Data Protection Policy

1. Who we are

Hello Village is a not-for-profit community platform serving Forest Row (RH18) and other rural villages. We act as the data controller for personal information collected through this website.

For any data-protection question, contact us at FR@hello-village.org .

2. What information we collect

We collect only the information needed to publish community events and keep the platform running.

Event information

• Event title, description, date and time
• Venue or location details
• Category, tags, and price (if any)
• Images, posters, or other media you choose to upload
• Links to external booking, ticketing or social-media pages

Event organiser contact information

• Organiser or group name
• Contact name (where provided)
• Email address
• Telephone number (optional)
• Website or social-media handles (optional)

Account information

• Email address and securely hashed password for registered users
• Role (organiser or administrator) and basic activity logs

Technical information

• Basic server logs (IP address, browser type, pages visited) kept for security and abuse-prevention purposes
• Essential session cookies needed to keep you signed in

3. How we use your information

Event data

Information submitted through "Submit New Event" — including the event description, venue, images, and any public-facing contact links — is published openly on this website once approved, and may also appear on the village's physical notice boards and in printed listings.

Approved event data is indexed by search engines and may be shared with partner community publications (for example, parish newsletters).

Organiser contact information

We use organiser contact details to:

• Confirm submitted events and ask follow-up questions
• Notify you of approval, rejection, or required changes
• Send occasional service emails about your account or listings

We only publish the contact details you explicitly mark as public on an event listing (for example, a booking email or phone number). Private organiser contact details are visible to Hello Village administrators only and are never sold, rented, or shared with third parties for marketing.

4. Lawful basis

Under UK GDPR, we rely on the following lawful bases:

• Consent — when you submit an event or register an account, you consent to the processing described in this policy.
• Legitimate interests — to run the platform securely, prevent abuse, and provide a useful community service to residents of Forest Row and partner villages.

5. How long we keep it

• Approved events — kept indefinitely as part of the village's public events archive. You can ask us to remove a past listing at any time.
• Draft or rejected events — deleted after 12 months of inactivity.
• Organiser accounts — kept while the account is active. Inactive accounts (no sign-in for 24 months) are anonymised or deleted.
• Server and access logs — kept for up to 90 days for security purposes.

6. Who we share data with

We use a small number of trusted service providers to run the platform:

• Fly.io — application hosting and database (data stored in the UK / EEA where possible)
• Tigris — image and file storage
• Upstash — caching and rate-limiting
• Email delivery provider — for transactional emails

These providers process data on our behalf under written contracts and are not permitted to use it for their own purposes. We do not sell personal data, and we do not use third-party advertising or profiling cookies.

7. Your rights

Under UK GDPR you have the right to:

• Access the personal data we hold about you
• Ask us to correct inaccurate data
• Ask us to delete your data ("right to be forgotten")
• Restrict or object to how we use your data
• Request a copy of your data in a portable format
• Withdraw consent at any time

To exercise any of these rights, email FR@hello-village.org . We aim to respond within 30 days.

If you are not satisfied with our response, you can complain to the UK Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk .

8. Security

We protect data with HTTPS encryption in transit, encrypted database storage, and securely hashed passwords. Access to organiser contact information is limited to authorised Hello Village administrators.

9. Children

Hello Village is intended for adults aged 18 and over. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children. If you believe a child has submitted personal information, please contact us so we can remove it.

10. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. Material changes will be announced on the homepage or by email to registered organisers. The "Last updated" date above always shows the current version.