Privacy Policy

Last updated: 25 July 2026

This Privacy Policy explains how The Home Gear Lab ("we", "us", "our") collects, uses and protects personal data when you visit our website. We are committed to protecting your privacy and handling your data in line with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018.

1. Who we are

The Home Gear Lab is operated by Douglas Marques, a sole trader trading as "The Home Gear Lab".

For any privacy question, you can contact us at contact@thehomegearlab.com. As the data controller, we decide how and why your personal data is processed.

2. What data we collect

We collect the following categories of data:

• Information you give us — for example, your name, email address and message when you use our contact form or email us directly.
• Information collected automatically — your IP address, browser and device type, operating system, referring website, pages viewed, links clicked, and how you interact with our pages. This is collected through cookies and similar technologies (see our Cookie Policy).
• Advertising and campaign identifiers — where you arrive via an online advertisement, we may receive click identifiers (such as a Google click ID) so we can measure the performance of our advertising.

We do not knowingly collect data from anyone under 18, and we do not take payment on this website.

3. How and why we use your data (legal bases)

Where our lawful basis is consent (analytics, session-recording and advertising cookies), we ask for it through our cookie banner, and you can withdraw it at any time.

4. Cookies and tracking

We use cookies and similar technologies for essential site function, analytics and advertising measurement. Non-essential cookies are only set after you consent via our cookie banner. Full details, including the specific tools we use, are in our Cookie Policy.

5. Who we share data with

We do not sell your personal data. We share data with service providers ("processors") who help us run the site, including:

• Hosting — our website hosting provider.
• Analytics & measurement — Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager (Google LLC), Microsoft Clarity (Microsoft Corporation), and our A/B-testing/analytics tools.
• Advertising — Google Ads and other advertising platforms we use to measure campaign performance.
• Affiliate partners — when you click a product link, you are taken to a third-party merchant's website which operates under its own privacy policy. We may receive anonymised or pseudonymised confirmation that a referral or sale occurred.

6. International transfers

Some of our providers are based outside the UK (for example, in the United States). Where data is transferred internationally, we rely on appropriate safeguards such as UK adequacy regulations, the UK International Data Transfer Agreement (IDTA), or the UK extension to the EU-US Data Privacy Framework.

7. How long we keep data

We keep contact-form data for as long as needed to deal with your enquiry and a reasonable period afterwards. Analytics and advertising data are retained according to the retention settings of the relevant tools (typically up to 14 months for analytics). We do not keep personal data longer than necessary.

8. Your rights

Under UK GDPR you have the right to: access your data; have it corrected; have it erased; restrict or object to processing; data portability; and withdraw consent at any time (without affecting processing already carried out). To exercise any of these, email contact@thehomegearlab.com.

You also have the right to complain to the UK regulator, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), at ico.org.uk or on 0303 123 1113. We'd appreciate the chance to address your concern first.

9. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. The "last updated" date at the top shows the latest revision.