Blog - Review of business legal obligations concerning TWS

Over the last few days I’ve been working through a “Legal and Other Requirements” review as part of my ISO 9001 work for Technical Web Services – and it’s been surprisingly eye-opening.

On the surface, not much has changed: same one-person web design business, same clients, same services. But once I actually sat down and walked through the legal obligations, a lot of quiet gaps and untidy corners appeared.

It’s also worth noting that I set this objective at the beginning of the year, before I’d really embraced AI. Working through it with AI in support has made the whole thing relatively painless – still time-consuming, but far deeper and more certain. I can simply ask, “What do I have to do here?” or “What are the legal requirements there?” and get a reasonably useful answer straight away, including help drafting missing documents and tying things back to the right (and often confusing) ISO clause numbers. In short, this has been a review carried out in earnest, with AI as a very capable assistant. 

A few highlights:

• Data protection & GDPR:

  • My website Privacy Policy was still referring to the old Data Protection Act 1998. That’s now been brought up to date with UK GDPR / DPA 2018.

  • I’ve confirmed I don’t use analytics or tracking cookies and made that explicit.

  • My ICO registration certificate is now linked directly from the website – simple evidence that should always have been there.

  • Internally, I’ve created a specific ISO policy note to capture how I handle personal data.

• Companies House & identity verification:

  • I’ve gone through the new Companies House identity verification requirement, checked the deadlines and confirmed what’s already done vs what needs a final tick in January.

  • I’ve also organised statutory accounts, annual returns and confirmation statements into a clear year-by-year structure so I can actually find things when I need them.

• Stationery & terms:

  • This exercise flushed out some older “terms” documents that didn’t show full company details.

  • My quote and terms templates are now updated so the legal basics (company name, number, registration details) are consistently presented across client-facing documents.

• Accessibility & other future areas:

  • I’ve documented where I sit on W3C/WCAG and Equality Act “reasonable adjustments”, and how that translates into day-to-day web design work.

  • I’ve also flagged three areas for deeper future work: copyright & licensing (especially third-party assets and IP ownership), contracts/consumer law, and simple honesty in advertising and claims.

None of this is glamorous. Most of it is invisible to clients. But it’s exactly the kind of quiet, unexciting work that keeps a small business on solid ground.

What struck me most is this: it’s amazing how many things you think you know – until you force yourself to sit down, review them properly, and realise you didn’t.