Privacy policy

happymenu.co.uk is run by Happy Menu ("we", "us"). This policy explains what we collect when you use the site or join as a member, why, who else is involved, and the choices you have. Each Happy Menu country site is run separately with its own member accounts, so this policy covers happymenu.co.uk only.

The short version

• You can read menus without an account. We never ask for your name or email to browse.
• If you join, you sign in with Google. We receive your name, email address and Google profile photo, never your Google password.
• Your profile, diary, reviews, photos, lists, likes and comments are public unless you make your profile private. Your email address is never shown.
• We don't sell your personal information, and we don't use your diary to target advertising.
• You can delete your account yourself at any time, and everything you added goes with it.

What we collect

When you browse

• Page counts. Restaurant pages count things like views, sections read and clicks. We store only daily totals for each page, with no cookies, IP addresses or other identifiers.
• Server logs. Like every website, our hosting servers record requests, including your IP address, browser, the page requested and the time. We use them to keep the site secure and working.
• Google Analytics. We use Google Analytics to understand how many people visit and which pages they use. It sets cookies and sends Google details such as the pages you view, your approximate location, your device and browser, and an identifier for your browser.
• Microsoft Clarity. We use Microsoft Clarity to see how pages are used, through heatmaps and recordings of clicks, scrolling and mouse movement, so we can fix pages that are confusing or broken. Clarity sets cookies and masks text typed into forms by default.
• Google Maps. Restaurant pages show a map from Google Maps. When it loads, your browser connects to Google, which receives your IP address and may set cookies under Google's own privacy policy.
• Fonts. Some fonts load from Google Fonts, which receives your IP address and browser details when they load.

When you join with Google

We ask Google for your basic profile: your name, email address, profile photo, and an account ID that stays the same if you change your email. Google also confirms your email address is verified. We never see your Google password, contacts or anything else in your Google account, and we never post to Google. We don't give you a password; you always sign in through Google.

What you add as a member

• Your profile: username and name, and if you choose, a bio, a location, a banner photo and whether to show your Google photo.
• Your lists: places you want to try and places you have eaten, your favourites, and lists you make.
• Your visits: the date, your rating, whether you loved it, your review, the dishes you had and your photos. When you upload a photo we remove its location, camera details and other hidden data.
• Your activity: who you follow, what you like, the comments you write and anything you report.

We also keep when things were added, whether a post is waiting for approval, and your notifications.

What other people can see

Member profiles are public so diners can follow each other's taste. Unless you make your profile private, anyone can see your username, name, photo, banner, bio and location; the places you have eaten and want to try; your diary and ratings; your reviews, photos and lists; the reviews and lists you like; and who you follow and who follows you. Public profiles, reviews and lists can appear in search engines.

If you make your profile private, other people see only your name, username and photo. Your reviews, photos, lists and activity stay off public pages, though your ratings still count, without your name, in restaurant averages. Comments you post on other members' reviews and lists show with your name and photo either way.

Your email address is never shown to other members.

How we use it

• To run your account and the features you use: your profile, lists, diary, follows, likes, comments and notifications.
• To show restaurant ratings and counts, such as how many members have eaten somewhere and its average member rating.
• To keep the community honest and safe: we check new members' first few posts, review reports, remove posts that break our community guidelines and ban accounts that abuse the site.
• To understand how the site is used and improve it.
• To keep the site secure, prevent spam and abuse, and meet our legal obligations.

We don't send marketing emails. Notifications appear on the site only.

Who else receives information

• Our hosting provider, which stores the site and its database for us.
• Google, for sign-in, Google Analytics, maps and fonts.
• Microsoft, for Clarity.
• Anyone, for what you choose to make public.
• Authorities or others when the law requires it, or when it is needed to protect someone's safety or our legal rights.

We don't sell or rent your personal information, and restaurants cannot buy access to it.

These providers may store and process information outside the UK, including in the United States. Where they do, they rely on recognised safeguards such as the UK Extension to the EU-US Data Privacy Framework or standard contractual clauses.

Cookies

Sign-in cookies are needed for accounts to work. You can block or delete the others in your browser settings without losing access to menus. Google also offers a browser add-on to opt out of Google Analytics.

How long we keep it

• Your account and everything you added stay until you delete them or your account.
• When you delete your account, we delete your profile, lists, visits, reviews, ratings, photos, follows, likes, comments, notifications and reports straight away. Copies can remain in our routine backups for a short time until those backups are replaced.
• Posts we remove for breaking the community guidelines are hidden at once and deleted with your account.
• If we ban an account for abuse and it is then deleted, we keep a scrambled form of its Google account ID so the same Google account cannot rejoin.
• Server logs and analytics data are kept for the periods set by our hosting provider, Google and Microsoft.

Your choices and rights

• Change your profile, make it private or turn off your Google photo on your account page.
• Edit or delete any visit, review, photo, list or comment you added.
• Delete your account from your account page at any time.

Under UK data protection law (the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018), you can ask to access, correct or delete your personal data, to restrict or object to how we use it, and to receive the data you gave us in a portable format. We respond within one month.

We use your information because it is needed to provide the account and features you asked for; because we have a legitimate interest in keeping the site secure, preventing abuse and moderating posts; and where the law requires us to. You can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk.

Children

Happy Menu accounts are for people aged 13 and over, or older where the law requires it to have a Google account. If you think a child has joined, tell us and we will delete the account.

Security

The site uses HTTPS. Members sign in through Google, so we hold no passwords for them. Only a small number of people can access member information, and only to run and moderate the site. No website is perfectly secure, so please tell us if you think something is wrong.

Changes to this policy

If we change this policy, we will update the date at the top. If a change significantly affects how we use members' information, we will tell members on the site before it takes effect.

Contact us

You can change or delete everything you added, and your account, from your account page.