Privacy Policy
This Privacy Policy explains how we collect and use your personal data when you use this website (urgentguard.co.uk) or our Urgent Guard client and officer apps. We are committed to protecting your privacy and handling your data in line with the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018.
1. Who we are
Urgent Guard is a trading brand of Aberdeen Technologies Ltd (“we”, “us”, “our”), a company registered in England & Wales under company number 16865401, with its registered office at Unit 2K, 1 Hastingwood Business Park, Wood Lane, Birmingham B24 9QR. We are the data controller for the personal data described in this policy.
Questions or requests: hello@urgentguard.co.uk.
2. The data we collect
- Cover requests (clients): your name, company, phone number, email, site postcode, the type and timing of cover you need, and any details you add.
- Job applicants and officers: the information you give us when you apply to work through Urgent Guard and while you work shifts. Section 3 below explains this in full.
- Account & operational data: if you use our apps, information relating to sites, shifts, clock-ins, welfare checks, patrols and incident reports.
- Technical data: IP address, device and browser information, and analytics data (only if you accept analytics cookies).
3. Job applicants and officers
If you apply to work as a security officer, steward or other operative through Urgent Guard, this section applies to you in addition to the rest of this policy.
What we collect.
- Identity and contact details: full name, date of birth, National Insurance number, home address, email and mobile number.
- Your address history and employment history for the last five years, including gaps, so that we can screen you to British Standard BS 7858 (security screening of individuals employed in a security environment).
- Right to work information: your immigration or citizenship status and, where relevant, your Home Office share code, which we use to carry out a right to work check.
- Your SIA licence number and licence status, which we check on the public SIA register.
- Information about criminal convictions, where you declare it or where a criminal record check (for example a basic DBS check) forms part of BS 7858 screening.
- Emergency contact details: the name and phone number of a person we can contact if you are taken ill or injured on duty. Please tell that person you have given us their details; we only use them in an emergency.
- Information about your work: preferred locations, availability, roles and experience, shifts you accept and work, clock-in and clock-out times and locations, welfare check responses, patrol and incident reports, photos you take on shift, and pay and timesheet records.
Why we use it, and our lawful bases.
- To assess your application and decide whether to offer you work: steps taken at your request before entering into a contract.
- To check your right to work in the UK and your SIA licence: legal obligation (immigration law and the Private Security Industry Act 2001).
- To screen you to BS 7858, including employment and address history checks: legitimate interests in deploying only suitably vetted people to our clients' sites, and because our clients and insurers require it.
- To offer you shifts, record your attendance, keep you and others safe on duty, and pay you: performance of a contract and legal obligation (tax and employment records).
- Criminal offence information is used only where it is relevant to security work. We process it under the conditions in the Data Protection Act 2018, Schedule 1 (employment obligations and preventing or detecting unlawful acts), and we keep an appropriate policy document setting out how we protect it.
Who sees it. Your application is reviewed by our control-room and vetting staff. If you are approved, the security companies that use the Urgent Guard platform to fill shifts, including Seccuro Security Services Ltd, may see your profile so they can offer you work, and the company you work a shift for sees what it needs to run that shift (your name, SIA licence details and on-shift records). Clients see your name, SIA licence number and attendance records for shifts at their sites. We also use the Home Office online right to work service and our right to work checking provider, and the public SIA licence register, to verify your details. We do not share your National Insurance number, date of birth, home address or right to work documents with clients.
How long we keep it.
- If your application is unsuccessful or you withdraw it: 6 months from the decision, then deleted.
- Right to work check records: for as long as you work through us and 2 years afterwards, as required by Home Office guidance.
- BS 7858 screening records: for as long as you work through us and up to 7 years afterwards, as BS 7858 requires.
- Pay, tax and timesheet records: 6 years after the end of the tax year they relate to.
- Shift, attendance and incident records: up to 6 years, because they may be needed for client, insurance or legal claims.
We do not make decisions about you based solely on automated processing. If you do not provide the information marked as required, we will not be able to consider your application, because the checks it supports are a legal or contractual requirement for security work.
4. How and why we use it (lawful bases)
- To respond to your enquiry, provide a quote and arrange security cover, performance of a contract or steps taken at your request.
- To create and manage client and officer accounts and deliver our services, contract.
- To meet our legal, regulatory and SIA licensing obligations, legal obligation.
- To improve our website and services through analytics, consent (you can decline).
- To keep records and protect our legitimate business interests, including safety and security, legitimate interests.
Use of an AI assistant in the control room
Control-room staff can use an AI assistant built into UrgentGuard to answer operational questions, such as which shifts need attention, who has booked on, and which officers could cover a shift. The assistant can also prepare draft messages, cover offers and incident reports, which a member of staff must check and confirm before anything is sent or saved. It does not make decisions about you.
To answer a question, the assistant reads the same information staff can already see, limited to what is needed: for officers, your name, role, status, SIA licence number, licence and right-to-work expiry dates, the first part of your postcode, and your shift, attendance, welfare-check and timesheet records, including hours worked. Staff who work on payroll can also ask about your hours, hourly rate and gross and net pay. Staff who work on finance can ask about client invoices. Depending on their role, staff can also ask about book-on and book-off times, occurrence log entries, and right-to-work and SIA check results, including visa type. It never receives your contact details, home address, date of birth, National Insurance number, tax code, bank details or identity documents. If a member of staff asks for your phone number or email, the control room shows it to them directly; it is not sent to the AI service.
The assistant uses an AI service provided by Anthropic PBC, which processes this information on our behalf under a data processing agreement and does not use it to train its models. Anthropic is based in the United States; transfers are protected by appropriate safeguards under UK data protection law. We keep assistant conversations for 90 days to check quality, then delete them. Our lawful basis is our legitimate interest in running safe and compliant security operations. You can ask us about this, or object, using the contact details in this notice.
Messages to officers may be sent as app notifications, by text message through our SMS provider, or as text messages from a company computer using Apple Messages. Only your phone number and the message are used to send a text.
5. Who we share it with
We share personal data only where necessary: with the officers and control-room staff arranging your cover; with the partner security company that delivers your cover (cover requests made on this website are passed to Go Security Ltd, which supplies officers through the Urgent Guard platform); for job applicants and officers, as described in section 3; with service providers who process data on our behalf (for example our cloud database and authentication provider, Supabase, our hosting provider, and Anthropic for the control-room AI assistant described in section 4); and with regulators, insurers or law enforcement where we are legally required to do so. We do not sell your personal data.
6. International transfers
Some of our providers may process data outside the UK. Our database is hosted in the European Union (Ireland), and the AI service used by the control-room assistant is provided from the United States. Where data leaves the UK, we rely on appropriate safeguards such as UK adequacy regulations, the UK Extension to the EU–US Data Privacy Framework, or the UK International Data Transfer Addendum to standard contractual clauses.
7. How long we keep it
We keep personal data only as long as necessary for the purposes above and to meet legal, tax and insurance requirements. Enquiry data is typically kept for up to 24 months; account and operational records are kept for the duration of the relationship and a reasonable period afterwards. Conversations with the control-room AI assistant are kept for 90 days and then deleted.
8. Your rights
Under UK data protection law you have the right to access, correct, erase, restrict or object to the processing of your personal data, the right to data portability, and the right to withdraw consent at any time. To exercise any of these, contact hello@urgentguard.co.uk.
You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) at ico.org.uk.
9. Cookies
We use essential cookies to run the site and, with your consent, analytics cookies to improve it. See our Cookie Policy for details and how to change your choice.
10. Changes to this policy
We may update this policy from time to time. The latest version will always be available on this page.