Privacy Policy

We use the postcode you enter to find nearby contractors. If you call through the resulting access code, that searched postcode is retained as the service location of the call.

This Privacy Policy explains what that means for your data — in plain terms.

1What We Collect

We use the postcode you enter to find nearby contractors. If you call through the resulting access code, that searched postcode is retained as the service location of the call. Before connecting the call, we ask you to provide and confirm the house number. Ideal Postcodes processes that number and postcode to resolve the full building address and property location for routing. We retain those details with the call.

2How Calls Work

When you call the number displayed on this website, your call is connected directly to a local emergency trade contractor in your area.

Calls are logged; connected conversations are normally recorded and automatically analysed under our legitimate interests in verifying bookings and preventing fraud. Recordings are held only for as long as needed for that purpose (normally up to around 10 days), with longer retention for associated unresolved disputes or reviews and operator legal holds; transcripts and call records are retained only for as long as necessary for billing, dispute resolution, and our legal obligations.

On our postcode finder, when tradespeople are available for your selected service, we ask you to select the full job address from Postio’s postcode address list. If this is unavailable, you can type your street name for Geoapify suggestions near the postcode and enter your house number, or enter the street manually. Geoapify receives the typed street and public postcode coordinates for these suggestions, without your name, telephone number or device GPS. Unselected address lists are discarded on completion or expiry. For phone calls following website selection, we read back your selected full address. Otherwise, before connection, we ask for your house number and read back a street name with it for confirmation. We use Postio to retrieve postal addresses for your postcode and match the house number you supplied. Postio receives your postcode without your identity or house number; we match the number within our system and read the street and number back for confirmation. postcodes.io supplies postcode geography. If Postio is unavailable, we use Geoapify to suggest a street from public postcode coordinates, without sending your identity, house number or GPS. We read any backup suggestion back for confirmation. The saved street address uses an approximate postcode location rather than a verified building position. If the suggestion is wrong or unavailable, we ask for the street and number and confirm them once. If that does not resolve it, we offer a text link to share GPS while you are at the job. Only after you confirm that GPS location do we retain it as the job destination with the call. The confirmed street address or GPS destination may be used for a booked visit and its arrival estimate. Flat details can be discussed directly with the contractor.

Call records include call identifiers, the caller-supplied house number and confirmed street address or GPS job destination, the searched or spoken and confirmed postcode or an older dialled number's advertising area, and available telephony-provider ringing and answer timestamps. We use these details to operate and monitor call routing; they are a saved job destination rather than continuous tracking of you or the contractor. Soniox and AssemblyAI process call audio for transcription, including spoken postcodes. We request deletion of uploaded Soniox recordings and transcription jobs after processing, with retries where needed. Supporting operational event logs are removed after seven days. The resulting service location and ring duration in seconds remain part of the call record for the retention purposes described above.

If a connected contractor clearly explains that the request is outside an accepted legal or certification, service or geographic, equipment or job-type, or safety or access scope, two automated checks may classify the call as out of scope. Only consistent results supported by a literal excerpt from the transcript can start recovery. The contractor's user identity and telephone are then excluded from that caller, line, and trade recovery episode for approximately one hour, and we may send the caller a text with redial or access-code instructions. Ambiguous, inconsistent, or unavailable analysis does not start automated recovery and may instead be referred for human handling.

This automated analysis, along with any support enquiry you choose to raise with us, may be handled using automated and AI-assisted tools. No automated system is infallible. You can request human review or raise a complaint by email at office@emergencylines.uk. We do not promise an immediate or round-the-clock human response; our complaint contact section explains the available routes.

3Cookies and Tracking

The EmergencyLines postcode-search pages do not include analytics or advertising tracking tags. Searching and calling still involve the technical request, postcode and call data described above; that information is not all anonymous.

4Third-Party Sharing

We do not sell, rent, or trade your personal data to anyone. The search and call data described above is processed on our behalf by hosting, geocoding, routing, database, telephony, messaging, transcription, and AI-classification providers only to find nearby contractors and connect, classify, secure, recover, verify, and administer the call. We limit the input to the task and do not share it for unrelated purposes, except where the law requires disclosure.

A booked-job arrival link uses the address or GPS destination confirmed during your call. You can review or correct those saved details. Arrival estimates use that saved location; a postcode point has less precision than a confirmed GPS destination. Ideal Postcodes also processes any address lookup you request when correcting the saved address. Under our legitimate interests in coordinating the booked visit, we share your phone with the booked trade or authorised attendee after booking; the dispatch page releases the precise property after the actual attendee’s explicit On my way action. We also send that person the released address and your phone number by WhatsApp, with SMS recovery, for offline access. The booked trade’s authenticated account also makes the address available 24 hours after the agreed job if departure has not been confirmed. This timed release does not declare departure or arrival. The attendee must allow browser location and provide a fresh accurate location before the platform accepts departure and releases your property address. You cannot override that requirement. Phone contact remains available if their device cannot provide location. Your arrival page shows the current attendee and a dated estimate, or that an estimate is unavailable. The attendee may stop updates or mark arrival; we do not promise continuous tracking or infer completed work. We use the latest valid estimate as the assumed arrival time if no arrival is confirmed before the dispatch link expires. Arrival taps at least 30 minutes after that estimate retain the estimated time instead of the tap time. These records are marked as estimates, not confirmed arrival observations, and do not establish completion of work. Route providers process the attendee/property coordinate pair without names/phones; we do not retain the operative’s GPS history or disclose their starting position to you. Arrival address/estimate/invitation records expire after 24 hours and are removed by scheduled cleanup. The original property address and a dispatch audit remain with the call record under the separate call-record retention described above. The audit records status and dated estimate changes, their times, nominated and attending people and their contact details, who confirmed actions, and message delivery, fallback and recovery outcomes. We use it to coordinate visits, monitor service reliability, prevent duplicate messages and resolve disputes; it contains no operative GPS history. Billing and dispute retention remains separate.

For road-route estimates, Mapbox processes the job and contractor-base coordinates. If Mapbox cannot return a usable route, Google Maps processes that coordinate pair instead. These routing requests omit names, telephone numbers and call recordings. Google Maps data is subject to the Google Maps Terms and Google Privacy Policy.

5Children's Privacy

This website is not directed at children under the age of 13. We do not knowingly collect any information from children.

6Changes to This Policy

If we make any changes to this Privacy Policy, we will update the date at the top of this page. This policy explains our processing; using the website does not itself consent to new processing or waive your data rights. We will provide any notice or obtain any consent required by law before a relevant change takes effect.

7Contact

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, please contact us: