Privacy Notice

Who we are

This site is operated by Dopamine Engine, a trading name of Dopamine Ventures Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales under company number 17196435, with its registered office at 167-169 Great Portland Street, 5th Floor, London W1W 5PF. In this notice “we”, “us” and “our” mean Dopamine Ventures Ltd trading as Dopamine Engine. We are the data controller for the personal information described below.

We can be reached by email at hello@dopamineengine.com.

What this notice covers

This notice explains how we handle personal information when you visit dopamineengine.com or contact us by email. It does not cover any separate engagement we enter into with you as a client; once we are working together, a separate Terms of Engagement will set out how we handle your information in the course of that engagement.

What information we collect, and why

The following sets out the personal information we process, why we process it, and the lawful basis under Article 6 of the UK GDPR.

Information you give us by email. When you contact us at hello@dopamineengine.com, we receive your name, email address, and whatever you choose to tell us in your message, including any attachments. We use this to respond to you, to assess any commission enquiry, and, if we agree to work together, to set up that engagement. The lawful basis is Article 6(1)(b) (steps prior to entering into a contract) and, where you are not a potential client, Article 6(1)(f) (legitimate interests in responding to general enquiries about our work).

Technical information about your visit. When you load a page on dopamineengine.com, our hosting provider (Vercel Inc.) automatically receives technical information sent by your browser, including your IP address, the page you requested, the time of the request, your user agent, and similar request metadata. We process this for the legitimate interest of running and securing the site (Article 6(1)(f)). We do not combine this information with anything else that would let us identify you as an individual.

An anonymous visit counter. We keep a single running count of the total number of visits the site has received, stored with our database provider (Upstash Inc.). The counter does not record who visited, when they visited, or anything that identifies the visitor. We process the count as a piece of editorial chrome on the site. No personal data is processed by the counter.

A theme preference stored on your device. If you switch the site’s appearance between light and dark, your choice is saved locally in your browser using a technology called localStorage. This stays on your device and is not transmitted to us. See our Cookie and Storage Notice for detail.

Who we share information with

We use a small number of service providers to run the site. They process information on our behalf as data processors:

• Vercel Inc. (United States), our hosting and content delivery provider, which receives the technical request metadata described above.
• Upstash Inc. (United States), our database provider, which stores the anonymous visit count.
• Namecheap, Inc. (United States), our domain registrar and email forwarding provider, which receives email sent to any address @dopamineengine.com and forwards it to our destination mailbox.
• Google LLC (United States), our business email provider, which receives forwarded email at the destination mailbox and stores any email correspondence you have with us.

Where information is transferred outside the UK to the United States, it is protected by appropriate safeguards under Article 46 UK GDPR, including the UK Extension to the EU-US Data Privacy Framework where the recipient is certified to it, the UK International Data Transfer Agreement, or the EU Standard Contractual Clauses with the UK Addendum.

We will only share your information with anyone else if we are required to do so by law, by a regulator, or by court order, or where you have specifically asked us to.

How long we keep information

• Email correspondence about commission enquiries: kept for up to twenty four months after our last contact with you, then deleted, unless we agree to work together (in which case it becomes part of the client record under the Terms of Engagement).
• Email correspondence about general enquiries: kept for up to twelve months, then deleted.
• Hosting request logs: kept by Vercel for the period set out in its own retention schedules (typically days to weeks for raw logs).
• Anonymous visit count: kept indefinitely; it does not contain personal information.

Your rights

Under the UK GDPR, you have rights in relation to your personal information, including the right to be informed about how we process it (this notice), the right of access, the right to rectification, the right to erasure, the right to restrict processing, the right to data portability, and the right to object. Where we rely on legitimate interests, you have the right to object to that processing at any time.

To exercise any of these rights, email hello@dopamineengine.com. We will respond within one month, in line with Article 12(3) UK GDPR.

If you believe we have not handled your information properly, you have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK supervisory authority. The ICO can be reached at ico.org.uk, by phone on 0303 123 1113, or by post at the Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF. We would appreciate the chance to address your concern first.

Changes to this notice

We will update this notice from time to time. The date at the top of the page reflects the latest revision. Material changes will be flagged in the change log at the bottom of the page.

How to contact us

By email: hello@dopamineengine.com.

By post: Dopamine Ventures Ltd, 167-169 Great Portland Street, 5th Floor, London W1W 5PF.