TheyWorkForYou is run by the charity mySociety.
Working in the fields of transparency and accountability, mySociety thinks hard and cares very much about the privacy and security of our users: the length of this privacy policy is one demonstration of that. We’ve tried, though, to keep it a clear and reasonably quick read.
We hope it covers everything you need to know, but if you still have any questions please feel free to contact us.
Our basic privacy policy is very simple:
If you’d like to know more, read on.
If you sign up to receive alert emails, we collect your email address along with the name of the MP, postcode, or the keywords to which you subscribe.
We’ll send you an email every time your chosen keyword/s are spoken in a parliament or assembly we cover, or every time your chosen MP speaks. At most (depending on how common your keyword is, and how often your MP speaks), these will come at a frequency of one a day and only while a parliament or assembly we cover is in session.
We may analyse alert sign-up data in aggregate, to understand volumes and trends in what interests citizens in parliamentary proceedings. If so, the data is anonymised, ie, stripped of all information which would identify a specific user. Our Research Data Release policy may be seen on request.
If you register with the site, we collect your full name and email address, and — if you opt to provide them — your postcode and the URL of your website.
We do not use this data for any purpose other than to allow you to log in to the site.
If you register as a paying customer for the API, your name, contact details, payment and security details are held by the payment processor Stripe, whose usage terms and privacy policy can be seen here: stripe.com/gb/privacy. Your name, email address, the billing address of your card and the last few digits of your card or bank account number are made available to us along with your purchase history. We use these to issue invoices and send you important information about changes or updates to the service.
If you contact us by email, your message will be accessible to our small team of support staff. We adhere to strict internal privacy policies which may be viewed on request.
Your personal information is never shared, or used for purposes other than the above.
There is a link at the foot of every email we send you. Please follow this link to pause or cancel your alerts. No log-in is required.
If you have problems unsubscribing, you can contact us on [email protected].
Please contact us on [email protected].
In all cases listed above, with the exception of paying API customers, we retain your personal data until such a time as you unsubscribe, ask us to remove your details, or terminate your account.
We are obliged to keep records relating to financial transactions for at least six years following the end of the accounting period in which the transaction took place. We destroy our records after this point.
If you contact TheyWorkForYou via our support email address we reserve the right to keep your support message for up to two years. This is to aid continuity and so that we can view any historic context which may have bearing on subsequent support mail, even if members of the support staff change. Support staff adhere to internal privacy policies which may be viewed on request.
In order to improve the site, we occasionally run surveys to help us understand who uses the site and what they want. The answers are completely anonymous, so we don’t collect any personal information. The data may be used to inform our research.
When you use any of the functions listed above (email alerts, site registration or newsletters), our legal basis for processing your personal data is legitimate interests, described in section 6(1)(f) of the General Data Protection Regulation. We believe we have a legitimate interest in providing you with email alerts on issues you care about being mentioned in Parliament. We believe there is a wider societal benefit too in this greater understanding and scrutiny of the actions of elected representatives.
For API users, our legal basis for processing information is in the fulfillment of a contract.
You may contact us at any time to ask to see what personal data we hold about you. Please contact us to request this.
The General Data Protection Regulation gives you the right to object to our processing of your personal information and to ask us to stop processing it. However, it also gives us the right to continue to process it if we can demonstrate compelling legitimate grounds for the processing that override your interests, rights and freedoms. To exercise your right to object, you can contact us, giving specific reasons why you are objecting to the processing of your personal data. These reasons should be based upon your particular situation.
You have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office. You can report a concern here (but do contact us first, so that we can try and help).
We use cookies to save you from having to repeatedly sign in to the site, and also to remember your postcode. We may also use them to record if you've answered one of the survey questions we ask. The site will work with cookies disabled, but it won't be as good.
We use Google Analytics software to collect information about how you use this site. We do this to help make sure the site is meeting the needs of its users and to help us make improvements.
Google Analytics stores information such as what pages you visit, how long you are on the site, how you got here, what you click on, and information about your web browser. IP addresses are masked (only a portion is stored) and personal information is only reported in aggregate. We do not allow Google to use or share our analytics data for any purpose besides providing us with analytics information, and we recommend that any user of Google Analytics does the same.
You can opt out of Google Analytics tracking.
If you want to disable advertising-based tracking, you can adjust your Google Ads Settings, or opt out of advertising-based tracking across a number of providers in one go using the Network Advertising Initiative’s opt-out form.
Rest assured, we only track usage data for one reason: to help us understand how we can make the site work better for you, our users.
TheyWorkForYou is run by mySociety, a UK not-for-profit social enterprise. Our registered address is:
mySociety
483 Green Lanes
London
N13 4BS
United Kingdom
…and we can also be contacted at [email protected].
