Last updated 10 November 2026.
The short version: our phone number checker and scam guides are free and paid for by adverts. We do not use analytics cookies, we do not sell your data, and we only keep what we need to run the site and answer your enquiries. The detail is below.
Who we are
This website, usethegeeks.co.uk, is run by Use The Geeks Ltd, trading as Use The Geeks (“we”, “us”). We are the “controller” of the personal information described here, which means we decide how and why it is used. Use The Geeks Ltd is registered in England and Wales as USETHEGEEKS LIMITED, company number 10280011. Registered office: 2 Slater Terrace, Burnley, Lancashire BB11 1BU. You can contact us about anything in this policy at info@usethegeeks.co.uk or on 0333 006 9399.
We are a UK business and handle personal information under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR), the Data Protection Act 2018 and the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003 (PECR).
What we collect, why, and for how long
| When | What we collect | Why, and our legal basis | How long we keep it |
|---|---|---|---|
| You visit any page | Your IP address, the page you asked for, the date and time, the page that sent you here, and your browser and device type (the standard web server log). | To deliver the site, keep it secure and spot abuse. Legitimate interests. | 14 days on the web server. |
| Traffic reporting | A copy of the page-view lines from that log (not images, scripts or search-engine robots), held in our own internal reporting system. | To see which pages people use. Legitimate interests. | Up to 13 months. |
| You use the phone number checker | The number you type, what the checker found (type, area, provider), a scrambled version of your IP address (see below), your browser and device type, the page you were on, and the date. | To give you the result, work out which number ranges people ask about most, discount robots and limit abuse. Legitimate interests. | Up to 12 months. After that we keep only totals for number ranges. |
| You send us a quote request | What you tell us in the form: the service you want, business name and size, postcode, your name, phone number, email address and any message, plus the page you were on, your IP address and browser type. | To reply to you and prepare a quote. This is taking steps at your request, and our legitimate interest in running our business. | Up to 24 months after you send it, or longer if you become a customer and we need the records for the contract, tax or legal reasons. |
| You start a quote form but do not send it | What you had typed so far (see the next section). | To follow up unfinished enquiries and improve the form. Legitimate interests. | Up to 12 months. |
| You contact us | Your name, contact details and what you tell us, by phone, email or post. | To reply to you. Legitimate interests, or taking steps at your request. | For as long as needed to deal with your request, then up to 24 months. |
| Adverts are shown to you | Information collected by Google through its advertising technology (see “Advertising”). | To fund the free tools. Your consent. | Decided by Google. |
The phone number checker
The checker compares the number you type with the public numbering data published by Ofcom. That match happens on our own server and the number is not sent to anyone else. The result tells you the type of number, the area and the provider the range was allocated to. It cannot tell you who owns or uses a number, and we do not try to find out.
We do keep a record of each lookup, as described in the table, so we can tell which number ranges people search for. The web server log in the first row of the table also records each check for 14 days. The number you enter may belong to someone else, so we treat these records with the same care as any other personal information, and only people who run the site can see them.
We scramble your IP address with a secret key that stays on our server and then store only the result. We use it to tell whether the same visitor asked the same question twice in a day. It stops us casually seeing your address, but it is still personal information in law because we could in theory repeat the process, so we do not call it anonymous.
When we publish figures, such as the most-checked number ranges in a report, they are totals for ranges and never include a full number, an IP address or anything that points to a person.
Quote forms and unfinished forms
If you ask for a quote we use the details to contact you about it, and we may email them to our sales inbox through an email delivery provider.
Our quote forms also save your progress while you fill them in. If you type your name, phone number, email address or anything else into a quote form and then leave without pressing the final button, what you had typed so far may still be saved, together with your IP address and browser type. We use it to see where people give up and, where you have given us contact details, we may get in touch about your enquiry. If you would rather we did not keep it, email info@usethegeeks.co.uk and we will delete it.
Please do not put sensitive information (such as health or financial details) in the free-text message box.
A few older “request a callback” forms on some pages send what you type to our own web server, where it is kept in the server log and the traffic reporting copy described in the table. To be sure of a reply, use the quote form or phone us.
Advertising
We show adverts on our phone number checker pages and our phone scam guides. We do not show adverts on our business service, quote or company pages.
The adverts come from Google AdSense. Google, as an advertising vendor, and its partners use cookies and similar technologies to show adverts, to limit how often you see the same one and to measure how adverts perform. If you agree, they can also use what they know about your visits to this and other websites to show adverts that are more relevant to you (“personalised advertising”). If you do not agree, Google shows less personalised or non-personalised adverts instead.
On pages with adverts you will be asked for your choice by a consent message provided through Google. You can change your mind at any time; see our cookie policy for how. Google decides how it uses the information it collects. Its own explanation is at How Google uses information from sites or apps that use its services and its privacy policy is at policies.google.com/privacy.
You can also control personalised adverts here:
- Google’s Ad Settings (turn personalisation off, or review the interests Google has linked to you).
- aboutads.info/choices and youronlinechoices.com, which let you opt out of personalised adverts from many other advertising companies.
Cookies and similar technologies
We do not use analytics cookies, and we do not set our own cookies on your device. The only cookies on this site come from Google’s advertising on the pages described above. We also use a small amount of temporary browser storage on our quote forms and on some business pages. Full details, including how to say no, are in our cookie policy.
Who we share information with
We do not sell personal information. We share it only with:
- Our hosting provider (Amazon Web Services), which runs the server that holds the site and the records above.
- Our email delivery provider (SMTP2GO), which sends quote requests to our sales inbox, and the mailbox provider that hosts that inbox.
- Google, which provides the adverts. Google also gives us summary data about how people find our site through Google Search, which does not identify individual visitors.
- Our content delivery provider: every page loads a standard script library from a content delivery network used by our website platform (Webflow, through Amazon CloudFront), so that service can see your IP address and browser type when it delivers the file.
- Our own reporting system, run by us for traffic reporting (see the table).
- Advisers, insurers and authorities where the law requires or where we need to protect our legal rights.
These providers act on our instructions, apart from Google, which decides for itself how it uses advertising data.
Country information about visitors comes from the free “IP to Country Lite” data from DB-IP.com (CC BY 4.0), which we use on our own server without sending your address anywhere.
Sending information outside the UK
Some of our providers, including Google, Amazon and our email delivery provider, may handle information outside the UK. Where they do, we rely on UK adequacy regulations (for example the UK–US data bridge) or on the UK International Data Transfer Agreement or Addendum, so that your information keeps equivalent protection.
Keeping information safe
The site uses HTTPS. The records above sit on a private server behind a firewall, and the staff area is protected by a password and limits on repeated login attempts. No system is perfectly secure, but we take sensible steps and tell the Information Commissioner and the people affected if a breach puts them at risk.
Your rights
You have the right to:
- ask for a copy of the personal information we hold about you;
- ask us to correct it, or to delete it;
- ask us to restrict how we use it, or object to our use of it, including for our legitimate interests;
- ask for the information you gave us in a portable format;
- withdraw your consent at any time where we rely on it (for adverts, use the controls above or in the cookie policy).
We do not make decisions about you by automated means that have legal or similarly significant effects.
To use any of these rights, email info@usethegeeks.co.uk. We will reply within one month, and we may ask you to confirm who you are. Because the checker stores only a scrambled form of your address, we can usually find your lookups only if you tell us the numbers you checked and roughly when.
If you are unhappy with how we have handled your information you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office at ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint or on 0303 123 1113. We would appreciate the chance to put things right first.
Children
This site is aimed at adults and UK businesses. We do not knowingly collect information from children.
Other websites
Our pages link to other sites, such as Ofcom, Report Fraud (formerly Action Fraud) and the Information Commissioner. We do not control them, so please read their own privacy policies.
Changes to this policy
If we change how we use personal information we will update this page and the date at the top. We will make a prominent notice on the site if the change matters to you.