In short
- We collect what we need to run BlackSlate: your account details, the work you put in it, and basic technical data. We do not sell personal data or use advertising trackers.
- Your account data is stored in London. Some providers we rely on, including our AI provider, are in the United States, and we use approved safeguards for those transfers.
- You can see, export, correct or delete your data at any time.
- If someone sends you a Preview Link, we record how you read it and the sender can see that record. The section on Preview Links below explains what, why and for how long.
The summary is for convenience; the full text below is what applies.
Who we are
BlackSlate is operated by BlackSlate AI Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales. We are the controller of the personal data described in this policy, except where we process data on behalf of a business customer, in which case that customer is the controller and our Data Processing Addendum applies.
Contact us about privacy at legal@blackslate.ai.
This policy covers the website at blackslate.ai, the BlackSlate app for producers and development teams, BlackSlate for Writers, and the portal agents use to submit scripts.
What we collect
If you visit the website
We do not use analytics or advertising cookies on the website. Our hosting provider records standard technical information, such as your IP address, browser type and the pages requested, to deliver the site and protect it from abuse. Your cookie choice is stored in your own browser.
If you join the waitlist
Your email address, so we can send you an invitation and occasional product news, as the form says. We also keep a record of the exact wording you agreed to and when you agreed to it.
If you create an account
- Account details: your name, email address, role, and company where you give one.
- Preferences: the interests and tools you choose during onboarding, used to personalise what you see.
- Your work: the projects, scripts, drafts, notes, comments, deal terms and other material you add, and the people you share it with.
- Payments: your subscription status and billing details. Card payments are handled by Stripe; we never see or store your full card number.
- Usage and technical data: sign-in times, features used, and device and browser information, used to run, secure and improve the service.
If you are a writer
Writers join by invitation from a producer. We store your account details and the scripts and drafts you write or upload, and share them with the producers you choose to work with.
If you are an agent
Your name, agency and contact details, the scripts you submit, and the history of each submission, which the production company you submit to can see.
People who appear in our research data
Our datasets describe published works, historical events and people working in film and television. Two features hold personal data about professionals who have not given it to us themselves, so this part of the policy is written for them.
- Emerging talent profiles cover writers and directors. They hold your name, role, where you are based, your credits, festival selections, awards and industry schemes, your representation as published, links to your own website and social profiles, and a photo you have published. Their summaries and analysis are written with AI from those sources.
- Casting suggestions name actors for a character in a producer's project. Each name is found by an AI web search and comes with the page it was read from.
Where it comes from. Public, published sources only: festival, awards and scheme listings, trade and press coverage, IMDb, Wikipedia and Wikidata, and the websites and social profiles you publish yourself. We do not publish private contact details.
Why we use it. To help producers and development teams find and research people to work with. Our legal basis is legitimate interests: theirs in finding talent, and ours in providing that research. We do not currently show any score or ranking of individual people.
Who sees it. Talent profiles are seen by BlackSlate's Premium subscribers. Casting suggestions are seen only by the team whose project they were made for.
How long we keep it. A talent profile stays until you ask us to remove it or we stop offering the feature. A casting suggestion is kept only if the producer shortlists it, and is deleted when the project or character is deleted.
Your right to object. You can object at any time, and ask us to correct or remove what we hold. Each talent profile has a link to do this, or write to legal@blackslate.ai with your name. We will then stop using your data for this unless we have compelling grounds that override your interests, and tell you what we have done within one month. You also have the other rights listed under "Your rights" below.
People who receive a Preview Link
A Preview Link lets someone with a BlackSlate account send you a script to read. The page you read it on tells you, before you start, that it records the following.
- What you are given: your name and email address, entered by the sender. The file you read is stamped with them, so a copy can be traced back to the link.
- Each time you open the link: the date and time, your IP address, and your browser and device details (the browser's user agent and language setting), and whether the link opened.
- While you read: which pages you open, how long you spend on each, and how far you scroll.
- If the sender locks the link to one network: the network address it is locked to, and any request you make to change it.
Who sees it. The person who sent the link can see all of it. We do not use it for anything else and do not share it with anyone else, except our providers who store it for us.
Why, and our legal basis. Legitimate interests: the sender's interest in protecting unreleased work and knowing it has been read, and ours in keeping the feature secure. We collect only what that needs, and tell you on the page before you read.
How long we keep it. Reading records are deleted after 12 months. The IP address and browser details on each record of an opening are removed after 12 months; the date of the opening stays with the sender's record of the link. A network lock address is removed 12 months after the link stops working.
Your right to object. Write to legal@blackslate.ai with the name of the sender or the project. We will weigh your objection against the sender's reasons and tell you what we decide within one month. You also have the other rights listed under "Your rights" below.
How we use your data, and our legal basis
| Purpose | Legal basis under UK GDPR |
|---|---|
| Providing your account and the features you use | Performance of our contract with you |
| Taking payment and managing subscriptions | Performance of contract; legal obligation for tax records |
| Sending service emails, such as receipts, security notices and Preview Links | Performance of contract |
| Sending waitlist members an invitation and occasional product news | Consent, which you can withdraw at any time |
| Recording how a Preview Link is read, for the person who sent it | Legitimate interests (see the section on Preview Links) |
| Keeping the service secure and preventing abuse | Legitimate interests |
| Improving the service using aggregated usage data | Legitimate interests |
| Compiling research data about public professional activity, including talent profiles and casting suggestions | Legitimate interests, balanced against your rights |
| Meeting legal and regulatory obligations | Legal obligation |
How we use AI
Some features send content to our AI provider, Anthropic, to produce a result: analysing a script or draft, comparing drafts, writing a script report, suggesting casting, and generating research summaries. Only the content needed for the feature is sent. Anthropic processes it to return the result under commercial terms that do not allow it to train its models on that content.
We do not use your scripts or uploaded work to train AI models. AI output can be wrong, and nothing it produces makes a decision about you with legal or similarly significant effect.
Who we share it with
We do not sell personal data. We share it only with the providers who help us run BlackSlate, with the people you choose to share your work with, with professional advisers where necessary, and with authorities where the law requires it.
The providers who process personal data for us are:
- Supabase: our database, sign-in, file storage and server functions.
- Vercel: hosting for the website and the apps, and the website's waitlist form.
- Anthropic: the AI features listed above, including the web search behind casting suggestions.
- Resend: sending email, such as account emails, Preview Links and the waitlist confirmation.
- Stripe: card payments and subscriptions.
Our sub-processors page lists where each one processes data. We update it before adding a provider.
Images in the app
App pages load cover images and artwork directly from The Movie Database (TMDB), Open Library and Wikimedia, and a talent profile photo from the website it was published on, such as the person's own site or IMDb. Like any site that serves an image, those services receive your IP address and browser details when your browser fetches it. We do not send them anything else about you, and they are not our providers.
Where your data is stored
Your account data and work are stored with Supabase in London (AWS eu-west-2). Some of our providers, including Anthropic, Stripe, Resend and Vercel, are based in the United States. Where personal data is transferred outside the UK, we rely on UK adequacy regulations, including the UK Extension to the EU-US Data Privacy Framework where a provider is certified, or on the UK International Data Transfer Agreement or Addendum.
How long we keep it
- Waitlist: until you unsubscribe. If you have not created an account 24 months after joining, we delete your email automatically.
- Preview Link records: reading records for 12 months. The IP address and browser details on a record of an opening are removed after 12 months, and a network lock address 12 months after the link stops working.
- Delivery records: when a writer delivers a draft through BlackSlate, the IP address it came from is removed 24 months after delivery. The date and the delivered file stay with the producer's record of the delivery.
- Account data and your work: for as long as your account is open. When you delete your account, we delete your data from our live systems; copies in backups are overwritten as the backups roll over.
- Billing records: for up to six years, as tax law requires.
- Server logs: for a short period set by our hosting provider, for security.
- Abuse limits: where we count requests by IP address to stop abuse, such as sign-ups from one address, the counts are deleted after 2 days.
Your rights
You have the right to access your personal data, to have it corrected, to have it erased, to restrict or object to its processing, to receive it in a portable format, and to withdraw consent where we rely on it. You can export or delete your account from your account settings, or write to us. We reply within one month.
Complaints
If you are unhappy with how we have handled your data, complain to us first at legal@blackslate.ai. Under the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 we will acknowledge your complaint within 30 days, look into it, and tell you the outcome without undue delay.
If you are not satisfied with our answer, you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk.
Security
We protect data with encryption in transit, encrypted storage, access controls that keep each company's data separate, and keys that never reach the browser. Our security page has more detail, and explains how to report a vulnerability.
Children
BlackSlate is a professional tool for people aged 18 and over. We do not knowingly collect data from children.
Cookies
Our Cookie Policy explains the small number of cookies and similar technologies we use, and how to manage them.
Changes to this policy
If we make a material change, we will tell account holders by email or in the app before it takes effect. The date at the top shows when this policy was last updated.