Legal
Privacy Policy
A plain-English summary of what we collect, why, and what you can ask us to do about it.
Placeholder — legal review required
The text on this page was drafted for a prototype to show the shape and tone of the policy. It is GDPR-aware but has not been reviewed by a qualified adviser and must not be relied upon or published as-is.
Who we are
British Overseas Voters Forum (“BOVF”, “we”) is the data controller for the information described here. A non-partisan, volunteer-run, unincorporated community interest group founded in 2023.
Registered office: Flat 1, Hays Court, 133 Rotherhithe Street, London SE16 4NF, United Kingdom.
Contact: bovf@bovf.org.uk
What we collect, and why
| Data | Why we hold it | Lawful basis |
|---|---|---|
| Email address | To send you the updates you asked for | Consent |
| Name (optional) | So we can address you properly | Consent |
| Country of residence | To connect you to your branch and relevant issues | Consent |
| Issue of interest | So we send you what is relevant rather than everything | Consent |
| Last UK postcode (optional) | To identify your electoral registration office in the Registration Concierge | Consent |
| Signup source and referral code | To understand which of our activities actually reach people | Legitimate interests |
| Consent record and timestamp | To evidence that you agreed, and to what wording | Legal obligation |
| Membership status and policy groups | To administer your membership | Contract |
What we do not collect
- Payment card details. We never see or store them.
- Your electoral registration details. Registration happens on gov.uk. We provide guidance only and have no access to the electoral roll or to any application you make.
- How you vote or intend to vote. We do not ask and we would not want to know.
- Special category data — health, ethnicity, religion, political opinions — unless you volunteer it in correspondence.
Who we share it with
We do not sell, rent or trade personal data, and we do not share it with political parties. We share it only with service providers necessary to run the site (hosting and database), under contract and on our instructions.
How long we keep it
- Supporters: until you unsubscribe, plus a short period to honour the unsubscribe.
- Members: for the membership term plus the period required for financial records.
- Consent records: for as long as we rely on the consent, plus a reasonable period afterwards as evidence.
Your rights
Under UK GDPR you may ask us to:
- give you a copy of the data we hold about you;
- correct anything inaccurate;
- delete your data;
- stop or restrict a particular use;
- withdraw consent at any time — every email we send carries an unsubscribe link.
Email bovf@bovf.org.uk and we will respond within one month. You may also complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office.
Cookies and tracking
This site sets one cookie, and only once you sign in: a session cookie that keeps you signed in. It is strictly necessary and carries no advertising or analytics identifier.
Referral codes and a page-view counter are held in your browser’s session storage, not in cookies, and are cleared when you close the tab. There is no third-party analytics, no advertising pixel and no cross-site tracking on this site.
Where your data is held
Data is held in a hosted database within the UK or EEA. For this prototype, data is held in a demonstration database containing seeded, fictitious records.
Prototype data handling
This is a demonstration build. No payment is taken at any point and no email is sent by this site — messages that would be emailed are written to a log visible in the admin dashboard, labelled “SIMULATED”. Most records in the database are seeded fictitious data created to make the dashboard legible.