Privacy Policy

Your privacy is a top priority for the British Newspaper Archive. We are dedicated to looking after your Personal Information in a way you feel is 100% safe and secure, handling it in a responsible manner and complying with data protection laws.

When it comes to your privacy, we follow 3 main principles:

• Simple. We want to make it simple for you to understand how we use your personal data. We aim to use easy to understand the language to describe our privacy policy and processes to help you make informed choices.
• Transparent. We want to be transparent about the personal information we collect, why we collect it and how we process it.
• Control. We give you control over the Personal Information you provide to us. We let you choose how and when it is used, shared, kept or deleted.

Our full Privacy Statement is below and we suggest you take the time to read and understand it.

This policy includes:

1. About us

2. Information we gather about you

3. What we use this information for

4. What if I don’t provide some or all of the information requested?

5. What grounds (legal basis) are we processing the data under?

6. Sharing your information with third parties

7. Sale of the Business

8. Cookies

9. How we protect your data

10. Your rights regarding your personal information

11. Right of complaint to the Regulator for Data Protection

12. How long we hold your data

13. Links to third-party websites

14. Updates to the privacy policy

15. Contacting us

LAST UPDATED: July 2026

This Privacy Policy is part of the Terms & Conditions of using this website, so please read it carefully. If you’d like to know more about data protection generally, read this guide from the UK Information Commissioner.

This website www.britishnewspaperarchive.com is managed by Findmypast Newspaper Archive Limited (FMP), a company registered in England and Wales no SC375068, having its registered offices at Gateway House Luna Place, Dundee Technology Park, Dundee, DD2 1TP.

British Newspaper Archive is committed to protecting your privacy and maintaining the security of any personal information received from you. We strictly adhere to the requirements of the data protection legislation in the UK and we are registered on the Data Protection Public Register number Z284784X. Our Data Protection Officer will be happy to deal with any queries or requests regarding the data we hold about you. They can be contacted at [email protected] or by post to Data Protection Officer, The British Newspaper Archive, 185 Fleet Street, London, EC4A 2HS.

We always aim to gather only the information we need in order to provide you with the service you are using.

a. Information you give us: At registration, you provide us with information about yourself such as your name and email address. We also receive information from you when you pay for a product, get in contact with us, and sometimes if you reply to a survey.

We don’t store your payment card information: When we take a payment from you, we use a secure third party service to process the payment and do not keep a record of your credit or debit card details in our systems. You can find out more about how we share data with third parties below.

b. Information you choose to share. On some parts of the website, you can publish your own content, including collections, workspaces and corrections. If you publish content, you must not: 

a. publish something that you do not own the copyright in (or have permission to publish it from the copyright owner); 
b. include anything we consider offensive, inappropriate or defamatory (this is at our discretion); 
c. break the law, for example by saying something libellous, or by posting something which results in a criminal offence; 
d. share the personal information of living people without their permission; 
e. impersonate another person; 
f. collect or use any information from this website with the intent to harm, discredit, harass or prejudice any other person;   or 
g. do anything which impacts the service or performance of the website. 

You are responsible for managing any content you create, including using any privacy settings we make available. We reserve the right to remove content that you create, at our discretion. Any content we decide to remove will be done in accordance with our Takedown policy. 

c. Information other people share about you: We may also receive information about you from other users of the service, for example if they post notes or tags that relate to you.

d. Other information we receive about you: When you use our services, we receive information about what you do during your visit, such as when you perform searches, follow links, upload content, or buy gift vouchers. We also receive some information about the device you use to access our service, your IP (Internet Protocol) address, the browser you use, your location, your screen size, or the pages you visit. We may also receive information from other websites, such as Facebook, if you sign in using them or otherwise use them within our service (for example to share or like something on the site).

We do not collect sensitive information (also known as special categories of information) about you except when you specifically knowingly provide it and have consented to this. Examples are adding your religious belief to a blog comment.

We do collect some information from cookies, pixels and similar software which allows us to understand how you arrive on our websites, how you use and navigate around them, and how you interact with our email. This information is used to improve our services and communication. We obtain some information from Google Analytics and Facebook. The Facebook information provided is limited and only that which you have previously agreed with Facebook that they may share.

In order to purchase a subscription for The British Newspaper Archive you must be over 18 years old. More information about our age restrictions can be found in our Terms and Conditions.

We will use your personal information for a number of purposes including

• To manage the website (including your account).
• To provide you with a free trial (if requested).
• To process orders and provide our services, goods or online content, to provide you with information about them and to deal with your requests and queries.
• For administration purposes, which means we may contact you regarding goods or services ordered or online content you have signed up for, to let you know that a service or online site has been suspended for maintenance, if your subscription is about to expire to ask if you wish to renew it, or if an online account has become dormant to ask if you wish to retain the account before we close it.
• To provide advanced website features to you and others.
• We use IP addresses and device identifiers to identify the location of users, to establish the number of visits from different countries, to limit/cap adverts of a certain type, and to personalise content and emails.
• For analysis and research to improve our services and goods offered.
• To improve your search results.
• A certain amount of advertising is tailored to the individual based on viewing and/or purchase habits. This is a common practice known as online behavioural advertising.
• We may show you relevant advertising on third-party sites (e.g. Facebook, Google, and Twitter). Some third party sites allow you to request not to see messages from specific advertisers on that site in future.
• To conduct surveys with you (where you have consented to us contacting you for such purpose).
• To provide personalised communications (more details below).
• Where we provide personalised services, we may analyse the information you supply, as well as your activity on our (and other) services, so we can offer a more relevant, tailored service.
• We may use and disclose information in aggregate (so no individuals are identified) for marketing and strategic development purposes.
• We reserve the right to access and disclose individually identifiable information to comply with any legal obligation or governmental request, to enforce or apply our Terms and Conditions, or to protect our rights, property or safety.
  

User profiles
We use the information you provide to create a User Profile. You have full control of your profile and can edit and manage it through the My Account function. We create a username with the first 5 letters of your first name and the first 2 letters of your surname.  You can add a profile image, your birth date, pronouns and links to social accounts. You can change your username through My Account. 

Service messages
We send service emails to you to administer the service. Service emails include registration and payment confirmations, and emails that provide useful information about how to use a service or feature when you sign up or start using it. We will also send you a service email if we make a fundamental change to the website or our terms & conditions that we think we need to make you aware of or to let you know important information about your account.

Marketing messages
We use your email address to update you about new products, services and subscription offers. We will only contact you with your consent. You are entitled to withhold this consent and refrain from receiving such communications by selecting the appropriate option on the web form that collects your details. You can also update these options at any time by logging into your account and adjusting your preferences, by contacting us by contacting us by email at [email protected]; by telephone at 020 3326 6300; or by post to Customer Support, The British Newspaper Archive, 185 Fleet Street, London, EC4A 2HS. You can change your email preferences through your Preference Centre with My Account.

Collections

Collections allow you to save and organise your favourite newspaper clippings. You can create Collections about any topic and add clippings to one or multiple Collections. There is no limit to the number of Collections you can have or the number of clippings that you can add to a Collection.  You can set your collections to private or public. If your Collections are set to public, then other registered users can view your description and profile.  If you have any questions about your data, please contact support@fritishnewspaperarchive.com.

The impact of this will depend on what information you withhold but the main impacts may be:

• We will not be able to process or fully process your order.
• We will not be able to contact you to let you know of problems regarding your order or the goods/services provided.
• We will not be able to respond fully to requests and queries you may have.
• We cannot personalise the service you receive. So, if you are online you will have to search more for the content type you normally view or for similar/related products.
• We won’t be able to limit online adverts to products or services you have shown interest in and so you may receive adverts that are not related to your interests.

There are a number of grounds we process your data under. These are:

• Contractual – we need the information to perform the contract for goods or services you have requested/ordered including payment, delivery etc.
• Legal – should we be legally required to contact you concerning a purchase or service.
• Legitimate interest – this means the processing is in Findmypast’s interest. It allows us to manage the customer relationship effectively and efficiently and improve the goods and/or services we provide by better understanding how our online provisions are used and which goods are popular with which groups of individuals.
• Consent – where you have given us consent to market to you.

We may from time to time provide your personal information to third parties for the purposes of providing you with our services. These third-party providers include payment processors, providers of card validation services, and credit referencing providers. This is necessary for the performance of the contract. We do not keep a record of your credit or debit card details in our systems. Our payment processors do not decide what is done with your data and only process it on our behalf. These third parties may be located outside the European Economic Area; however, we only use providers that provide adequate protection for your information at all times.

When transferring and storing any personal information outside the EEA we only do so under one of the legally recognised transfer mechanisms for ensuring the data is safeguarded. These are:

• The country in question has been deemed safe for data transfer by the European Commission. Also known as an adequacy finding.
• The contract for data processing contains the standard contractual clauses laid down by the European Commission to safeguard the transfer of personal data.
• Binding corporate rules – this is where a large company’s own internal processes for international data transfer have been signed off and agreed by the European Commission as safeguarding the data.
• If the data is going to the USA it can be safely transferred to a company that is certified under the EU-US Privacy Shield.
• Appropriate certification schemes

We will disclose your personal data in order to comply with any legal obligation. This includes disclosing information to organisations for the purposes of fraud protection, credit risk reduction, or the order of a court or regulator.

We also share your details with service providers who assist us with hosting our marketing campaigns and surveys but only in cases where you have consented to marketing or surveys. We will not provide your data to other third parties for marketing purposes unless you have specifically consented to this when you first provided your data to us. You are entitled to decline to receive such third-party communications by not selecting the appropriate box on the web form that collects your details or at any subsequent time by logging into your account and adjusting your preferences, by contacting us by email at [email protected] or by post to The British Newspaper Archive, 185 Fleet Street, London, EC4A 2HS.

In the event that we undergo re-organisation or are sold to a third party, you agree that any personal information we hold about you may be transferred to that re-organised entity or third party.

This website uses cookies. For more information about what cookies are, what we use them for and how you can delete them, please read our cookies policy.

We do collect some information from cookies and similar software that allows us to understand how you arrive on our websites and use and navigate around them so we can improve the sites. We obtain some information from Google Analytics and Facebook. The Facebook information provided is limited to your email address and only that which you have previously agreed with Facebook that they can share.

We follow strict security procedures in the storage and disclosure of information which you have given us, to prevent unauthorised access to, and loss, misuse or alteration of your personal information in accordance with UK data protection legislation. These include firewalls and virus-checking procedures.

You are responsible for keeping secret any confidential passwords or other login or access details that you select or which we allocate to you. While we take steps to ensure the security of your information, there is a risk that any information transmitted over the Internet and stored on a computer may be intercepted or accessed by an unauthorised party. If you think that someone has accessed your information held by us without your permission or gained unauthorised access to your login details, you must notify us at [email protected].

We also recommend that if you use a shared computer or a computer in a public place such as a library that you close your browser when you have finished your session.

Under the Data Protection law, you have a number of rights with respect to your personal information, which are:

• Correcting your Information

You are entitled to have your personal information updated to ensure it is up to date and accurate. In order to maintain the accuracy of the information we hold, you can update your personal details through your ‘My Account’ page or by sending us an email to [email protected].

• Withdrawing Consent

You have the right to withdraw your consent to any processing that is currently being done under your consent, such as marketing. Consent can be withdrawn by updating your preferences in the email preference centre or through ‘My Account’. You can also email to [email protected].

• Obtaining a copy of your Information

You have the right to receive a copy of the personal information we hold about you. You can do this by contacting [email protected] from the email address attached to your account, providing the full name attached to your account.

• Deleting your information

You can request that we delete personal information in certain circumstances. These will be specific to each case. You can do this by contacting [email protected] from the email address attached to your account, providing the full name attached to your account.

• Data Portability

You have the right to ask us to transfer the personal information that you have given us to another controller.

• Restricting Processing

You can request a restriction on the processing of your data in some limited circumstances. Examples are concerns over data accuracy or we no longer need to hold your data but you have requested its retention by us to aid you in a legal matter. You can do this by contacting [email protected] from the email address attached to your account, providing the full name attached to your account.

• Right to object to Processing

You have the right to request that we stop processing your data for marketing purposes and in other limited circumstances such as asking us not to process your data by wholly automated means or not to analyse your information for targeted content etc. (also known as profiling).

You can action any of these rights by contacting our Customer Support Team or by contacting the Data Protection Officer by email at [email protected] or by post to Data Protection Officer, The British Newspaper Archive, 185 Fleet Street, London, EC4A 2HS.

Please direct all privacy complaints to us in the first instance. At all times, privacy complaints: 

• will be treated seriously; 
• will be dealt with promptly; 
• will be dealt with in a confidential manner; and 
• will not affect your existing obligations or affect the commercial arrangements between you and us. 

We will acknowledge your complaint within 30 days of receipt and endeavour to resolve it without undue delay. If we can resolve the complaint within the first [30] days, we will.  We will inform you if it is likely to take longer and keep you up to date regarding timescales.

We will commence an investigation into your complaint. You will be informed of the outcome of your complaint following completion of the investigation. In the event that you are dissatisfied with the outcome of your complaint, or the time in which we will resolve it, you may refer the complaint to your data protection authority. 

If you are a resident of the United Kingdom 

The data protection laws in the UK are regulated and enforced by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). Each individual has the right to raise a concern/complaint to the ICO if they have any concerns about how their personal information and/or privacy is treated. You can do this via the ICO’s website, follow the links or have an online Live Chat. 

Call the ICO helpline on 0303 123 1113 

Email [email protected] 

Postal address: Information Commission Office 
Wycliffe House 
Water Lane 
Wilmslow, Cheshire, 
SK9 5AF 

Some of the information you provide to us will be necessary to carry out repeated tasks, such as verifying your identity or payment details when signing in to use an account or providing our services to you or if you are using an online checkout. We will keep this information for as long as you remain a registered user of any of our sites and for so long as reasonably necessary. If your account is inactive for more than five years and you are no longer paying for a service, we reserve the right to delete any information you have provided to us.

Our website contains links to other websites belonging to third parties which are not covered by this privacy policy. If you want to go through to a third-party website, please make sure that you read the privacy policy for that website.

We may update this policy at any time without notice. We will tell you that we have updated the policy by emailing you at the email address you have provided to us and/or by posting an announcement on the website. By continuing to use the website after we have emailed you or posted a notice informing you of an update, you accept the changes to this Policy.

Privacy statement last updated 23 July 2026.

If you have any questions about privacy, or wish to update your details or have them removed from our mailing list at any time, please contact us at:

Email: [email protected].

Post: Data Protection Officer

British Newspaper Archive

185 Fleet Street

London

EC4A 2HS