Privacy Policy

Under UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018, personal data only covers information about a living, identifiable individual — data about someone who has died falls outside that definition, and outside the ICO's remit, entirely. We still choose to be transparent about how we handle it, which is what this section covers.

A memorial record on Place of Rest may include, where it appears on a headstone or public burial record:

• Name, known-as name, maiden name and any alternative names
• Dates of birth, death and burial, and age at death
• An epitaph, inscription or short biography
• The cemetery, section, row, plot and grave number, and GPS coordinates
• A photograph of the headstone

This information is sourced either directly from a physical headstone or memorial in a publicly accessible cemetery — somewhere anyone can walk up and read it — or from a cemetery's own public burial records. Nothing is taken from a private source. Visitors can also submit or correct this information through a cemetery's “Contribute” page; contributions are reviewed against the headstone before publication.

Headstones often name a living relative — “beloved husband of Jane, who survives him” is a common example. If that person is identifiable, their name is personal data under UK GDPR, and we process it on the basis of legitimate interests: the inscription was already made permanently public by the family, on a public monument, for exactly this kind of memorial purpose, and reproducing it here carries no meaningful additional privacy impact. Anyone named this way can ask us to remove or redact their name — see the section on corrections below.

The sole purpose of collecting this information is to help someone find and visit a grave. In practice that means:

• Showing up in search results within the relevant cemetery, or across cemeteries
• Plotting the grave's location on a cemetery map
• Calculating walking directions and distance from a visitor's current location
• Letting a signed-in user save the record to a private list, or share that list with family
• Notifying you — by email or push notification, if you've asked to be — about a grave you follow, such as a correction being approved

We do not sell, license, or otherwise publish this data outside the platform, and we don't use it for advertising. If a signed-in user chooses to share a list they've built, that link is generated and shared at their own discretion — Place of Rest doesn't distribute it on their behalf.

Because this information isn't legally “personal data,” the statutory rights described in section 8 don't apply to it. We nonetheless treat requests from next of kin and family members seriously. If you believe a record is inaccurate, or you are a close family member and would like a detail corrected, redacted or removed — including a living relative's name mentioned in section 2 — use the “Suggest a correction” link on the relevant page, or contact us. We'll review it against the headstone or burial record and get back to you.

This section covers you, the living person using the site — this is ordinary personal data, and UK GDPR applies in full.

• Account: if you sign in with Google, we store your name, email address and profile picture, and a session token, via our authentication provider.
• Lists: the names you give your saved lists, and which memorial records you've added to them.
• Contributions: any name, email or message you provide when submitting or correcting a record, or contacting us.
• Location: if you allow it, your device's GPS coordinates are used to work out distance and directions entirely in your browser — we don't receive or store them on our servers.

Our lawful bases are: performance of a contract (running your account and lists), consent (location access, and any marketing email or push notification), and legitimate interests (responding to contributions and correspondence).

Signing in sets an essential session cookie so you stay logged in — this isn't optional, as the site can't function without it. We use Vercel Web Analytics to understand overall traffic; it doesn't use cookies or collect data that identifies you individually.

We use a small number of providers to run the site, each acting as a processor on our behalf:

• Google — sign-in (account name, email, profile picture)
• Vercel — hosting, database and privacy-friendly analytics
• Stadia Maps / OpenStreetMap / MapLibre — cemetery map tiles; loading a map sends your IP address to the tile provider, the same as loading any map on the web

None of these providers are permitted to use memorial or account data for their own purposes.

As a living user, UK GDPR gives you the right to:

• Access the personal data we hold about you
• Have inaccurate data corrected, or incomplete data completed
• Ask us to delete your account and associated data
• Restrict or object to certain processing
• Receive your data in a portable format
• Withdraw consent (e.g. for location access) at any time

To exercise any of these, email us at info@placeofrest.uk. You can also complain to the Information Commissioner's Office if you're unhappy with how we've handled your data.

Memorial records are kept for as long as the cemetery remains listed on the platform — they exist to be found, so there's no expiry date on a record itself, though it will always be corrected or removed on request as above. Account data is kept for as long as your account is active, and deleted within 30 days of you asking us to close it.

If we make a material change to how we handle memorial or account data, we'll update the date at the top of this page and, where appropriate, let signed-in users know.

Questions about this policy, or a request relating to a memorial record or your account, can go to info@placeofrest.uk or through our contact page.