Privacy policy
What we collect, why we use it, and the control you keep over it.
1. Who we are
Forestry Connect is a sole trader business based at 3 Salisbury Avenue, Hawick, TD9 9NY, United Kingdom, and is the data controller for the personal information you give us. We are registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office, registration number 00015610855. If you have a question about any of this, get in touch or email dale@forestryconnect.co.uk.
2. What we collect
- Account details: your name, email address and password (your password is stored hashed, so nobody can read it, including us).
- Profile details you choose to add: photo, headline, bio, location, contact details, website, social links, specialisms, skills and certifications.
- Content you post: feed posts and comments, including any photos and videos in them, private messages, job listings and job alerts.
- Feedback you send us: anything you send with the Feedback button, including any screenshot, with your name, the page you were on and your device, so we can look into it and reply.
- Billing: payments are processed by Stripe. We never see or store your card number; we hold your subscription status and payment history references.
- Technical: login times, IP address and device information for security (for example our one-time email login codes), and basic usage records.
3. Why we use it
- To run your membership: your profile, the feed, the directory, messaging, jobs and billing (performance of our contract with you).
- To keep the platform safe: login security, moderation of reported content, and fraud prevention (legitimate interests).
- To email you: service emails (login codes, invoices, account changes) always; notification emails only as set in your account preferences.
- To understand how the public pages of the site are used, through Google Analytics, but only if you accept analytics cookies (your consent). See our cookie policy.
- To send our newsletter: when you join, we add you to our newsletter unless you tick the box asking us not to, and we add anyone who signs up through the form at the foot of the site. Every newsletter has an unsubscribe link (legitimate interests, and your consent for the sign-up form).
4. Your choices and rights
- Your profile is hidden from the directory until you choose to list it, and you control which contact details show.
- You can see, correct or delete your information at any time, yourself. In your account settings, Download my data gives you a copy of everything we hold about you, and your profile and account pages let you correct it.
- You can close your account from your account settings, under Delete my account. If you have a paid membership it stops straight away. The confirmation email includes a link to restore the account within 30 days if you change your mind.
- For anything else about your information, email dale@forestryconnect.co.uk and we will respond within one month.
- You can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ico.org.uk) if you are unhappy with how we handle your data.
5. Sharing and retention
- We share data only with the services that run the platform: Stripe (payments), our hosting provider, our video service (Bunny.net, which stores the videos members post, in Germany and the UK, and plays them only to signed-in members), our email delivery service (Mailgun), our newsletter service (Mailchimp), and Google Analytics if you accept analytics cookies. We do not sell your data.
- Like most websites, our pages load a few things from other services, which therefore see your IP address when a page opens: typefaces from Adobe Fonts, icons from Font Awesome, and, on the directory map, map images from OpenStreetMap and the map software from cdnjs. Postcodes are looked up with postcodes.io to place members on the map.
- While you are a member, we keep your account and profile so the platform works for you. A paying member’s account is never removed for inactivity.
- If you close your account, or we remove it, it is hidden straight away and your personal details are erased 30 days later. Until then it can be restored if you change your mind.
- If you have no membership and do not log in for 12 months, we erase your account.
- When an account is erased we delete your name, email address, photo, profile, contact details, connections, login history and any feedback you sent. Posts, comments and messages you shared stay where they are, so other members’ conversations still make sense, but they show as from “Former member” with nothing linking them to you.
- Payment records are kept by Stripe for six years, because UK tax law requires it.
- Security records, such as login times and IP addresses, are kept for 12 months. Messages sent through our contact form are kept for 24 months, and feedback you send with the Feedback button for 24 months after we have dealt with it.
6. Keeping it safe
Every login needs your password plus a one-time code sent to your email address, so a stolen password on its own is not enough to reach your account. Passwords are stored hashed, traffic is encrypted in transit, and card details never touch our servers.
7. Cookies
See our cookie policy for what we set and why, and how to change your mind.