Text the Office

Privacy, in plain English.

Last updated: 15 August 2026

We're an office, not a data business. Here's exactly what we hold, where it comes from, and what we do with it. No small print tricks.

Who we are

Text the Office is operated by Fontvera, a company registered in Denmark, trading as Text the Office. Post to us at Fontvera, Denmark, or — much faster — email support@texttheoffice.co.uk for anything data-related.

For your own membership data — your name, mobile, email, company number, the questions you text us — Fontvera is the data controller.

Your customers' details: you're the controller, we're the processor

When you ask the office to chase an invoice, you give us your customer's details — their name, and their mobile or email, sometimes a postal address, and what the job was. That data is yours, about your customer, for your debt.

You are the data controller for your customers' details. You decide who gets chased, for what, and when it stops.
We are the processor: we act on your instructions and nothing else. We don't chase anyone you haven't told us to, we don't use your customers' details for our own purposes, and we never market to them or sell their details on.
We use sub-processors to do the sending: Twilio (text messages), Resend (email), Stripe (payments, your card only), and a letter-printing provider where a letter goes in the post. They're bound to the same limits.
Every message we send on your behalf says so on its face, and replies come back to you.

If you're the customer of one of our members and you've had a message from us on their behalf: you can exercise your UK GDPR rights — access, correction, erasure, objection — by emailing support@texttheoffice.co.uk. Tell us the number or email address the message went to. We'll stop any active chase and delete your contact details from our system, usually within days and at most within a month, and we'll pass the request to the member, who is the controller of that data. We keep the log of messages already sent — what was sent, when, and to whom at the time — because both sides may need that record of a disputed or unpaid invoice; that's our legitimate interest, and it's the only thing that survives an erasure.

What we hold

Your first name, mobile number and company number — because you gave them to us when you joined.
Public information about your company from the Companies House register — company name, status, incorporation date, nature of business. This is already public; we read it to verify you're a real UK trades business.
The messages you send our helpline, so we can answer them and keep the thread making sense.
The chase cases you set up: your customer's contact details, the invoice figures, what the job was and when you finished it, and an append-only log of every message in and out.
Which postcard brought you here (the src code in the link). That's the whole of our "analytics".
If you upgrade to a paid tier, payments are handled by Stripe. We never see or store your card details.

Why we hold it (the legal bit)

Running the office — answering your texts, sending the weekly digest, providing what membership includes. Legal basis: performance of a contract (the membership you signed up for).
Verifying members — checking your company number against the public Companies House register, when you join and occasionally after. Legal basis: legitimate interest, in keeping it members-only. You can object at any time (see your rights below).
Occasional member offers — legal basis: legitimate interest. Text STOP and they stop.

What we never do

Sell your data. Not to merchants, insurers, lead-generation sites, or anyone else. Ever.
Share your data for anyone else's marketing.
Track you around the internet. This site sets no cookies and runs no analytics scripts.

How long we keep it

While you're a member, plus 12 months after you leave in case you come back — then it's deleted. Records the law makes us keep longer (like payment records, 6 years for HMRC) are kept exactly that long and no longer. Message logs for a chased invoice are kept as the record of what was sent about that debt, and then deleted on the same schedule.

Your rights

Under UK GDPR you can ask us for a copy of your data, ask us to correct it, delete it, restrict how we use it, or object to us using it — including the Companies House check. Email support@texttheoffice.co.uk and we'll sort it, usually within days, at most within a month. If you think we've handled your data badly, you can complain to the ICO at ico.org.uk — but give us the chance to fix it first.

Leaving

Reply STOP to any text and we stop texting you. Email us and we delete your data entirely. No forms, no retention team, no hard feelings.