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Privacy Policy

Payment Information & Data Retention

When you make a purchase on Presswire.com, we collect and process payment information necessary to complete the transaction. This may include your name, billing address, email address, and partial card details (such as the last four digits of your card number). All card payments are securely processed through our third-party payment provider, Stripe, which complies with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) as a Level 1 Service Provider.

We do not store your full card details on our servers. Instead, sensitive card data is securely transmitted directly to Stripe for authorization and transaction completion. Stripe employs industry-leading encryption, secure network architecture, and strict access controls to protect your information.

Data Retention

We retain the following transaction-related information for accounting, tax, and fraud prevention purposes:

  • Transaction ID
  • Payment method used
  • Last four digits of the card number
  • Billing details (name and address)
  • Timestamp and value of transaction

This data is retained for a period of six (6) years in accordance with UK tax and legal obligations.

Stripe, as our payment processor, may also retain certain transactional data to comply with its own legal and regulatory obligations. You can learn more by reviewing the Stripe Privacy Policy.

Legal Basis for Processing

We process payment and billing information on the following legal bases:

  • Contractual necessity – to fulfil your purchase and deliver our services.
  • Legal compliance – to meet UK financial regulations and record-keeping obligations.
  • Legitimate interest – to ensure the security and integrity of our transactions.

Third-Party Payment Provider

Our payment processor, Stripe, is certified to the highest security standards (PCI-DSS Level 1). All payment processing is handled through secure, encrypted connections, and we ensure any third parties we work with uphold strict data protection policies.

VAT number verification

When a business customer provides a VAT registration number while ordering our services, our billing system verifies that number against the official registers before we issue an invoice. Numbers beginning GB are checked against HM Revenue and Customs’ Check a UK VAT Number service; EU numbers are checked against the European Commission’s VIES service.

We do this to charge the correct VAT on each sale and to keep the evidence VAT law requires. From HMRC’s service we receive the registration status of the number, the name and address registered to it, and a consultation number confirming that a verified check was performed. We record the result, the date and time of the check, and the consultation number with the order’s tax records.

The lawful bases for this processing are the legal obligations that apply to VAT accounting and invoicing, and our legitimate interest in billing accurately. Verification records are retained with our VAT records for as long as tax law requires — at least six years, and ten years for sales reported under the EU One Stop Shop scheme.

These checks are performed server-to-server by our billing system using our own credentials, and only when a customer provides a VAT number in the course of ordering. Our systems never ask for, receive or store anyone’s HMRC sign-in details.

This processing is carried out by PRESSWIRE LIMITED as data controller, whose contact details appear at the end of this policy.

Review invitations

After you buy from us, we may send you an email asking you to review our service on Trustpilot. To do this, we give Trustpilot A/S, the Danish company that runs the review site, your name, email address and order number. Trustpilot sends the invitation for us as our data processor; PRESSWIRE LIMITED remains the data controller. We invite every customer in the same way, whatever their experience.

The lawful basis for this is our legitimate interest in hearing from our customers and in showing other buyers what they think of our service. You can object at any time: use the unsubscribe link in the invitation, or email info@presswire.com, and we will not ask you again. Writing a review is entirely up to you. If you do write one, Trustpilot publishes it under its own terms and privacy policy, which are on trustpilot.com.

Contact Information

If you have any questions or concerns about our handling of payment information or this Privacy Policy, you can contact us using the details below:

Data controller: PRESSWIRE LIMITED, company number 04630760, info@presswire.com

UK Registered Company: 4630760
VAT Number: GB815493714
Head Office Switchboard: +44 (0) 207 754 0050
Email: info@presswire.com

Reporting security concerns

If you believe you have found a security vulnerability in any Presswire system, please email info@presswire.com with the details. We will acknowledge your report promptly and ask that you allow us reasonable time to investigate before any public disclosure.

Cookies and similar technologies

Like most websites, presswire.com uses cookies: small files stored by your browser. They fall into these groups.

  • Essential. Cookies that keep the order form, basket and checkout working (WooCommerce), that protect the site from abuse (Cloudflare), and that our payment provider, Stripe, uses on the payment page to process payments and prevent fraud. A cookie called pw_consent remembers your cookie choice for six months.
  • Analytics. Google Analytics cookies (names beginning _ga) count visits and show which pages are used. When an order is paid, our server also sends Google Analytics the order number, value, currency and service bought, without your name or email address, so that sales are counted accurately.
  • Advertising measurement. Google Ads may set cookies (such as _gcl_au) to measure whether our advertising leads to enquiries or orders. If you allow advertising cookies and arrived from a Google advert, we keep the advert’s click reference in a cookie of our own (pw_gclid) for up to 90 days from the click, so that an order you place can be matched to the advert. For adverts shown in ChatGPT, OpenAI’s measurement pixel sets __oppref (the advert’s click reference, up to 30 days) and __obref (a random browser reference, up to a year) and tells OpenAI the value and currency of an order; our server may report the same order to OpenAI with that reference, so that it is counted once. The pixel may also send OpenAI a scrambled (hashed) copy of an email address you type into our forms, never the address itself. HubSpot cookies (such as __hstc and hubspotutk) help us see whether our marketing leads to enquiries.
  • Order attribution. WooCommerce sets cookies with names beginning sbjs_ that record how you arrived at the site, for example from a search engine or another website, so that if you place an order we can see which channel brought it.
  • Live chat. The LiveChat window uses cookies so that conversations work. It loads when you allow analytics cookies or click the chat button.

Cloudflare Web Analytics, which we also use to count visits, sets no cookies.

We ask before we use any cookies that are not essential. Visitors in the UK, the European Economic Area and Switzerland see a banner on their first visit that lets them accept all, reject all, or choose by category; until they choose, they get essential cookies only. Visitors elsewhere get analytics and advertising cookies unless they turn them off from “Cookie settings”. You can change your choice at any time from “Cookie settings”, and when you withdraw a choice we delete the cookies it allowed. If you decline, Google’s tag may still send our analytics and advertising services basic signals that do not use cookies (Google Consent Mode). Declining does not stop you reading the site or placing an order.

If you arrive from one of our adverts and have not accepted advertising cookies, the advert’s campaign label and click reference may be carried from page to page in the web address instead of in a cookie (by Google’s tag for Google adverts, and by our own site for other adverts), so that the advert can be measured and an order you place can be matched to it. Nothing is stored on your device for this.