Legal
Privacy policy.
How we collect, use and protect personal information — written in plain English, like everything else we do. Last updated 29 July 2026.
Who we are
Sterling Communications is a trading name of Summit Analytics Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales under company number 17356196, with its registered office at 124–128 City Road, London EC1V 2NX. We are a social media and digital marketing agency for regulated sectors. For anything in this policy, you can reach us at sebastian@sterling-communications.com or on 07802 644660. Summit Analytics Ltd is the data controller for personal information collected through this website and in the course of our own business; where we manage social media accounts and advertising on behalf of clients, we act as a processor on their instructions.
What we collect on this website
Very little, deliberately. This site sets no advertising cookies and runs no analytics or tracking scripts. If you contact us — by email or telephone — we hold what you send us: your name, your contact details and the content of your enquiry.
How we use it
- ·To respond to your enquiry and, where you become a client, to deliver our services under our agreement with you (lawful basis: contract, or steps prior to one)
- ·To keep sensible business records (lawful basis: legitimate interests)
- ·To meet legal obligations such as accounting requirements (lawful basis: legal obligation)
We do not sell personal information, and we do not send marketing emails to people who have not asked for them.
Work we do for clients
Managing social media for care providers, financial advisers and law firms means handling material that can identify people — photographs, stories, testimonials. We publish nothing identifying an individual without appropriate consent held on record by the client, and our systems are built to check for that consent before anything is published. Where we run advertising, audiences are defined within Google's and Meta's tools; we do not upload customer lists without a client's documented instruction and lawful basis.
Who we share information with
Only the suppliers needed to run our business — hosting, email and the social and advertising platforms we manage on your behalf (such as Meta and Google), each under their own safeguards. Some of these providers process data outside the UK; where they do, recognised transfer safeguards such as adequacy decisions or standard contractual clauses apply. We never share information with anyone else unless the law requires it.
How long we keep it
Enquiries that go nowhere are deleted within twelve months. Client records are kept for the life of the engagement and for six years afterwards, in line with contractual and tax obligations. Consent records for published content are kept for as long as the content remains public, and after that for as long as the client instructs.
Your rights
Under UK data protection law you can ask for a copy of the information we hold about you, ask us to correct or delete it, object to or restrict our use of it, and ask for it in a portable form. Email sebastian@sterling-communications.com and we will respond within a month. If you are unhappy with how we handle your information, you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk — though we would rather you told us first, so we can put it right.
Changes to this policy
If we change how we handle personal information, this page changes first, with the date at the top updated. Significant changes affecting clients are notified directly.