;
- restricted physical access to our studio premises;
- confidentiality obligations on all staff and engineers;
- regular backups and recovery testing;
- vendor due diligence and written processor agreements with our key suppliers.
No method of transmission or storage is completely secure. If we ever experience a personal data breach that is likely to result in a risk to your rights and freedoms, we will notify the Information Commissioner’s Office within 72 hours of becoming aware of it, and we will notify affected individuals where required.
12. Children
Our services and website are directed at business clients in the film, television, music, advertising and podcast industries. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children under 13. If you believe we have collected personal data from a child, please contact us and we will delete it.
13. Links to other websites
80hertz.com may link to third-party websites (for example, social media platforms or production partners). This policy applies only to 80hertz.com. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of any other website, and we encourage you to read the privacy policy of any site you visit.
14. Changes to this policy
We may update this policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices, in the services we offer, or in the law. The “last updated” date at the top of this policy shows when it was most recently revised. Where the changes are material, we will draw them to your attention by a prominent notice on the website or by email where appropriate.
15. How to complain
If you are unhappy with how we have handled your personal data, please contact us first at info@80hertz.com — we will do our best to resolve your concerns.
You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office, which is the UK supervisory authority for data protection:
Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF
Telephone: 0303 123 1113
Website: ico.org.uk