Privacy Policy

1. Who we are

The Village (“we”, “us”, “our”) is a members-only childcare exchange community for parents and carers in London. We are the data controller for personal data collected through this website.

2. What data we collect

When you submit an application to join The Village, we collect:

• Identity data: your full name
• Contact data: your email address
• Location data: your London neighbourhood
• Family data: number and age ranges of your children
• Safeguarding data: DBS check status and recency
• Availability data: when you need and can provide childcare
• Preference data: what appeals to you about The Village
• Professional data: LinkedIn profile URL (optional)
• Free-text data: any additional comments you provide
• Referral data: who referred you (optional)
• Consent records: your communication preferences

3. Legal basis for processing

We process your personal data on the following legal bases under UK GDPR:

• Consent (Article 6(1)(a)): You provide explicit consent when submitting your application and optionally opting in to marketing communications.
• Legitimate interests (Article 6(1)(f)): We have a legitimate interest in processing applications to operate our childcare exchange service, provided this does not override your data protection rights.
• Contract performance (Article 6(1)(b)): Processing is necessary to assess your membership application and, if accepted, to provide our service.

4. How we use your data

• To process and assess your membership application
• To communicate with you about your application status
• To match you with other parents in your neighbourhood
• To send you marketing communications (only with your opt-in consent)
• To understand demand patterns and improve our service
• To maintain the safety and integrity of our community

5. Data sharing

We do not sell your personal data. We may share your data with:

• Other verified members: Limited profile information (name, neighbourhood, availability) is shared with approved, DBS-checked members to facilitate childcare matches.
• Service providers: We use third-party services for hosting and email delivery. These providers process data on our behalf under data processing agreements.

We will never share your DBS status details, children’s specific ages, or free-text comments with other members.

6. Data retention

We retain your application data for the duration of your membership plus 12 months after any withdrawal or account closure. If your application is not accepted, we retain your data for 6 months to allow re-application, then delete it.

7. Your rights

Under UK GDPR, you have the right to:

• Access: Request a copy of the personal data we hold about you
• Rectification: Ask us to correct inaccurate data
• Erasure: Ask us to delete your data (“right to be forgotten”)
• Restriction: Ask us to limit how we use your data
• Portability: Receive your data in a machine-readable format
• Objection: Object to processing based on legitimate interests
• Withdraw consent: Withdraw marketing consent at any time

To exercise any of these rights, email us at privacy@thevillage.community. We will respond within 30 days.

8. Data security

We implement appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect your personal data, including encrypted connections (HTTPS), secure server-side authentication, CSRF protection, and access controls on our admin systems. However, no system is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.

We maintain audit logs of administrative access to your data. These logs record the type of action performed (e.g. login, data access, data export), the date and time, and the IP address of the administrator. Audit logs do not contain your personal data and are retained for up to 12 months for security and accountability purposes in accordance with UK GDPR Article 5(1)(f).

9. Children’s data

We collect age ranges of your children (not names or specific dates of birth) solely for the purpose of matching families with compatible childcare partners. We do not collect personal data directly from children.

10. Cookies

This website uses essential cookies only (session authentication for admin access). We do not use tracking cookies, analytics cookies, or advertising cookies.

11. Changes to this policy

We may update this privacy policy from time to time. We will notify you of material changes via email if you have opted in to communications, or by posting a notice on our website.

12. Contact & complaints

For any privacy-related queries, contact us at privacy@thevillage.community.

If you are unsatisfied with our response, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) at ico.org.uk.