Privacy Policy

Last updated: 19 September 2026

studmatch.co.uk ("studmatch", "we", "us") is operated by Gavin Oxley-Bryan, trading as studmatch. This policy explains what personal data we collect, why, and what rights you have over it, in line with UK GDPR.

What we collect

Depending on how you use studmatch, we collect:

Account details: your email address and display name.
Handler profile: business name, bio, and a general area/county shown publicly on your listings; your full address, postcode and phone number are kept private and are never shown publicly.
Listings: stud dog details, photos, health test and KC registration claims you enter, advert text and pricing, and breeding updates (breed, count, colours, photos) you choose to post.
Health test certificates: if you use our certificate scanning tool, the image or PDF you upload so we can automatically read the results into your listing.
Messages: the content of conversations between you and other users, sent through studmatch.
Reviews: ratings and comments you post, and any reply a handler makes to them.
Favourites and follows: which listings and handlers you've saved or followed.
Location: a postcode-derived location, used to show your general area on a listing or to power "near me" search, if you choose to provide one.
Support requests: anything you tell us via our contact page, including reports about other listings or users.
Usage data: basic activity like when you were last active, used to show handlers as "online" and for abuse prevention.

We don't use analytics, advertising, or third-party tracking cookies. See our Cookie Policy for the one cookie we do use.

Why we use it

To run your account and let you sign in.
To show your public listings, reviews, and profile to other users.
To let you message other users and receive messages from them.
To respond to support requests and investigate reports.
To moderate listings and reviews before they go live.
To keep the service secure and prevent abuse.

We rely on contract (running the account/service you've signed up for), legitimate interests (moderation, abuse prevention, keeping the site secure), and, where you give it, your consent (e.g. sharing your location for "near me" search) as our legal bases for processing.

Who we share it with

We use Supabase as our database, authentication, and file storage provider. They process data on our behalf and don't use it for their own purposes. If you use our certificate scanning tool, the certificate image or PDF you upload is sent to Anthropic, our AI provider, to extract the results; it's used only to process that request and, under our commercial agreement with Anthropic, is not used to train their models. Public listing, profile, and review content is visible to any visitor of studmatch by design. Messages are only visible to the two people in a conversation. Your private handler details (address, postcode, phone number) are never shared publicly and are only accessible to you and, where legally required, us. We don't sell your data, and we don't share it with advertisers.

How long we keep it

We keep your data for as long as your account is active. If you delete your account (from your Profile page, under "Danger zone"), your personal data and listings are permanently removed, other than anything we're required to keep for legal reasons.

Your rights

Under UK GDPR, you have the right to:

Access the personal data we hold about you.
Correct inaccurate data (most of your own details can be edited directly in your Profile).
Delete your account and data at any time.
Object to or restrict certain processing.
Request your data in a portable format.

To exercise any of these rights, contact us. If you're not satisfied with our response, you can complain to the UK's data protection regulator, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO).

Changes to this policy

If we make significant changes to how we handle your data, we'll update this page and change the "last updated" date above.