Privacy policy
Version 1, last updated 26 October 2026
This policy explains what personal information Drift keeps about you, why, who we share it with, how long we keep it and your rights. It covers our website and booking system, your account, memberships, the members' community, gift vouchers, buying on board, Contact Drift, CCTV on the boat and our staff tools.
1. Who we are
Drift Floating Spas Ltd runs Drift and is the controller of your personal data. That means we decide how it is used.
Registered in England and Wales, company number 17438336.
Our ICO registration number is C2069157.
For any privacy question or request, email info@drift.spa.
We're a small business, so we haven't appointed a data protection officer. Your message comes straight to the owners.
In short
- We use your details to run your bookings, your account and the things you sign up for.
- We never see or keep your card details: Stripe does.
- We don't sell your data, and we don't use advertising or analytics cookies.
- We only send news emails if you've agreed or, as a customer, didn't say no thanks, and every one will let you stop.
- You can download your data, delete your account or ask us to erase your data from Your data in your account.
2. What we collect, why, and for how long
"Contract" means we need it to give you what you asked for. Where we rely on "legitimate interests", we've weighed our interests against yours and kept the use to what's needed; you can object at any time (see section 5).
Bookings, payments and vouchers
| Data | Why | Lawful basis | Kept for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Booking details: your name, email and phone, the session, your booking reference, the names of the people coming if you give them, and the party size for private hire | To take and manage your booking and contact you about it | Contract | 6 years, for our accounts, then deleted by hand. If you ask us to erase your data, your name and phone are removed sooner |
| Your booking note and whether you've marked it as an access need; notes our team add to your booking | To look after you at your session | Contract; legitimate interests (our team's notes); explicit consent for any health information (see below) | Kept with your booking; removed if you ask us to erase your data |
| Health and safety declaration: that the person booking agreed to it for everyone in the booking, which version and when | To make sure everyone in the booking has agreed to our safety rules, and to have a record if a claim arises | Contract; legitimate interests (guest safety, defending claims) | Kept with your booking (6 years) |
| Check-in and change history: when you checked in and any changes our team made to your booking, with who made them |
What we need from you. We need your name, email and phone to take a booking; without them we can't book you in. Everything else is optional.
Health and safety
When you book, the person booking agrees to our health and safety declaration for everyone in the party. We keep that it was agreed, which version and when. We don't keep answers about anyone's health. Please arrive 10 minutes early: our crew give everyone a safety briefing and check each guest before they use the sauna and plunge.
Information about your health is "special category" data and gets extra protection. We don't ask for it, but you may choose to tell us, for example in your booking note (and by marking it as an access need) or in a Contact Drift chat. We use it only to look after you at your session. Our hosts see your booking note and the access-need marker. Anthropic (in the USA) also receives it when one of our AI assistants handles it (see "Contact Drift and our AI assistants"). We rely on your explicit consent, given by choosing to tell us, and you can ask us to remove it at any time. If someone may be at risk, we may also use or pass on what we know to protect them (vital interests, and safeguarding under the Data Protection Act 2018).
Your account and the community
| Data | Why | Lawful basis | Kept for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Your account: your email, and a one-way scrambled copy of your password if you set one | To let you log in and see your bookings | Contract | Until you delete your account (your bookings stay with our accounts) |
| Log-in history: when you logged in, the kind of device, and a scrambled version of your IP address | To keep your account secure and spot misuse | Legitimate interests (security) | 2 years, deleted automatically |
| Our log-in provider's records (Supabase): your IP address and browser for each log-in session, and its security log of log-ins and account changes | To show you where you're logged in and keep your account secure | Legitimate interests (security) | Session records until the session ends; the security log up to 2 years, cleared by hand |
| Devices you're logged in on | So you can see and log out of them | Contract; legitimate interests (security) | Until you log out, or 180 days without use (24 hours if you didn't ask to stay logged in), automatically |
The community. When you book or make an account, the "Join the community" box is ticked for you, so you appear in the directory and other members can message you. Untick it and you don't join; later you can hide your profile or leave at any time, which is also how you object to it. Joining never signs you up for news emails. Other members see your first name and surname initial, and any photo, interests and "about you" text you add.
Messages. Messages are private between you and the other member. We read a conversation only if someone reports it, and we log every time we do.
Photos. Anyone with an account can add a photo, and members must have one. Staff see it when checking you in; other members see it only in the directory and your conversations while your profile is shown. We may remove a photo that isn't a clear photo of you and email you to ask for a new one.
Tags. Tags are never shown to other members or anywhere public. You can see your own in your account, our staff see them at check-in, and they're in your data download. Ask us and we'll tell you about a tag or remove it.
Buying on board. On the boat, a tablet lists the people booked on the current session by first name and surname initial (for example "Sarah J"); nothing else about you is shown. To open your tab you enter the last 4 digits of the phone number on your booking, which we check without showing it. What you add is charged to the card you booked with at the end, or, if there's no card or it doesn't go through, we send you a link to pay (and one reminder). A walk-in's name, phone and email are used only for that tab, never for marketing.
Contact Drift, our team and our records
| Data | Why | Lawful basis | Kept for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Contact Drift chats and complaints: your messages, what they were about and any summary | To answer you and improve our service | Contract; legitimate interests (answering quickly) | 24 months after a chat's last message (the period we set), automatically; 6 years if we confirm it raised a safeguarding concern |
| What Anthropic receives for Contact Drift and DriftBot | To run our AI assistants | As for the chat or booking it relates to | A limited period under Anthropic's retention policy for business customers |
| Staff DriftBot chats | So our hosts can run sessions and help you | Legitimate interests (running sessions) | 12 months after a chat's last message (the period we set); lookup details 30 days, automatically |
| Our owners' assistant records: changes our owners asked Claude to make, whose summaries can name you, your booking reference and amounts | To run the business and keep a record of changes | Legitimate interests (running the business) |
Contact Drift and our AI assistants. When you message us from Contact Drift in your account, an AI assistant run by Anthropic answers first. We send Anthropic your messages and the details of your own bookings, membership and payments that it needs to answer you, never anyone else's. Anthropic doesn't use what we send to train its models. The assistant can't make refunds or decisions about you: it passes those to our team, and our team can read every chat. If something you write suggests someone could be at risk, or mentions a medical issue, we pass it to the owners straight away. If you'd rather not use the assistant, email us instead.
Our hosts can use DriftBot, an AI assistant in the staff area, also run by Anthropic. When they ask it about a booking, it sees what the staff area shows them (your name, the booking, your note and our team's note, any access need, what's paid). It can only suggest a change: the host confirms it, and any refund still needs the owners' approval.
Our owners can also ask Claude, Anthropic's assistant, about bookings, customers and the timetable through a secure connector to our admin area. It sees what the admin area would show them. Changes it suggests are made only when an owner approves them.
Our sauna hosts and staff
Our hosts log in to a staff area to check guests in and help with bookings. For sessions from the past week to the week ahead, they see your name, photo, phone number and booking (reference, party size, your note, access needs, whether the health and safety declaration was agreed, payment and membership status, and your tags). They don't see your email address, date of birth, spending, news email choices or community messages. If they change a booking at your request, it's recorded with their name, and any refund they ask for is approved by the owners before it's made.
If you work with us as a host, we keep your name, contact details, shifts, the availability and notes you add, the shift notes you write, the refund requests you make, the changes you make to bookings and your DriftBot chats, to run the rota and the sessions. We keep these while you work with us and for 6 years after, then delete them by hand.
When you book, we show who is hosting your session. With their consent, that's the host's first name, the first letter of their surname and their profile photo; a host can turn this off at any time, and we then show "Drift Crew". When a guest facilitator or DJ hosts a session, we show the name and photo they gave us and delete them automatically 30 days after the session.
Instructors
Some sessions are led by instructors who work with us. An instructor can see the sessions they lead and, for each one, how many people have booked and each guest's first name, the first letter of their surname and their profile photo if they have one. They don't see your email address, phone number, booking note or anything else about you.
If you are an instructor, we show your name, photo, bio, specialisms and Instagram handle to guests as the host of your sessions, and to members on your community profile. Being an instructor means agreeing to be shown in this way; if you stop being an instructor, we stop showing it. We also keep your pay rates and a record of the sessions you led and what you earned, for our accounts, for 6 years.
Where your data comes from
Most of it comes from you. Some comes from others: the person who booked for your group (your name), the buyer of a gift voucher (your name and email, if you're the recipient), and our team's notes. If you arrive from an advert or another website, we save its tags and the website you came from.
Our providers keep backups and technical logs for a short time under their own policies; deleted data drops out of them as they roll over.
3. Who we share it with
We never sell your data. We share it with providers who handle it for us under contract, and with a few organisations that use it for their own legal duties (Stripe for fraud prevention; our insurer and legal advisers if a claim arises).
| Who | What for | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Supabase | Hosts our booking database, log-in and file storage (profile photos and data downloads) | UK (London); US company |
| Vercel | Hosts our website and booking pages; keeps short-lived technical logs, which can include IP addresses | UK (London); US company |
| Stripe | Card payments, saved cards, membership billing, on-board tab charges and refunds. Stripe holds your card details; we never see them. Stripe is also responsible in its own right for its fraud-prevention and legal duties | UK, EU and USA |
| Resend | Sends our booking, account, membership and voucher emails | USA |
| Anthropic | The AI assistant in Contact Drift, our hosts' assistant DriftBot and our owners' Claude connector. This can include booking notes and health or access information you give us | USA |
| Slack | Alerts to our team about bookings and requests, with first name and surname initial only, never email, phone or notes |
If you pay with Apple Pay or Google Pay, Apple or Google also handles that payment under its own privacy policy.
We may also share information with our accountant, our insurer and our legal advisers (the insurer only if an incident or claim arises); with HMRC, the police or regulators where the law requires it; and with the emergency services or safeguarding bodies if someone's safety is at risk. Other members see only what the community part of section 2 describes.
Outside the UK. Some providers handle data outside the UK, mainly in the USA and the EU (see the table). Where they do, the transfer is protected by UK adequacy regulations (including the UK-US data bridge for certified US companies), or by the ICO's International Data Transfer Agreement or the UK Addendum to the EU standard contractual clauses in the provider's data processing terms. Ask us for a copy.
4. CCTV, cookies and marketing
CCTV
Drift has 4 cameras, all on the outside of the boat. There are no cameras inside the spa: none in the sauna, changing or plunge areas. Footage is overwritten within 28 days unless we need it for an incident, and we share it only as described in section 3. We rely on our legitimate interests in the safety and security of guests, crew and the boat.
Cookies and storage on your device
We don't use advertising or analytics cookies, so there is no cookie banner. The cookies below make the site work, keep you logged in safely or remember a choice you made.
| Name | What it does | How long |
|---|---|---|
| sb-… (log-in) | Keeps you logged in | Up to 400 days with "Keep me logged in" ticked; otherwise until you close the browser, never more than 24 hours |
| drift_session | Remembers that you chose not to stay logged in | Until you close the browser |
| drift_seen | Notes when we last checked your log-in is still active | 24 hours |
| drift_signin_nonce | Checks that a log-in link is opened on the device that asked for it | 15 minutes |
| drift_found | Remembers the memberships we found for you while you finish logging in | 10 minutes |
| bm_… (manage links) | Lets you change a booking from the link in your email | 2 hours |
| drift_gift_attempt |
We also keep a few things in your browser's own storage:
| What | What it does | How long |
|---|---|---|
| drift:attribution (this tab only) | Remembers which advert or website you came from (such as utm_source or a click id) and saves it with your booking if you book | Until you close the tab |
| drift:extras:… (this tab only) | Remembers extras you're adding to a booking if the page reloads while you pay | Until you close the tab |
| Dismissed announcement | Remembers that you closed a site announcement | Until you clear your browser's storage |
When the log-in bot check is switched on, Cloudflare runs it in your browser. Your browser settings let you clear or block cookies and storage, though logging in and booking won't work without the essential ones.
Marketing
When you book, we may tell you we'll send occasional news, with a box to say "No thanks" (the "soft opt-in" for customers), or we may ask you to tick a box to opt in. If you say no thanks, we may ask again after a few more bookings. Joining the community never signs you up.
Every news email will have an unsubscribe link. You can also change your choice at any time in your account under Profile, or by emailing us.
Our booking, account and voucher emails are about things you've asked for, so they don't carry an unsubscribe link.
5. Your rights
You can ask us to:
- Access: give you a copy of the data we hold about you.
- Correct: put right anything inaccurate or incomplete. You can change most of your details in your account.
- Erase: delete your data. We keep what the law requires (such as payment records for our accounts), with your name, phone and notes removed. A few records stay as they were, for our accounts and any dispute: our notification queue, our log of changes and our owners' assistant records.
- Restrict: stop using your data, except to store it, while a concern is sorted out.
- Object: stop using your data where we rely on legitimate interests, for example by leaving the community.
- Portability: send the data you gave us to you or another organisation in a format a computer can read. Your data download is a zip file with your data in JSON and CSV files.
- Stop marketing at any time. This right is absolute: we'll stop as soon as you ask.
- Withdraw consent at any time where we rely on it, such as news emails or health information you've told us. It doesn't affect what we did before.
Automated decisions. We don't make any decisions about you by automated means alone that have legal or similarly significant effects. Some things are worked out automatically, such as your free Social sessions, the community age rules from your date of birth and the bot check at log-in, and our AI assistants never make refunds or decisions about you. If you think one of these has gone wrong, ask us and a person will look at it.
How to use your rights. If you have an account, go to Your data to download your data (downloads expire after 7 days), delete your account (your log-in and community profile go; your bookings stay with our accounts) or ask us to erase your data everywhere.
Or email info@drift.spa.
It's free. We'll reply within one month, and tell you if a complex request needs longer. We may need to check it's you first.
6. Under-18s
You must be 16 or over to take part in the community, and messaging is only for over-18s. Members aged 16 and 17 can appear in the directory but can't send, read or receive messages until their 18th birthday, and messages sent to them before then are never shown to them. We ask for a date of birth only for that check and never show it to anyone. Under-18s have the same rights as adults. If you think a child has given us their information without the right permission, contact us and we'll sort it out.
7. Complaints and changes
If you're unhappy with how we've handled your data, please tell us first and we'll try to put it right. You can also complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), the UK's data protection regulator, at ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint or on 0303 123 1113.
We update this policy when what we do changes, and the date at the top says when it last changed. If a change matters to how we use your data, we'll tell account holders by email before it takes effect.