What do I have to legally display on my website?

So you have a great-looking website, but have you satisfied your UK legal obligations?

Are you a Limited Company?

As of 1st January 2007 all limited companies must display on their website

• Your company’s registered name and number.
• Your registered office address.
• Where your company is registered (England and Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland).

Are you collecting any visitor’s personal information?

Data Protection Act 2018

The Data Protection Act 2018 controls how your personal information is used by organisations, businesses or the government. Under this act your visitors have the right to find out what information the government and other organisations store about you. These include the right to:

• be informed about how your data is being used
• access personal data
• have incorrect data updated
• have data erased
• stop or restrict the processing of your data
• data portability (allowing you to get and reuse your data for different services)
• object to how your data is processed in certain circumstances

You also have rights when an organisation is using your personal data for:

• automated decision-making processes (without human involvement)
• profiling, for example, to predict your behaviour or interests

If your website collects visitor data, for example from an enquiry form, you should include a Privacy Policy that informs website users how you will retain and process their personal information.

The EU Cookie Law

The EU Cookie Law requires websites to get consent from visitors to store or retrieve any information on a computer, smartphone or tablet. This includes such items as Google Analytics and any tracking codes.

The easy way to handle these two legislations is to ensure your website has a Cookie & Privacy Policy page with a link on all pages (normally in the footer) to it and a pop-up notification bar that the visitor needs to click on to hide.

Are you selling products on your website?

If you sell products on your website (e-commerce) you must obide by the Online & Distance Regulations 2014 (Consumer Contracts Regulation)

On your e-commerce website you need to display:

• your business name, contact details and address
• a description of your products
• the price, including all taxes
• how a customer can pay
• delivery arrangements, costs and how long goods will take to arrive
• the minimum length of their contract and billing period
• conditions for ending contracts
• how they can cancel and when they lose the right to cancel
• if they will still need to pay reasonable costs for using a service after they cancel
• a standard cancellation form, if they can cancel
• conditions for money given as a deposit or financial guarantees
• what digital content does (for example, the language it’s in or how to update software)
• the cost of using phone lines or other communication to complete the contract where it will cost more than the basic rate

Right to cancel

• You must tell the customer they can cancel their order up to 14 days after their order is delivered. They do not need to give a reason for cancelling.
• If you do not tell the customer about their right to cancel, they can cancel at any time in the next 12 months. If you tell them about the right to cancel during these 12 months, they have 14 days to cancel from when you told them.