Privacy and cookies
Milecost does not ask for your name or email, has no accounts, and does not use analytics, advertising or tracking cookies. This page explains the little data that is handled, and why.
Who is responsible
The operator's name and contact details have not been added yet.
What is handled, and why
| What | Why | How long |
|---|---|---|
| A shortened version of your IP address, the time, the page you asked for and whether it worked | To run the site, find faults and guard against abuse. Our legitimate interest. | Kept only briefly: the log files are rotated automatically and old ones are deleted. |
| Your full IP address, to count how many requests come from one place | To stop one visitor flooding the site (a rate limit). Our legitimate interest. | Held in the server's memory for about a minute, then forgotten. Not written to any log or database. |
| Places you enter (a city or a postcode), and your location if you press "My location" | To work out the distance, which is what you asked for. For your location, you choose to share it: your browser asks permission first. | Your location is not stored. Postcodes and distances are kept in the server's memory only, for a short time, to make repeat lookups quick. They are not linked to you and are cleared when the server restarts. |
| Distance, MPG, make and model, and fuel type, when you use the calculators | To work out a cost. Our legitimate interest in providing the service you asked for. | Not stored. Used to answer and then forgotten. |
| Your light or dark theme choice | So the site looks the way you picked next time. | Stays in your own browser until you clear it. It is never sent to us. |
We do not record what you search for, and the shortened address in our log is not linked to the places you enter: the log holds the page that was asked for, not what you typed into it.
Cookies and similar storage
We do not set any cookies. If you use the light and dark switch, the site saves your choice in your browser's local storage under the name theme. It stays on your device and is never sent to us. You can remove it by clearing your browser's site data.
Because nothing else is stored on your device, there is no cookie banner. We do not use analytics, advertising or social media tracking, and we do not load scripts, fonts or images from other companies, so your visit does not tell anyone else you were here.
If that ever changes, for example by adding advertising or affiliate links, we will update this page and ask for your consent before setting any cookie that is not strictly necessary.
Who else receives data
When you ask for a distance between places, our server (not your browser) asks two public services to help. They receive only a postcode or coordinates from our server. They do not receive your IP address or anything else about you.
- postcodes.io turns a postcode into a position, and finds the postcode nearest a location.
- The OSRM routing service (router.project-osrm.org, built on OpenStreetMap data) works out the road distance between two positions.
The company that hosts the site, and any service in front of it such as a content delivery network, handle your connection and may keep their own records. We do not sell data and do not share it for advertising.
This site links to other websites, such as GOV.UK. Their own privacy notices apply once you leave.
Your rights
Under UK data protection law you can ask to see the personal data we hold about you, to have it corrected or deleted, to restrict or object to how it is used, and to receive it in a portable form. Because we do not keep anything that identifies you beyond a short-lived shortened address, there is usually little to find, but you are welcome to ask.
If you are unhappy with how your data has been handled, you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint. We would like the chance to put things right first.
Changes to this page
We will change this page if what the site does with data changes, and update the date at the top.