Privacy notice

Last updated 20 September 2026.

This notice says what Ernest holds, why, and what your rights are. Ernest is a service of Oryn Labs Inc., a Delaware corporation, at 1007 N Orange St, 4th Floor, 5972, Wilmington, DE 19801, New Castle, US ("we"). Write to us at hello@useernest.com.

Who this notice is for

• People at a freight forwarder that uses Ernest: clerks, managers and administrators.
• People who receive an email from Ernest because a forwarder is preparing a declaration: shippers, carriers, importers and their staff.
• Visitors to this website.

What we hold

• Shipping documents a forwarder gives Ernest, or that arrive in the mailbox it has connected: pre-alerts, bills of lading, air waybills, invoices, packing lists, arrival notices and certificates of origin. These carry business names and addresses, EORI and VAT numbers, and the names, email addresses and telephone numbers of the people named on them.
• The declarations Ernest prepares, every version of them, and who changed what and when.
• Messages exchanged with Ernest by email, Slack or Teams, with the name of the person who sent each one.
• Account details for the forwarder's staff: name, email address, role and sign in times.
• The tokens that keep a mailbox, Slack or Teams connection open. Never passwords. Sign in is by emailed link.
• Delivery records for the emails Ernest sends: the address, the time, and whether the message was delivered, bounced or complained about.
• On this website: nothing. We set no cookies, run no analytics, and these pages make no request to any other site.

Where it comes from

The forwarder's connected mailbox, which Ernest reads and never sends from; documents the forwarder forwards or uploads; replies to Ernest's emails; and messages in the channel the forwarder connected.

Why, and on what basis

• To prepare declarations, chase documents and answer the desk: performance of our contract with the forwarder. For the people named on documents and the people we email, our legitimate interest, and the forwarder's, in clearing the shipment they are party to.
• To keep the service secure, and to measure and improve its accuracy on the forwarder's own entries: our legitimate interests.
• To support the records a forwarder must keep for customs purposes: the forwarder's legal obligation.

Who acts as what

The forwarder decides what Ernest works on and is the controller of its customers' and shippers' data. We process that data on the forwarder's instructions under a written agreement. For this website, and for our own records, we are the controller.

Who sees it

• The forwarder's own staff, according to the roles the forwarder sets.
• Our staff, for support and to fix faults, under confidentiality.
• Providers that process it for us: Amazon Web Services (hosting and email, London region); an AI model provider (which reads documents and drafts messages); Slack, Microsoft and Google, where the forwarder has connected them. We do not sell data, and we use one customer's data for that customer alone.
• HMRC or another authority, where the law requires it.

Where

Stored in the United Kingdom, in Amazon Web Services' London region. Document text and messages are sent to the AI model provider for processing, which may take place outside the UK.

How long

For as long as the forwarder uses Ernest, then deleted within 180 days unless the forwarder asks us to keep records longer. Delivery records, and the record of who decided what, are kept for the same period.

Emails from Ernest

Ernest sends email only when a forwarder asks it to, about one shipment, to the people party to it or who sent the documents. Every email says which forwarder it is for. Reply and your reply reaches that forwarder's desk, and Ernest stops chasing you about that shipment. If you would rather not hear from Ernest at all, write to us at hello@useernest.com and tell us. Where a message to an address cannot be delivered, Ernest stops writing to it about that shipment and tells the forwarder.

Your rights

To see the data we hold about you, to have it corrected or deleted, to restrict or object to how we use it, and to receive a copy. Write to hello@useernest.com. We answer within one month. You may complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk.

Changes

We post changes here, with the date.