Privacy Policy Generator and Guide for EU Freelancers

Building a Privacy Policy That Actually Covers You

Many freelancers copy a generic privacy policy from another website and hope for the best. This approach is risky: copied policies often reference data practices that do not apply to your business while missing practices that do. A privacy policy should accurately reflect what your specific business actually does with personal data — not what a random website does.

The good news is that most freelancer websites have relatively simple data practices that can be documented in a clear, readable policy without legal jargon. Here is a section-by-section guide.

Section 1: Who You Are

Identify yourself as the data controller. Include your full name or business name, registered address, email address, and — if you have one — your VAT number. This satisfies the GDPR requirement to identify the controller and provide contact details. If you have a data protection officer (rare for solo businesses), include their details too, though most freelancers do not require one.

Section 2: What Data You Collect and Why

For each category of personal data, explain: what data you collect (name, email, IP address, etc.), how you collect it (contact form, newsletter signup, analytics cookies), why you collect it (to respond to inquiries, to send newsletters, to improve website performance), and your legal basis (consent, legitimate interests, contractual necessity, legal obligation).

Be specific. "We collect your name and email address when you submit our contact form in order to respond to your inquiry. Our legal basis is legitimate interests." This is far more useful to a reader than "we may collect certain personal information for various purposes."

Section 3: Who Else Receives Your Data

List every third-party tool that processes personal data on your behalf: email providers (Gmail, Outlook), analytics tools (Google Analytics, Plausible), invoicing software (including Arbeitly), hosting providers, and email marketing platforms. For each, note what data they receive and provide a link to their own privacy policy.

If any of these providers are based outside the EU, note this and explain the transfer mechanism (Standard Contractual Clauses for most major US providers).

Section 4: Data Retention Periods

State how long you keep each type of data. Contact form submissions: typically one to two years. Invoice and contract data: seven to ten years per EU tax law. Analytics data: typically 14 months (Google Analytics default) or as configured. Newsletter subscriber data: until unsubscribe plus a reasonable additional period.

Section 5: Data Subject Rights

Explain how individuals can exercise their GDPR rights: access (request a copy of their data), rectification (correct inaccurate data), erasure (request deletion), restriction (limit processing), portability (receive data in machine-readable format), and objection (object to processing based on legitimate interests). Provide a contact email for rights requests and state your response timeline (one month under GDPR).