PRIVACY POLICY
Privacy Policy — Curated Shorts
Last updated: June 2026
1.0 Our approach to privacy
At Curated Shorts, we take your privacy seriously. We believe that personal data should be handled carefully, transparently, and only where necessary.
Our approach is guided by the following principles:
We respect user privacy and data protection rights.
We only collect and process personal data where we have a clear reason to do so.
We do not sell, rent, or trade your personal information.
We do not share your personal information with third parties for their own direct marketing purposes.
We aim to be clear about what data we collect, why we collect it, how long we keep it, and what rights you have.
We dislike spam as much as you do.
This Privacy Policy explains how Curated Shorts collects, uses, stores, and protects personal data when you visit our website, contact us, or subscribe to our newsletter.
2.0 Relevant legislation
This website and our business operations are designed to comply with applicable UK data protection and privacy legislation, including:
UK General Data Protection Regulation, known as UK GDPR
Data Protection Act 2018
Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003, known as PECR
Curated Shorts is operated from the United Kingdom. This Privacy Policy is primarily intended to explain how we handle personal data under UK law.
If you are visiting from outside the United Kingdom and have questions about how your personal data is handled, please contact us using the details in section 9.0.
3.0 Lawful basis for processing personal data
Under UK GDPR, we must identify a lawful basis before processing personal data. Depending on how you interact with Curated Shorts, we may rely on the following lawful bases:
Consent
We rely on consent where you have freely given us clear permission to process your personal data for a specific purpose. This may apply, for example, when you subscribe to our newsletter or accept analytics cookies.
Where we rely on consent, you have the right to withdraw your consent at any time. Withdrawing consent does not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before consent was withdrawn.
Legitimate interests
We may rely on legitimate interests where processing is necessary for our legitimate business purposes, provided those interests are not overridden by your rights, freedoms, or interests.
This may include responding to enquiries, maintaining the security of our website, understanding how our website is used, improving our services, and managing our relationship with users, contributors, filmmakers, partners, and collaborators.
Legal obligation
We may process personal data where we are required to do so by law, regulation, court order, or another legal obligation.
4.0 Personal information this website collects and why
4.1 Website analytics and cookies
We may use website analytics tools, including Google Analytics, to understand how visitors find and use Curated Shorts. This helps us improve the website, understand which pages are useful, and make better editorial and technical decisions.
Analytics tools may collect information such as:
Pages visited
Time spent on the website
Approximate geographical location
Device type
Browser type
Operating system
Referral source
General usage patterns
Where analytics cookies or similar technologies are used, they will only be activated where required consent has been obtained through our cookie banner or cookie settings.
Google may process certain technical information, including IP address and device data, in accordance with its own privacy policy. We do not use Google Analytics to directly identify individual visitors.
You can also control cookies through your browser settings. You may choose to block or delete cookies, although this may affect how some parts of the website function.
4.2 Contact forms and email
If you contact us through a contact form or by email, we may collect the personal information you choose to provide, such as your name, email address, organisation, message content, and any other information included in your enquiry.
We use this information to respond to your message, manage communication with you, and keep appropriate records of correspondence.
Contact form submissions and email communications may be stored in our email systems and other secure business tools. We will not use this information to send you marketing emails unless you have separately opted in to receive them.
Please note that email is not always a fully secure form of communication. We recommend that you avoid sending sensitive personal information by email unless necessary.
4.3 Email newsletter
If you subscribe to our email newsletter, we collect your email address and any other information you provide during the sign-up process.
We use Mailchimp to manage and send newsletter communications. Mailchimp processes subscriber information on our behalf.
Your email address will not be sold, rented, traded, or shared with third parties for their own direct marketing purposes.
Your subscriber information will remain in Mailchimp’s systems for as long as you remain subscribed, or until we stop using Mailchimp for this purpose.
You can unsubscribe at any time by using the unsubscribe link included in our newsletter emails, or by contacting us directly. If contacting us by email, please use the email address associated with your subscription so we can identify your record.
You can expect to receive approximately one newsletter per week, although the frequency may vary depending on our editorial schedule.
If you are under 13 years of age, you must not subscribe to our newsletter without parental or guardian consent. If you are aged 13 or over, you may subscribe provided you understand what you are signing up for and give your own consent.
4.4 Film submissions, filmmaker enquiries, and editorial communication
If you submit a film, contact us about a film, or communicate with us as a filmmaker, distributor, festival representative, publicist, producer, or rights holder, we may collect information relevant to that communication.
This may include:
Your name
Email address
Organisation or role
Film title
Film links
Press materials
Biographical information you provide
Submission notes
Communication history
Rights, screening, or publication information
We use this information to review films, manage editorial decisions, communicate with filmmakers and rights holders, request materials, prepare features or interviews, and publish relevant information where agreed or appropriate.
Where we publish filmmaker names, film information, interviews, stills, biographies, or related editorial content, this is done as part of Curated Shorts’ editorial and cultural publishing activity.
4.5 Embedded content and external links
Curated Shorts may include embedded content from third-party platforms, such as video players, social media posts, images, or other external media.
Embedded content from other websites behaves in the same way as if you visited those websites directly. These third-party platforms may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional tracking, and monitor your interaction with their content, especially if you are logged in to their services.
We may also link to external websites, including filmmaker websites, film platforms, festivals, publications, social media pages, and partner organisations. We are not responsible for the privacy practices, security, or content of external websites.
We encourage you to review the privacy policies of any third-party websites or services you visit.
5.0 How we store and protect your personal data
We take reasonable steps to protect personal data from unauthorised access, loss, misuse, alteration, or disclosure.
Curated Shorts is hosted using Webflow. Webflow provides website hosting and infrastructure services, including security measures such as HTTPS encryption for traffic between your browser and the website.
Personal data may also be stored in secure third-party systems we use for business operations, such as email, newsletter management, analytics, website hosting, and editorial communication.
We retain personal data only for as long as necessary for the purpose for which it was collected, or for as long as required by law.
As a general guide:
Newsletter subscriber data is retained until you unsubscribe or until we stop using the relevant newsletter service.
Contact and enquiry emails may be retained for as long as needed to manage communication, maintain records, and support our business operations.
Film submission and editorial communication may be retained for as long as relevant to our editorial archive, publication activity, rights management, and future correspondence.
Analytics data is retained according to the settings and retention periods of the analytics tools we use.
When personal data is no longer needed, we will delete it, anonymise it, or securely archive it where appropriate.
6.0 Third-party processors and service providers
We use selected third-party service providers to help operate Curated Shorts. These providers may process personal data on our behalf or in connection with services they provide.
The main third-party providers we use may include:
Provider
Purpose
Webflow
Website hosting and website infrastructure
Google Analytics
Website analytics, where enabled with consent
Mailchimp / Intuit
Email newsletter management
Email service providers
Receiving, storing, and responding to enquiries
Embedded media platforms
Displaying films, videos, images, or other embedded content
Where personal data is transferred outside the United Kingdom, we take steps intended to ensure that appropriate safeguards are in place in accordance with UK GDPR requirements. This may include adequacy regulations, standard contractual clauses, international data transfer agreements, or other legally recognised safeguards.
We do not rely on the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield as a transfer mechanism, as that framework was invalidated in July 2020.
7.0 Your rights under UK GDPR
Under UK GDPR, you have rights in relation to your personal data. These may include:
Right of access
You have the right to request a copy of the personal data we hold about you.
Right to rectification
You have the right to ask us to correct inaccurate or incomplete personal data.
Right to erasure
You have the right to ask us to delete your personal data in certain circumstances.
Right to restriction
You have the right to ask us to restrict how we use your personal data in certain circumstances.
Right to data portability
You have the right to receive certain personal data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format.
Right to object
You have the right to object to processing based on legitimate interests in certain circumstances.
Right to withdraw consent
Where we rely on consent, you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time.
Rights related to automated decision-making
We do not carry out automated decision-making or profiling that produces legal or similarly significant effects.
To exercise any of these rights, please contact us using the details in section 9.0.
We will normally respond within one calendar month of receiving your request. There is usually no charge for exercising your rights, although we may refuse or charge a reasonable fee for requests that are manifestly unfounded, excessive, or repetitive.
We may need to verify your identity before responding to certain requests.
8.0 Data breaches
A personal data breach is a security incident that leads to accidental or unlawful destruction, loss, alteration, unauthorised disclosure of, or access to, personal data.
If we become aware of a personal data breach that is likely to result in a risk to the rights and freedoms of individuals, we will notify the Information Commissioner’s Office, known as the ICO, within 72 hours where required by law.
If a breach is likely to result in a high risk to affected individuals, we will also notify those individuals without undue delay where required.
9.0 Data controller and privacy contact
The data controller for this website is:
Curated Shorts
Operated by Diwan Studio Ltd
Privacy contact:
Roozbeh Misaghi
Email: roozbeh.misaghi@curatedshorts.org
Please contact us if you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, how we handle personal data, or if you wish to exercise your data protection rights.
10.0 Complaints
If you are unhappy with how we have handled your personal data, we would appreciate the opportunity to address your concerns directly first.
You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the UK supervisory authority for data protection:
Information Commissioner’s Office
Website: ico.org.uk
Helpline: 0303 123 1113
11.0 Changes to this Privacy Policy
We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in law, technology, our services, or our data practices.
Where changes are material, we will take reasonable steps to bring them to your attention, which may include placing a notice on our website.
The date at the top of this policy shows when it was last updated. We encourage you to review this page periodically.