Privacy notice
Last updated: 27 October 2026
This notice explains how we use personal data when you visit 12aireception.co.uk, try the "Hear your receptionist" demo, or contact us. It is written for small business owners, so we have kept it short and plain.
Who we are
12 AI Reception is a brand of Smart MCS Ltd, a company registered in England with company number 08605448. Our registered office is 172 Colchester Road, Ipswich, IP4 4RS, England.
Smart MCS Ltd is the controller for the personal data described in this notice. That means we decide how and why it is used.
Contact us at hello@12aireception.co.uk. For privacy questions or requests, please put "Privacy" in the subject line.
The short version
- We do not use analytics, advertising or tracking of any kind.
- The site sets no cookies.
- The demo uses AI to draft answers from your business website. Demo sessions are deleted after 24 hours and we do not keep a transcript or recording of your test call.
- If you try the demo on the phone, we use your phone number only for that demo call and to stop repeat requests.
- We only keep your name and email if you tick the box asking us to contact you.
Visiting the website
When you visit any website, your browser sends technical information such as your IP address, browser type and the page you asked for. The site is hosted by Amazon Web Services, which receives this information to deliver the site and protect it from attacks and abuse. If you type the www. address, Cloudflare receives it first and sends you on to the site. Both may keep short technical logs for security under their own terms. We don't switch on website access logs. Our own system logs record counts and timings, not what you type, and are deleted after 30 days.
Our lawful basis is legitimate interests: we need to run a secure website.
Fonts
The site's font is part of the page itself. Your browser doesn't contact any font service.
Cookies and local storage
We do not use cookies. Your browser may store a few small settings in its local storage on your device so the site works smoothly, for example remembering a choice you made in the demo. These stay on your device, are not used to track you, and you can clear them at any time in your browser settings.
The "Hear your receptionist" demo
The demo shows how 12 AI Reception might answer calls for your business. To do that, it needs some information from you.
Demo: what you give us
- Your business website address, or your industry and business name.
- Any optional notes you add.
- What you type or say during the test call.
Demo: what we do with it
When the demo runs on our own systems (Amazon Web Services):
- We fetch the public pages of the website you give us. These pages may include names or contact details of people at that business.
- We send that text, your notes and what you say in the test call to Anthropic's Claude AI model through Amazon Bedrock, running in Amazon's EU regions. The AI drafts answers about the business and replies to you during the test call.
- Replies are turned into speech using Amazon Polly.
- The demo session, meaning the drafted answers and greeting, is kept for 24 hours and then deleted automatically.
- We do not store a transcript of your test call.
- Amazon and Anthropic do not use this data to train their AI models.
Demo: using your microphone
If you speak to the demo instead of typing, your speech is turned into text by your web browser's built-in speech recognition, not by us. In some browsers, such as Google Chrome, this sends your audio to the browser maker (Google) for processing under its own privacy terms. If you would rather not, you can type instead. Typing works just as well.
Demo: trying it on the phone
You can also test your receptionist on a real phone call, in one of two ways.
- Ring our demo number. You can give us the number you will ring from, so the demo line recognises you. This is optional. If you leave it out, you key in a 4-digit code instead.
- We'll call you. You give us a UK phone number and tick a box that says: "Call me now on this number for a 12 AI Reception demo. Smart MCS Ltd will use it only for this call and to stop repeat requests." We then ring that number once.
What happens to your number and the call:
- We use your number only to connect the demo call and to stop the same number asking for calls again and again. We never use it for marketing.
- To count requests, we keep a one-way hash of your number, not the number itself.
- To connect the call, your number is held briefly in our systems: for up to 15 minutes while your demo is open, and for a few minutes in the queue that places the call to you.
- The demo record, including the hash, expires after 15 minutes and is deleted automatically, usually within a day or two.
- What you say on the call is turned into text by Amazon Transcribe and answered by the same AI as the browser demo. We do not record the call or keep a transcript, and nothing is sent to anyone.
- The call is carried by a UK phone network provider. Like any phone company, it keeps its own records of calls (such as numbers, times and length, not what was said) for billing and to meet its legal duties.
- Our lawful basis for "Ring our demo number" is legitimate interests: providing the demo you asked for. For "We'll call you" it is your consent, which you give by ticking the box.
Demo: the robot check for "We'll call you"
Before we ring you, a short check makes sure the request comes from a person and not an automated program. The check is Cloudflare Turnstile, run by Cloudflare. It only loads if you open the "We'll call you" option. To run it, your browser connects to Cloudflare, which receives your IP address and some technical information about your browser and device. Cloudflare uses this to tell people from bots and to protect its service, under its own privacy terms. Our lawful basis is legitimate interests in stopping our demo line being used to make unwanted calls. Cloudflare may process this data outside the UK, including in the United States (see "Data sent outside the UK" below).
Demo: stopping misuse
To stop the demo being overloaded or abused, we count how often it is used. We do this with a one-way hash of your IP address, not the IP address itself. These counters are deleted after no more than 2 days.
Demo: lawful basis
Our lawful basis is legitimate interests: providing the demo you have asked for, and protecting it from misuse.
Demo: please do not share other people's information
Please do not enter personal details or health information about anyone else into the demo, such as real customer, patient or resident details. The demo does not need them.
If you ask us to get in touch
After the demo you can choose to give us your name, email address and, if you wish, a phone number. You will see a tick box that says: "Email me about setting up 12 AI Reception. Smart MCS Ltd will use these details only for this."
- We only use these details to contact you about setting up 12 AI Reception.
- Our lawful basis is your consent.
- We store them on Amazon Web Services in London and email them to our team.
- We keep them for 12 months, unless you become a customer, or until you withdraw your consent.
- You can withdraw your consent at any time by emailing hello@12aireception.co.uk. We will then delete your details.
If you become a customer, our Customer Agreement and its privacy terms apply to the details we hold about you from then on.
If you start a free trial
After the demo you can press "Start my receptionist" to open a free trial account. We use your sign-up details (your name, email address, phone number if you give it, your business name, and the demo answers we copy into your setup) to create and run your trial account. Our lawful basis is taking steps, at your request, to enter into a contract with you. We store them on Amazon Web Services in London and email you a link to log in.
If you keep your own number
If you choose to divert your own business line to our main number, we keep the business numbers you give us, so we can tell which business each diverted call is for. For each call we receive the number it was diverted from, as sent by the phone network. For the divert test you give us the phone you will ring from; the test expires after 10 minutes and is deleted automatically within the next two days. Our lawful basis is performing our contract with you.
If you email us
Emails sent to hello@12aireception.co.uk are forwarded by Cloudflare to our mailbox. We use what you send to reply and deal with your enquiry. Our lawful basis is legitimate interests in responding to people who contact us. We keep emails for 2 years, unless we need them longer for a contract or legal reason.
Our customers and their callers
When a business uses 12 AI Reception to answer its phone calls, the receptionist handles callers' details, messages and call recordings. For that data, the business is the controller and Smart MCS Ltd is its processor. This is covered by our Customer Agreement and data processing terms, not by this notice.
If you called a business that uses 12 AI Reception and have a question about your data, please contact that business directly.
Who we share data with
We do not sell personal data. We use these service providers to run the website and demo. They act on our instructions, except where noted above for browser speech recognition and Cloudflare Turnstile.
| Provider | What they do | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Amazon Web Services | Hosting, speech, voice, phone-demo speech recognition and sending email | UK (London) |
| Anthropic, through Amazon Bedrock | AI that drafts answers and replies | EU regions |
| Cloudflare | Domain name (DNS), the www. redirect, email forwarding, and the Turnstile robot check for "We'll call you" | Global network |
| UK phone network providers | Carrying phone demo calls | UK |
| Telnyx | Urgent alert text messages for our customers: the type of call, a reference and the call-back number, never what the caller said (not used by the website) | United States and other countries |
We may also share data if the law requires it, or to protect our rights, our users or the public.
Data sent outside the UK
The AI in the demo runs in the EU. The UK recognises the EU as giving adequate protection to personal data.
Cloudflare may process data outside the UK, including in the United States. Cloudflare states that it complies with the UK Extension to the EU-US Data Privacy Framework (the "UK-US data bridge"), and we rely on that for these transfers.
Our text message provider, Telnyx, may also process alert texts outside the UK, including in the United States. Telnyx states that it relies on the UK Extension to the EU-US Data Privacy Framework, with Standard Contractual Clauses if that ever stops applying.
If you speak to the demo in a browser that sends your speech to its maker, such as Google Chrome, that happens under the browser maker's own terms, not ours (see "Demo: using your microphone").
Your rights
Under UK data protection law you have the right to:
- ask for a copy of the personal data we hold about you;
- ask us to correct data that is wrong or incomplete;
- ask us to delete your data;
- ask us to restrict how we use your data;
- object to us using your data where we rely on legitimate interests;
- ask for data you gave us in a portable format, where we rely on consent;
- withdraw your consent at any time, where we rely on consent.
Some rights have limits. For example, demo sessions are deleted after 24 hours, so we may no longer hold anything to give you. To use any of these rights, email hello@12aireception.co.uk with "Privacy" in the subject. We may need to check who you are. We will normally reply within one month.
Complaints
If you are unhappy with how we have used your data, please tell us first at hello@12aireception.co.uk with "Privacy" in the subject. We will acknowledge your complaint within 30 days and let you know the outcome.
You can also complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), the UK data protection regulator:
- Website: ico.org.uk
- Helpline: 0303 123 1113
Children
This website and demo are for businesses. They are not meant for children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect their data.
Changes to this notice
We may update this notice, for example if we change providers or how the demo works. We will post the new version here and change the date at the top. If a change is significant, we will make that clear on the site.