Privacy Policy
Last updated: 29 June 2026
1. About this policy
Your trust matters to us. This Privacy Policy explains, in plain English, what personal information we collect when you visit our website or submit a film or screenplay to Liverpool Indie Awards, why we collect it, who we share it with, and the rights you have over your information.
We've tried to keep this readable. If anything is unclear, please get in touch using the contact details below — we're happy to help.
2. Who we are (the data controller)
Liverpool Indie Awards is operated by:
THREE OH FIVE LTD
G02, Eurocity, Gibraltar, GX11 1AA
Company Registration Number: 125450
We trade as "Liverpool Indie Awards" and run the website liverpoolindieawards.com. (We may operate under a related name such as "Liverpool Indie Festival" in future; the legal entity responsible for your data will remain THREE OH FIVE LTD unless we tell you otherwise.)
For the purposes of data protection law, THREE OH FIVE LTD is the data controller of the personal information described in this policy. That means we decide what information is collected and how it is used.
How to contact us about privacy:
Email (the quickest way to reach us): info@liverpoolindieawards.com
Our registered office, for identification, is THREE OH FIVE LTD, G02, Eurocity, Gibraltar, GX11 1AA. Please get in touch by email — it's the fastest way for us to help with any privacy question or request.
3. Which laws apply
Because we are established in Gibraltar and accept entries from filmmakers and screenwriters in the UK, the EU and elsewhere, we handle personal data in line with:
- the Gibraltar GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2004 (as amended to give effect to it) — our primary framework as a Gibraltar-established controller;
- the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018 (for entrants in the UK); and
- the EU GDPR (Regulation (EU) 2016/679) (for entrants in the EU/EEA).
Where this policy refers to "GDPR," we mean whichever of these applies to you. The rights and protections described below are substantially the same under each.
4. The personal information we collect, and why
We only collect information we actually need to run the festival and consider your submission fairly. Here's what we collect and the reason for each.
| Information we collect | Examples | Why we collect it |
|---|---|---|
| Identity and contact details | Your name, email address, and any contact details (e.g. phone, country, social/professional links) you provide | To create and manage your account, communicate with you about your entry, and send judging results |
| Your submitted work | The film (via a private streaming link, e.g. an unlisted Vimeo/YouTube link and password) or screenplay (as a PDF link), plus its metadata — title, logline, synopsis, runtime, category, credits, cast/crew names you include | To process, evaluate and judge your entry, and — only if your work is officially selected — to screen it and promote that edition of the festival |
| Entry and account activity | The category you entered, deadline tier, submission status, correspondence with us | To administer entries, manage the judging process, and provide support |
| Payment metadata | Confirmation of payment, amount, currency, date, and a transaction reference from our payment processor | To confirm your entry fee, keep accounting records, and handle any duplicate-payment or cancellation issues |
| Technical and website data | IP address, browser/device type, and basic analytics or cookie data | To keep the website secure and working properly (see the Cookies section) |
A note on card and payment details
We do not see or store your full card details. When you pay your entry fee, your card number, expiry, security code and similar details are entered directly into our payment processor, Stripe, and are handled on Stripe's secure systems. This information never touches our own servers. We only receive confirmation that a payment succeeded, along with limited payment metadata such as the amount, currency and a transaction reference.
5. The legal bases we rely on
Under GDPR, we must have a valid "lawful basis" for using your personal data. We rely on the following:
- Performance of a contract — When you submit an entry and pay the entry fee, you enter into a contract with us governed by our Submission Rules & Eligibility. We process your identity, contact details, your submitted work and its metadata, and payment metadata because we need to in order to deliver that service: registering your entry, putting it before the jury, communicating with you, and (if selected) screening it. Without this information we cannot process your submission.
- Your consent — We rely on your separate, explicit consent for specific optional things only: publishing your project's showcase details if you opt into the Industry Network Pitch (see Section 7), sending you festival updates if you tick the optional marketing box at checkout (see Section 6), and any non-essential cookies (see Section 11). You can withdraw this consent at any time.
- Compliance with a legal obligation — We keep certain records (for example, payment and accounting records) because the law requires us to.
- Our legitimate interests — We rely on legitimate interests for limited purposes such as keeping our website and systems secure, preventing fraud or abuse, defending or pursuing legal claims, and improving how the festival runs. Where we rely on legitimate interests, we make sure this is balanced against your rights, and you can object (see Section 9).
6. Marketing — only if you choose it
Submitting an entry and paying your entry fee does not, by itself, sign you up to any marketing or newsletter.
We use the details you give us when entering only to run the festival and handle your submission — for example confirming your entry, sharing judging status and results, and telling you if your work is selected. These are service messages: we send them because they relate directly to your submission and our contract with you, and they are not marketing.
Optional marketing opt-in. At checkout we offer a single, un-ticked and entirely optional box — "Keep me posted about deadlines, results and future editions". If you choose to tick it, you give us your consent to send you occasional festival updates by email, such as upcoming deadlines and news about future editions. If you leave it un-ticked, you will only receive the service messages described above. Ticking the box is never required to enter or to pay, and it is never pre-ticked for you.
You can withdraw your marketing consent at any time — every marketing email includes an unsubscribe link, and you can also email us at info@liverpoolindieawards.com. Withdrawing your marketing consent does not affect the service messages about your own entry.
7. Who we share your information with (our processors and other recipients)
We don't sell your personal information, and we don't share it for anyone else's marketing. We do use a small number of trusted service providers ("processors") who handle data on our behalf, under contract and on our instructions. Each is bound to keep your data secure and to use it only for the purposes we set.
| Processor | What they do for us | What they handle | Where they process |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stripe | Payment processing (cards, Apple Pay, Google Pay) | Your card and payment details (handled entirely on Stripe's systems — see Section 4) and payment metadata | United States and other locations (see Section 8) |
| Supabase | Database and hosting for our submission platform | Your account details, entry information, submitted-work metadata and links, and related records | United States (see Section 8) |
| Brevo | Sending our service emails (entry confirmations, judging status and results), and festival updates to entrants who opt in | Your name and email address | European Union (France) (see Section 8) |
Your jury and festival team. Your submitted work and its metadata are shared with our jury and festival team so they can evaluate your entry. If your work is officially selected, your title, logline and the work itself may be used for the festival event and its promotion as described in our Submission Rules & Eligibility and our Rights & Intellectual Property terms — but only within the limited, non-exclusive licence you grant there. You always keep full ownership and copyright of your work.
Industry Network Pitch (only if you opt in). If you choose to enter the optional Industry Network Pitch, the project details you provide for it (such as title, logline/synopsis, a still or poster, and any contact details or links you choose to include) are published in our Industry Network showcase on our website and may be shared on our social channels (such as Instagram), where industry visitors can see them. This happens only on the basis of the separate, explicit consent you give when you add that program at checkout — it is never bundled into a standard entry, and you control what details are published. Your film or script itself is not published. If you don't opt in, none of your details are showcased.
Others. We may also share information with professional advisers (such as lawyers or accountants), or with authorities or other parties where we are required to do so by law, or to protect our rights, your safety, or the safety of others.
8. International data transfers
Some of our recipients are based outside Gibraltar, the UK and the EU/EEA — for example, Stripe and Supabase operate from, or store data in, the United States. Brevo processes data primarily in the European Union (France); if any of its processing involves a transfer outside the EEA/UK/Gibraltar, we ensure an appropriate safeguard is in place. International transfers mean your personal information may be processed in countries that do not have the same data protection laws.
Whenever we transfer personal data internationally, we make sure appropriate safeguards are in place. Because our primary regime is the Gibraltar GDPR, transfers from us are made under the Gibraltar GDPR's transfer rules — and, where data also falls under the UK or EU regimes, under those too. Safeguards we rely on include:
- transfers to countries recognised as providing an adequate level of protection under the relevant regime (Gibraltar, UK and/or EU adequacy);
- Standard Contractual Clauses as adopted or recognised under the Gibraltar and EU regimes, and the UK International Data Transfer Agreement / Addendum where the UK regime applies — together with any additional measures needed to protect your data.
You can ask us for more information about these safeguards using the contact details in Section 2.
9. Your rights
Under GDPR, you have a number of rights over your personal information. These include:
- Right to be informed — to know how we use your data (which is what this policy is for).
- Right of access — to ask for a copy of the personal data we hold about you.
- Right to rectification — to have inaccurate or incomplete data corrected.
- Right to erasure — to ask us to delete your data ("the right to be forgotten") in certain circumstances.
- Right to restrict processing — to ask us to pause how we use your data in certain circumstances.
- Right to object — to object to processing based on our legitimate interests.
- Right to data portability — to receive certain data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format, or have it sent to another provider where technically feasible.
- Right to withdraw consent — where we rely on your consent (such as the Industry Network Pitch showcase, the optional marketing emails, or non-essential cookies), you can withdraw it at any time.
Some of these rights only apply in certain situations, and there are limits — for example, we may need to keep some information to meet a legal obligation or to defend a legal claim, or because we still need it to judge or run your active entry.
How to exercise your rights: just email us at info@liverpoolindieawards.com and tell us what you'd like to do. We will respond within one month. There's normally no charge, though we may ask you to confirm your identity first so we know we're dealing with the right person.
Your right to complain
If you're unhappy with how we've handled your personal data, please tell us first so we can try to put it right. You also have the right to complain to a supervisory authority:
- In Gibraltar: the Gibraltar Regulatory Authority (GRA) — www.gra.gi
- In the UK: the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) — www.ico.org.uk
- In the EU/EEA: the data protection authority in the country where you live or work.
10. How long we keep your information (retention)
We keep personal information only for as long as we need it for the purposes described in this policy, and then we delete it or anonymise it. As a guide:
- Entry and submission data (your details, your submitted work's metadata and access links): kept for the duration of the relevant festival season and typically for up to 24 months afterwards, so we can administer awards, laurels, alumni records and any follow-up, and resolve any disputes.
- Your actual film or screenplay, and any copy we download to judge it: we use these only for judging and the festival. We securely delete any downloaded copies of your work once that season's judging and live event are complete (we keep a copy a little longer only for an officially selected/screened work, or where the law requires), and we stop using your view-only or download links at that point.
- Payment and accounting records: kept for as long as required by law (typically 7 years).
- Website/technical data and cookies: kept for short periods as described in our cookies settings.
Where we keep data to defend or bring legal claims, we keep it for as long as that claim could reasonably arise.
11. Cookies
Our website uses cookies and similar technologies — small files stored on your device. We use:
- Essential cookies that are necessary for the site and submission/checkout process to work (for example, keeping you logged in and processing your payment securely with Stripe). These don't need your consent.
- Non-essential cookies (such as analytics) that help us understand how the site is used. We only set these with your consent, which we ask for through our cookie banner.
You can manage or refuse non-essential cookies through the cookie banner or your browser settings. Turning off some cookies may affect how parts of the site work. For more detail, please see our separate Cookie Notice / cookie settings, if available.
12. Children and under-18s
Liverpool Indie Awards is intended for adult filmmakers and screenwriters, and we do not knowingly collect personal data directly from anyone under 18. As explained in Section 1 of our Submission Rules & Eligibility, where the creator of a work is under 18, the entry must be made by a parent or legal guardian, who is the entrant, enters into the contract with us, and provides and consents to any of the young person's personal data on their behalf (and accepts the warranties and indemnity). If you believe we have inadvertently collected data directly from someone under 18, please contact us and we will delete it.
13. Keeping your information secure
We take reasonable technical and organisational measures to protect your personal data against loss, misuse and unauthorised access — including using reputable processors (Stripe, Supabase, Brevo), keeping card data off our own servers, and limiting access to your data to those who need it. No system can be guaranteed 100% secure, but we work to keep your information safe.
14. Changes to this policy
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time — for example, if our processes, processors or the law change. When we do, we'll update the "Last updated" date at the top. If the changes are significant, we'll take reasonable steps to let you know.
15. Contact us
If you have any questions about this policy or about how we use your personal information, please contact:
Email: info@liverpoolindieawards.com — this is the best and quickest way to reach us about any privacy matter.
Our registered office, for identification, is THREE OH FIVE LTD (trading as Liverpool Indie Awards), G02, Eurocity, Gibraltar, GX11 1AA.
This Privacy Policy should be read together with our Submission Rules & Eligibility, Refund & Withdrawal Policy and Rights & Intellectual Property terms.