Privacy Policy — Adviser Forum

1. Who we are

Adviser Forum Ltd ("Adviser Forum", "we", "us") is the data controller for the personal data described in this notice. We are registered in England & Wales. If you need to reach us about privacy, email privacy@adviserforum.co.uk.

Our full registered address and ICO registration number will appear here once confirmed by the Adviser Forum team.

2. The personal data we process

Account data — name, email address, encrypted password, and any profile fields you choose to complete (job title, company, professional type, location, bio, website, LinkedIn URL).
Verification data — when you request to become a verified professional, we process your company email, company name and (optionally) FCA number and supporting information you supply.
Content you publish — discussions, replies, likes, bookmarks, reports you file and files you attach. This content is visible to other users according to the visibility of the discussion or your profile settings.
Preferences — your email digest, notification, privacy and cookie choices.
Usage data — server logs (IP address, user agent, requested page, timestamp) kept for security, abuse-prevention and debugging.
Consent records — a record of the cookie choices you make, including which categories you accepted and the version of the policy shown.

We do not knowingly collect data from anyone under 18. Adviser Forum is a professional community and is not directed at children.

3. Why we process it (lawful bases)

Contract (UK GDPR Art. 6(1)(b)) — creating your account, letting you post, reply, message, save bookmarks and use the forum you signed up for.
Legitimate interests (Art. 6(1)(f)) — keeping the platform secure, moderating content, preventing fraud and abuse, and understanding aggregate usage. We balance these interests against your rights.
Consent (Art. 6(1)(a)) — non-essential cookies, marketing emails and any optional analytics. You can withdraw consent at any time.
Legal obligation (Art. 6(1)(c)) — responding to lawful requests from regulators, courts or law enforcement.

4. Who we share it with

Adviser Forum does not sell personal data. We share it only with:

Our hosting and backend platform — Lovable Cloud (which uses Supabase and Cloudflare) provides the database, authentication and edge infrastructure for the forum. They act as our processor.
Email delivery — a transactional email provider sends account-critical emails (verification, password reset, moderation notices) and, with your consent, digest or marketing emails.
Search engines — public profile pages and public discussions may be indexed by search engines. You can turn off indexing of your profile in Privacy settings.
Authorities — where required by law or a valid legal request.

5. International transfers

Some processors may store or process data outside the UK. Where they do, we rely on UK adequacy decisions or the ICO's International Data Transfer Agreement / Addendum to protect the data to UK standards.

6. How long we keep it

Account and profile data — while your account is active, then anonymised on account closure. Posts already published in public discussions are kept but the author is anonymised.
Verification requests — kept for as long as your verified status is active plus 2 years, for audit.
Moderation and reports — kept for 3 years so we can address repeat abuse.
Consent records — kept for 3 years as evidence of your choice.
Server logs — 90 days, then deleted or aggregated.

7. Your rights

Under UK GDPR you can ask us to:

give you a copy of the personal data we hold about you (access);
correct data that is wrong (rectification);
delete data where the legal basis for keeping it no longer applies (erasure);
restrict or object to certain processing;
port a copy of your data to another service;
withdraw consent for any processing you previously agreed to.

The fastest way to use these rights is through your Privacy settings — you can download your data, correct your profile, withdraw marketing consent, and ask for deletion or account closure. You can also email privacy@adviserforum.co.uk. We aim to respond within one month.

8. Complaints

You have the right to complain to the UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) at ico.org.uk if you believe we've mishandled your data. We'd appreciate the chance to put it right first.

9. Security

We use encrypted connections (TLS) for all traffic, encrypted storage at rest, role-based access controls and row-level security so members can only see the data they're supposed to see. We keep audit logs of moderation and administrative actions.

10. Cookies

We use a small number of cookies. See the Cookie Policy for the full inventory and the categories you can turn on or off.

11. Changes to this notice

When we make a material change we bump the policy version and, where required, ask you to review your consent choices again. We keep older versions on file so you can see what applied at any point in time.