Privacy policy
Last updated 15 October 2026
Who we are
Muster is a trading name of Highfold Group Ltd (company number 17521208, registered in England and Wales). Registered office: Office 21848, 182-184 High Street North, East Ham, London, E6 2JA. The "controller" of the personal data described here ("we", "us") is Highfold Group Ltd.
Questions about your data? Email hello@musterready.co.uk. We read every message and we'll get back to you as soon as we can.
What we collect
- Details you give us - your name, email address and password (stored only as a secure hash); venue details you enter: address, capacity, opening hours, equipment and call point locations; the fire safety records you and your team keep: checks, faults, contractor visits, drills, training and briefing sign-offs, with any photos or certificates uploaded (for your staff's details, see "Staff using Muster at your venue" below); if you ask the Martyn's Law tier checker to email your result, the email address you give, used once to send that email and never added to a mailing list (our email log records that it was sent). The tier checker's answers themselves (venue type and capacity) are counted anonymously.
- Payment details - handled entirely by Stripe. We never see or store your full card number.
- Messages - what you send us by email or through our contact forms.
- Basic usage data - we count page views without cookies. To count unique visitors we use a one-way, daily-changing hash of your IP address and browser; we can't use it to identify you and it resets every day.
- Security logs - like most websites, our web server and mail server keep logs of each request: your IP address, the date and time, the page or service requested and your browser details (and, for emails, the sender and recipient addresses). We use them only to keep our services secure and working.
- Live chat - the messages you type into our chat assistant and any details you choose to send through it (see Live chat below).
Why we use it, and our lawful basis
| Purpose | Lawful basis (UK GDPR Art. 6) |
|---|---|
| Providing what you've ordered or signed up for, and talking to you about it | Contract |
| Replying to your messages and enquiries | Legitimate interests (or steps you ask us to take before a contract) |
| Taking payment, keeping accounts and tax records | Legal obligation |
| Keeping our services secure and preventing fraud and abuse | Legitimate interests |
| Improving our website using cookieless statistics | Legitimate interests |
Who we share it with
We never sell your data. We share it only with the suppliers below, who help us run Muster. Suppliers that act for us may use it only on our instructions, under contracts that require them to protect it. Where a supplier also uses data for its own purposes (as the table says), its own privacy policy covers that use.
| Supplier | What for |
|---|---|
| Contabo GmbH (servers in United Kingdom) | hosting: the server that runs this website and stores its database and files, and our own mail server on it, which sends and receives our emails |
| Stripe Payments UK Ltd | card payments and billing (Stripe is also an independent controller for fraud prevention and its own legal obligations) |
| Abacus.AI, Inc. (USA) | AI processing of live chat messages to write the assistant's replies |
Some of these suppliers may process data outside the UK (for example in the USA). Where they do, the transfer is protected by UK adequacy regulations (including the UK–US data bridge), or the ICO's International Data Transfer Agreement or the UK Addendum to the EU standard contractual clauses.
How long we keep it
- Records of your payments and invoices: 6 years (UK tax rules).
- Wrong venue PIN attempts (the phone's IP address): deleted automatically within two hours.
- An account that never started a paid plan: deleted with everything in it a year after it was last used. We email 30 days before, and logging in keeps it.
- Your account, venues and records (including staff details, photos and certificates): while you have an account. When a plan ends nothing is deleted: your records stay for you to view and export. Deleting a team member, a venue or your account deletes its records.
- Enquiries that don't lead anywhere: 2 years.
- Emails to and from our hello@musterready.co.uk mailbox: deleted from our mail server 2 years after they arrive.
- Our log of the emails we send you (address, subject and whether it was delivered): 1 year.
- Security logs on our servers: 14 days.
- Cookieless page-view and visitor counts: about 13 months (400 days).
- Backups: anything we delete stays in our nightly backups for up to 14 days, then it's gone.
- Live chat conversations: 180 days after the last message; details you send through the chat, with the recent part of the conversation, are kept like other enquiries.
Live chat
Our website has a chat assistant. It is an automated AI assistant, not a person: it answers questions using Muster's own web pages and information we've written for it, and it can make mistakes. If it can't help, it can take your details so our team can reply to you by email.
- What we keep - the messages you type, the assistant's replies, the page you started the chat on, when it happened, and a one-way hash of your IP address that changes every day (only to stop one connection using up the assistant - we don't use it to identify you). Please don't type card details or sensitive personal information into the chat; card numbers are removed automatically, from the chat and from details you send.
- AI processing - to write its replies, your messages and the relevant parts of our website are sent to Abacus.AI, Inc. in the United States, which acts as our processor under a contract that requires it to protect your data. The transfer is protected by UK adequacy regulations (including the UK–US data bridge), or the ICO's International Data Transfer Agreement or the UK Addendum to the EU standard contractual clauses.
- Details you send us - if you choose to leave your details (for example your name, email address and phone number) they reach the Muster team in the same way as a message through our contact form, together with the recent part of your conversation (so the team has the context), we email you to confirm we've got them, and we reply by email. Nobody from the team joins the chat itself.
- Why (lawful basis) - legitimate interests (answering questions about our products), and steps you ask us to take before entering into a contract when you ask us to get back to you.
- How long - chat conversations are deleted 180 days after the last message. If you send your details, they and the recent part of the conversation that goes with them are kept like other enquiries (2 years).
- On your device - once you start a chat, your browser keeps the conversation (in local storage, not a cookie) so it stays open as you move between pages. It's cleared the next time you visit after 24 hours without using it, or straight away when you choose "Start a new chat" or clear this site's data. Once you've sent your details, your browser no longer keeps them.
Staff using Muster at your venue
If you work at a venue that keeps its fire safety records in Muster (for example you log checks by scanning a QR sticker, or you've been sent a briefing to sign), this part is for you.
- Who's responsible for your details: the business or organisation that runs your venue. It is the "controller" of your personal data and decides what is recorded. Muster (Highfold Group Ltd) is its "processor": we store the records and run Muster for it, only on its instructions and for no other purpose.
- What's recorded: your name (and your role and email address, if the venue adds them: we use your email address only to send you the briefings the venue asks us to); the checks you log, with the date, time, result, any note or photo, and that they were logged by tap-to-log; your fire safety training records; and, if you're sent a briefing on the venue's emergency procedures, the name you type and when you confirmed you'd read it.
- Why: so the venue can keep the fire safety records the law expects of it, show them to fire officers, licensing officers and insurers, and know who has been trained and briefed.
- Who sees it: the people who manage the venue's Muster account, anyone they show the records or inspection pack to, and the suppliers named under "Who we share it with" that run our service (such as our hosting company). We never sell it or use it for marketing.
- How long it's kept: for as long as the venue keeps its records in Muster. When the venue deletes the venue or its account, we delete them, and they drop out of our backups within 14 days.
- On your phone: when you use tap-to-log, your phone remembers that the venue PIN was entered (for 14 days, or until the venue changes its PIN) and which name you picked, so you don't have to choose it each time. Our cookie policy has the details. Clearing your browser's data for this site removes both.
- Wrong PIN attempts: to stop people guessing a venue's PIN, we record the IP address of a phone that enters a wrong PIN. We decide how this is used and keep it only for security (our legitimate interests in keeping venues' records safe), and it's deleted automatically within two hours.
- Your rights: to see a copy of your details, have them corrected or removed, or to object, ask the venue's manager (they can correct or delete your details themselves on the venue's Staff page in Muster; checks you logged stay in the venue's log book with your name as written, because they're part of its fire safety record). If you can't, or you're unhappy with the answer, email hello@musterready.co.uk with the venue's name and we'll pass your request on and help the venue respond. You can also complain to the ICO (details below).
Your rights
You can ask us for a copy of your data, to correct it, to delete it, to restrict or object to how we use it, or to receive it in a portable format. You can withdraw consent at any time. If you have an account you can delete it yourself from your account page. Email hello@musterready.co.uk for anything else - we'll respond within one month.
If you're unhappy with how we've handled your data, you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk or on 0303 123 1113. We'd appreciate the chance to put things right first.
Changes
If we make important changes we'll update the date above and, where appropriate, tell you by email.
