Privacy policy

StudentSoc is run by [company name and registered address to be confirmed before launch]. We are the controller of the personal data described here. Our ICO registration number and a contact email for privacy questions will be published on this page before launch.

• Your uni email. We use it to sign you in with a one-time code and to work out which university you belong to. Clubs never see it.
• Your profile. Name, and if you choose: photo, course, graduation year and a short bio.
• Date of birth (optional). Only used to check you're 18 or over for 18+ events. Never shown to anyone.
• What you do with clubs and events. Clubs you join, follow or help run; events you mark Going or Interested; requests to join; posts and photos you add.
• Comments, reactions and Recap photos. Comments you write, the reaction you pick on a post or photo, and photos you add to an event Recap (with the confirmation you gave that the people in them are OK being shared).
• Polls and announcements. How you voted in a club poll, and whether you've opened an announcement or tapped “Got it”.
• Profile extras (optional). Pronouns, a banner colour, up to 8 interests from a fixed list (which leaves out faith, sexuality, politics, ethnicity and health), events you choose to show you've been to, and an Instagram handle.
• Notification settings. Which clubs you hear from and how, your quiet hours, and, if you turn on push notifications, a subscription code from your browser that lets us send to that device.
• Merch orders. What you ordered, sizes, any name or number to print, and whether you've collected it. We don't collect postal addresses. Card details go to our payment provider, never to us or the club.
• Safety records. Reports and photo removal requests you make, and moderation decisions about your account.
• Basic technical data. Sign-in and security logs. When you open an event we count the view, and clubs only ever see the total. When an ad is shown or tapped we add one to that day's total for that ad. We don't keep a record of which ads you've seen.

Joining some societies can reveal your religion, political views, sexuality or ethnic background. UK GDPR calls this special category data and gives it extra protection, and so do we. Clubs in these categories are always marked sensitive, and for them:

• The member list is visible to the club's committee only.
• Showing your membership publicly needs a separate, deliberate choice, with a clear warning, every time.
• Photos are visible to members only.
• Event pages never show who's going, only how many.
• Who wrote a club post is never shown, so committee members can't be identified that way.
• Only members can see or write comments, and other members see you as “A member”. The committee and our moderators can see your name, so people stay accountable.
• Only the committee adds Recap photos, and these clubs never appear in the uni-wide Recap or in ads.

We rely on your explicit consent for anything about these memberships that becomes visible to people outside the committee, and you can withdraw it at any time in Settings.

• Member lists are private by default. Only the club's committee sees who's a member. Other people see a count, plus anyone who chose to show their membership.
• Follows are private. Only you see which clubs you follow. Clubs see a number.
• RSVPs are private by default. The club's committee sees its own attendee list; other students only see you if you turn on “show me” for that event.
• Committee members appear on a club page only if they chose to when they accepted the role.
• Comments are visible to the people who can see the post. Your name is shown next to them, except in sensitive societies (see above).
• Reactions are counts only. People see how many of each reaction, never who. Not even the committee can see who reacted.
• Who added a Recap photo is visible only to the club's committee and our moderators. Everyone else sees it as the club's photo.
• Announcement reads are counts only. The committee sees “Seen by 41 of 120 · 33 got it”, never names.
• Poll votes: other members see totals. For availability polls (“Who's free Saturday?”) the committee and that team's captain see names, so they can pick a team.
• Blocks and mutes: the person you block isn't told. If a committee mutes you, you're told, but never which committee member did it.
• Our moderators can see reported content and the details needed to act on a report.

• To run the service you signed up for (contract): your account, clubs, events, comments, Recaps, merch orders, and the notifications you've set up (in the app, by push or by email).
• To keep people safe (legitimate interests): moderation, the comment word filter, blocks and mutes, preventing abuse and spam, and security.
• To show sponsored ads (legitimate interests): using only your university and whether you've passed the 18+ check. See the advertising policy.
• With your consent: showing your memberships or RSVPs publicly, and optional emails like a weekly digest. You can change these whenever you like.
• Because the law requires it: for example keeping records we're legally obliged to keep.

• Your account data: until you delete your account.
• When you delete your account we wait 14 days (in case you change your mind), then delete your profile, uni email, memberships, follows, RSVPs and notifications.
• Posts and club photos you added as a committee member stay with the club, with your name removed. Your comments and reactions are deleted, and so are photos you added to a Recap as a member.
• Recap photos that a committee doesn't approve within 14 days are deleted.
• Push subscriptions are deleted when you turn push off, or when your browser tells us the subscription has expired.
• A minimal activity log (actions and account ids, no names, emails or messages) is kept for up to 24 months for security and moderation.
• Photos removed after a privacy request are deleted straight away. Other removed photos are deleted after 30 days, so mistakes can be undone.
• If we find suspected child sexual abuse material, the law requires us to report it to the National Crime Agency and keep the content and related data securely for 1 year, and the report reference for 5 years. Nobody else can see it during that time.

Under UK GDPR you can:

• Get a copy of your data. Download it any time from Settings, Your data.
• Correct it. Edit your profile in Settings, or ask us.
• Delete it. Delete your account from Settings, Your data.
• Object to or restrict how we use it, and take it elsewhere (the download is a standard JSON file).

If you're unhappy with how we've handled your data, please tell us first. You can also complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk.

Some first-years are 17. Everyone starts with the most private settings, we never use your data for advertising profiles, and you won't be able to RSVP to 18+ events, see Recaps from 18+ or alcohol events, or see nightlife ads. Notifications about reactions are off by default. The uni-wide Recap is ranked the same way for everyone, not tailored to you. We follow the ICO's Age Appropriate Design Code.

Uni email addresses usually stop working after graduation. You can switch to an alumni account in Settings: you keep your clubs and history, your committee roles end, and the uni-wide feed is reserved for current students. You can delete your account at any point.

We use a small number of service providers who process data only on our instructions:

• Supabase, for our database, sign-in and photo storage [hosting region to be confirmed].
• Vercel, to host the app.
• Resend, to send sign-in codes, notifications and (if you've chosen it) the weekly digest. Resend is based in the USA, so your email address and the message leave the UK [safeguard to be confirmed: UK–US data bridge or UK transfer addendum].
• Your browser's push service (for example Apple, Google or Mozilla), which delivers push notifications to your device if you turn them on. We send only what the notification needs, and lock-screen text for sensitive societies never names the club.
• Stripe, to take card payments, when card payments are switched on.

We don't sell your data and we don't use advertising trackers.

We only use cookies we need: one to keep you signed in and one to remember light or dark mode. We don't use analytics or advertising cookies, and ads don't store anything on your device. If you turn on push notifications, your browser keeps the subscription it needs to deliver them.

If we make a meaningful change we'll tell you in the app before it takes effect, and record which version you accepted.