Dream Menu is an interview series about Scottish food. This page explains what personal information is collected, why, and what you can do about it. It's written to be read rather than survived.
Last updated October 2026
The short version
If you fill in the interview form, we collect your email, your social handle and your answers.
Your answers become an editorial feature, which you see and approve before it publishes.
Your answers are also counted anonymously into industry reports. You are never named in those.
We don't sell your data, and we don't send marketing you didn't ask for.
You can ask to see, correct or delete your information at any time.
01
Who is responsible
Dream Menu is the data controller for the information described here. For anything about your data (questions, corrections, deletion requests), contact:
Your email address: so we can send your feature for approval and reply to you.
Your Instagram or TikTok handle: to credit you and link to your page.
Your answers: dishes, venues, recommendations and the other questions on the form. These are free text, so they contain whatever you choose to write.
The date and time your response was submitted.
If you operate a venue and complete an operator survey
Your responses about trading conditions, costs and business outlook, plus any contact details you give.
If you just visit this website
We don't ask you for anything, and there is no sign-up. See section 06 for the technical requests your browser makes when a page loads.
03
How we use it, and on what basis
What for
Lawful basis
Publishing your interview as an editorial feature, crediting you by handle
Consent, given when you submit the form
Emailing you to check and approve your feature before it publishes
Consent
Counting your answers, anonymously and in aggregate, into industry reports and the public map
Consent
Keeping a record of who has taken part, so we don't ask you twice
Legitimate interests: running the series sensibly
Venues you name appear on the public map as a community recommendation. They are not attributed to you individually.
What we never do without asking you again
Quote you by name, attribute a specific comment to you, or identify you in a report shared with a business. If we want to do any of those, we ask you separately and you can say no.
04
Who else sees it
We do not sell personal information, and we do not share your individual answers with commercial clients. The following organisations process data on our behalf as service providers:
Google (Forms, Sheets, Gmail): stores form responses and our email. Data may be processed outside the UK.
Vercel: hosts this website. Server logs may include your IP address. Data may be processed outside the UK.
Aggregate, anonymised findings (category counts, trends, venue mention totals) are shared with business audiences and sponsors. These contain no personal information and cannot be traced back to an individual respondent.
05
How long we keep it
Interview responses and contact details: kept for as long as the series runs, because the dataset is longitudinal and earlier answers give later trends their meaning.
Aggregate, anonymised figures: kept indefinitely. These are no longer personal data.
Deleted on request: see section 07. Removing your response removes it from future analysis; figures already published in a past report can't be retrospectively changed.
06
Cookies and website requests
This site sets no advertising or tracking cookies and does not follow you across other websites. These technical things do happen:
Fonts: typefaces load from Google Fonts, so your browser sends a request to Google that includes your IP address.
Map tiles: on the map page, background imagery loads from OpenFreeMap, CARTO, OpenStreetMap or Esri, which likewise receive your IP address. If you use "Find on map", the venue name you look up is sent to OpenStreetMap's search services (Photon and Nominatim).
Sign-in: if you sign in to a partner section, two cookies keep you signed in for up to 30 days. One holds a coded token (not your password) and is only ever sent to this site. Signing out at /logout removes them.
Things the map remembers in your browser: your last map view, any venues you place with "Find on map", whether you have seen the welcome tip, and (for the rest of your visit) that you entered a passphrase. These stay on your device.
Visit counts: we count page views with Vercel Web Analytics, which uses no cookies and does not identify you.
The map can ask for your location if you press "Near me". Your browser will prompt you first, the coordinates are used only to sort venues by distance in your own browser, and they are never sent to us or stored.
07
Your rights
Under UK data protection law you can ask us to:
Give you a copy of the information we hold about you
Correct anything inaccurate
Delete your information
Restrict or object to how we use it
Provide your answers in a portable format
Withdraw consent, which stops future use, though it doesn't undo what was lawfully done before
If you're unhappy with how we've handled it, you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk or on 0303 123 1113.
08
Other things worth saying
Children
Dream Menu is intended for adults working in or writing about food. We don't knowingly collect information from anyone under 16. If you believe we have, tell us and we'll delete it.
Security
Responses are held in access-controlled Google accounts. No system is perfectly secure, but we keep the number of places your data sits deliberately small.
Changes
If this notice changes materially we'll update the date at the top and, where the change affects how we use existing responses, contact participants directly.