Version 1.0. Effective 6th October 2026.
(Previous versions are available on request.)
1. Who we are
1.1 virtualBird is operated by Golden Apple Corps Limited, a company registered in England and Wales, company number 08170496, registered office 320 Firecrest Court, Centre Park, Warrington, WA1 1RG.
1.2 We are the controller of the personal data described in this policy. That means we decide how and why it is used.
1.3 You can contact us about this policy or your data at [email protected].
1.4 In this policy, “we”, “us” and “our” mean Golden Apple Corps Limited. “You” means anyone who visits virtualbird.uk or uses virtualBird.
2. The data we collect
2.1 Account and subscription details. Your name, email address, billing address, the date your free trial started, your subscription status, any top-ups you buy and a record of each payment. Your card details go straight to Stripe. We never see or store them.
2.2 Your conversations and output. Everything you type into virtualBird and the copy and other material it produces for you. This may include information about your business, your products, your customers and your plans. Please do not enter personal data about other people unless you need to and are entitled to share it.
2.3 Usage records. How many tokens each of your requests used and what it cost us, linked to your account. We use these to run your allowance, to control costs and to spot misuse.
2.4 Free trial checks. Information that helps us apply the limit of one free trial per person, household or business, such as your name, email address, email domain, billing address and whether your payment card has been used for a trial before. Stripe tells us whether a card has been seen before without showing us the card number.
2.5 Technical data. Your IP address, browser type, device and the pages you visit, collected by our hosting, security and payment providers and by WordPress when you log in.
2.6 Correspondence. Anything you send us by email, including complaints and refund requests.
2.7 Referral data. If you arrive through one of our affiliate partners, the fact that they referred you and the payments you go on to make.
3. How we use your data and our lawful basis
3.1 To create your account, supply virtualBird and produce your output. Our lawful basis is that this is necessary to perform our contract with you.
3.2 To run your free trial, remind you before it ends and take your monthly payments. Our lawful basis is performance of our contract.
3.3 To issue invoices and keep financial records. Our lawful basis is our legal obligations under tax and company law.
3.4 To handle cancellations, refunds, complaints and support requests. Our lawful basis is performance of our contract.
3.5 To prevent fraud and misuse, including repeat free trials, shared logins and attempts to avoid payment. Our lawful basis is our legitimate interest in protecting our business.
3.6 To keep the service secure, working and affordable, including monitoring usage and costs. Our lawful basis is our legitimate interest in running the service properly.
3.7 To pay commission to affiliate partners who refer customers to us. Our lawful basis is our legitimate interest in running our affiliate programme.
3.8 To email you about virtualBird and similar products of ours. As a customer you can opt out at any time using the link in any such email or by contacting us. Our lawful basis is our legitimate interest in telling customers about related products.
4. Artificial intelligence
4.1 virtualBird uses artificial intelligence to produce its output. To do that, the text of your conversations is sent to Anthropic (the provider of the Claude models) and short passages of it are sent to Voyage AI to find relevant material in our knowledge base.
4.2 These providers process your text only to return a response to us. We use their business services, not their consumer products.
4.3 We may decline a free trial automatically where our checks show a previous trial for the same person, household or business. If that happens we tell you before any charge is made and you can ask us to review the decision.
4.4 We do not use your conversations or output to train any artificial intelligence model.
5. Who we share your data with
5.1 We share personal data only with the service providers we need to run virtualBird. They act on our instructions and may not use your data for their own purposes. They are:
- Anthropic: generates virtualBird’s responses.
- Voyage AI: searches our knowledge base for material relevant to your request.
- Stripe: takes payment, runs your subscription, calculates tax and issues invoices.
- HostGator: hosts our website and the database in which your account and conversations are stored.
- Cloudflare: protects and speeds up our website.
- FirstPromoter: tracks referrals from our affiliate partners so we can pay them commission.
5.2 If you were referred by an affiliate partner, that partner can see that you subscribed and the value of your payments. They cannot see your conversations or output.
5.3 We may also disclose data where the law requires it, to protect our legal rights or to a buyer of our business, who would be bound by this policy.
5.4 We do not sell your personal data. We do not share it with third parties for their own marketing.
5.5 Your conversations are private to your account. Other customers cannot see them.
6. International transfers
6.1 Some of the providers listed in clause 5 are based in, or process data in, the United States. Where your data is transferred outside the UK, we make sure it is protected by the UK’s adequacy regulations, the UK Extension to the EU-US Data Privacy Framework or the UK International Data Transfer Addendum.
7. How long we keep your data
7.1 We keep your account and your conversations for as long as your subscription continues, so you can return to your work.
7.2 If your subscription ends, we delete your conversations and output within 30 days.
7.3 We keep payment and invoice records for six years after the end of the financial year in which they were made, because the law requires it.
7.4 We keep the records needed to apply the one free trial limit, such as the fact that a trial has been used and by which email address, domain and card, for as long as we offer a free trial.
7.5 We keep emails with you for as long as we need them to deal with the matter and any follow-up.
8. Cookies
8.1 We use cookies that are strictly necessary for the website to work. These keep you logged in, remember your basket and checkout and protect the site and payments against attack and fraud. They are set by WordPress, WooCommerce, Stripe and Cloudflare.
8.2 If you arrive through an affiliate partner’s link, FirstPromoter sets a cookie recording which partner referred you.
8.3 You can block or delete cookies in your browser settings. If you block strictly necessary cookies, you will not be able to log in or subscribe.
9. Your rights
9.1 Under UK data protection law you have the right to:
- ask for a copy of the personal data we hold about you;
- ask us to correct data that is wrong or incomplete;
- ask us to delete your data;
- ask us to restrict how we use your data;
- object to our use of your data where we rely on legitimate interests;
- object to direct marketing at any time;
- ask us to transfer data you gave us to you or to someone else in a machine-readable format.
9.2 Some of these rights do not apply in every case. For example, we must keep financial records for the period in clause 7.3 even if you ask us to delete them.
9.3 To exercise any of these rights, email [email protected]. We will reply within one month. We may ask you to confirm your identity first.
10. Security
10.1 We take reasonable technical and organisational measures to protect your data. Our site is served over an encrypted connection, access to our systems is restricted and card details never reach our servers.
10.2 No system is completely secure. If a breach puts your rights at high risk, we will tell you without undue delay.
11. Children
11.1 virtualBird is not intended for anyone under 18 and we do not knowingly collect data about children.
12. Changes to this policy
12.1 We may change this policy. The version in force is the one published on this page.
12.2 Where a change materially affects how we use your data, we will tell you by email before it takes effect.
13. Complaints
13.1 If you are unhappy with how we have handled your data, please email [email protected] first and we will try to put it right.
13.2 You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office, the UK data protection regulator, at ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint or on 0303 123 1113.