Privacy & Cookies Policy

Last updated: 19 May 2026

This policy explains how the Social Architecture Collective ("SAC", "we", "us", "our") collects, uses, and protects information about visitors to socialarchitecturecollective.org and people who interact with us.

Who we are

The Social Architecture Collective is an informal collective. We are not a trading entity. For the purposes of UK data protection law, we are the data controller for the personal information we hold about you.You can contact us at hello@socialarchitecturecollective.org.

Analytics

This website collects personal information to power site analytics, including:

  • Information about your browser, network, and device

  • Web pages you visited prior to coming to this website

  • Your IP address

This information may also include details about your use of this website, including clicks, internal links, pages visited, scrolling, searches, and timestamps. We provide this information to Squarespace, our website analytics provider, to learn about site traffic and activity.

Cookies

This website uses cookies and similar technologies, which are small files or pieces of text that download to a device when a visitor accesses a website. For information about the specific cookies set, see the cookies Squarespace uses.

You can control cookies through your browser settings. Blocking or deleting them may affect how the site works.

Website usage

Visiting -This website is hosted by Squarespace. Squarespace collects personal information when you visit, including information about your browser, network and device; web pages you visited prior to coming here; web pages you view while on this site; and your IP address. Squarespace needs this data to run the website and to protect and improve its platform. You can read more in Squarespace's Privacy Policy.

Forms - When you submit information via a webform, we collect the data requested in the form in order to respond to your submission. We provide this information to Squarespace, our website hosting provider, so they can provide website services to us and help us manage our relationship with you.

Joining / subscribing - When you register or subscribe on this website, we collect personal information such as your name, email address, phone number, and details relating to your subscription, to enable member access. We provide this information to Squarespace so they can provide member site hosting services and help us manage our relationship with you.

Engagement - This website includes commenting functionality on some pages. When you post a comment, we collect:

  • Your name (which will be displayed as part of your posted comment)

  • Your email address (optional, to let you know if someone replies to your comment)

  • Your website URL (optional)

The site also includes "likes" functionality on some blog posts. When you like a post, we collect information about your browser, network and device, details about the page, and your IP address, to prevent duplicate likes during the same visit.

Marketing

We may occasionally send you marketing emails about our activities, events, or updates. These are sent directly by us from our own email account, rather than through a third-party email marketing service. You can unsubscribe at any time by emailing hello@socialarchitecturecollective.org and we will remove your details from our mailing list.

We will only contact you for marketing purposes where you have given us specific consent to do so.

Legal basis for processing

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

  • Consent — for sending marketing communications and for setting non-essential cookies

  • Legitimate interests — for responding to enquiries, basic analytics, and keeping our site secure

  • Contract — where we need to process your data to deliver something you've signed up for (e.g. an event or membership)

  • Legal obligation — where we're required to retain certain information by law

How long we keep your information

We keep personal information only as long as we need it for the purpose we collected it.

  • Enquiry correspondence — kept for 2 years, then deleted

  • Mailing list subscribers — kept until you unsubscribe

  • Event and membership records — kept for 3 years after the relevant event or end of membership

Sharing your information

We do not sell your personal information. We share it only with trusted service providers who help us run our work:

  • Squarespace — website hosting, analytics, forms, and member areas

  • Google (Gmail) — handles our email, including any marketing emails we send

  • Namecheap — domain registration and email forwarding

These providers are contractually required to protect your information and only use it on our instructions. Some may transfer data outside the UK; where they do, appropriate safeguards (such as Standard Contractual Clauses) are in place.

We may also share information where we are legally required to do so.

Your rights

Under UK data protection law, you have the right to:

  • Access the personal information we hold about you

  • Correct information that is inaccurate or incomplete

  • Erase your information in certain circumstances

  • Restrict or object to our processing of your information

  • Portability — receive your data in a structured format

  • Withdraw consent at any time, where consent is the legal basis

To exercise any of these rights, email hello@socialarchitecturecollective.org. We will respond within one month.

If you are unhappy with how we have handled your information, you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) at ico.org.uk or 0303 123 1113.

Security

We take reasonable steps to protect your information from unauthorised access, loss, or misuse. However, no online transmission is ever completely secure, so we cannot guarantee absolute security.

Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. The date at the top shows when it was last revised. Significant changes will be communicated through our website.

Contact us

Questions about this policy or your data via email at hello@socialarchitecturecollective.org