Privacy Policy
Effective 20 July 2026 · Last updated 13 August 2026
Who we are
The Cast Index is owned and operated by Elite Digital AI Solutions Ltd, registered in England & Wales, Company No. 17250017. The named editor is Kaiser Khan. For editorial questions use desk@thecastindex.com; for data-protection requests use the address at the foot of this page.
What we collect
Email addresses you provide for the newsletter/waitlist, for confirming a People’s Choice vote, and for a listing or event submission. For payments, Stripe processes card details — we never see or store your card number.
Why we collect it
To send what you asked for, to verify one-vote-per-email, to process and review paid listings, and to contact you about a submission. We do not sell your data.
Lawful bases (UK GDPR)
We process personal data only where we have a lawful basis: legitimate interest for essential operations (running the vote’s one-vote-per-email integrity check, reviewing submissions, keeping the site secure), consent where required (the newsletter you sign up for, and any non-essential cookies if we ever introduce them), and contract when we deliver a paid listing, event listing or subscription you have bought.
Voting emails
For voting we store a one-way hash of your email (not the address itself) to prevent duplicate votes, plus a short-lived confirmation token.
Affiliate and outbound retailer links
Some pages contain labelled affiliate links (see How we make money). When you click an outbound retailer link, you leave our site and the retailer’s own privacy policy applies — they may set their own cookies and process your data under their own terms. We never share your personal data with retailers or affiliate networks before you click, and we do not run third-party ad trackers on this site.
Cookies & storage (PECR)
We set only strictly-necessary storage — for example, keeping your session or theme preference. Under the UK Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR), strictly-necessary storage does not require consent. If we ever add non-essential cookies (for example, advertising or conversion measurement), we will ask for your opt-in consent first, before anything is set. Details live on our Cookies & storage page.
No sale or sharing of personal data
We do not sell your personal data, and we do not share it for cross-context behavioural advertising. For US state privacy laws including the CCPA/CPRA: we do not “sell” or “share” personal information as those laws define it, so there is no sale/share to opt out of — and you retain every right described below.
Retention
We keep newsletter emails until you unsubscribe, vote hashes for as long as a vote is open (plus a short integrity window), and listing/submission records for as long as the listing is live plus the period needed for accounting and legal obligations. Data is then deleted or anonymised.
International transfers
Some processors we use (for example Stripe, and our email and hosting providers) may process data outside the UK. Where they do, we rely on adequacy regulations or contractual safeguards such as the UK International Data Transfer Agreement / EU Standard Contractual Clauses with the UK addendum.
Your rights
You can request access to, correction of, or deletion of your personal data; object to or restrict processing; withdraw consent at any time (for example by unsubscribing); and request a portable copy of your data. Contact the address below — we respond within one month. If you are in the UK and unhappy with how we handle your data, you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).
Data requests: privacy@thecastindex.com · https://thecastindex.com