Legal · Data protection

Privacy Policy

Last updated: 13 November 2026.

Honest status: the FOI Director platform is in development and this website is a waitlist, not the live product. This policy covers the data this website collects today. The section "The hosted platform, once it launches" describes our intended approach for the product itself, with anything not yet in place clearly marked, so you know exactly where things stand.

Who we are

FOI Director is a service from Optima Information & Research, operated by Darren Hale, based in the South West of England. For any data protection query, contact hello@foidirector.co.uk. We are the data controller for the personal data described below.

What we collect on this website

Waitlist signups: the name and email address you submit through the "Get notified" form.
Analytics (only if you accept cookies): page views and referral source via Google Analytics, with your IP address anonymised.

We do not collect payment details, government ID, or special-category data through this website.

Why we process it, and our legal basis

Waitlist name and email: processed with your consent, given by submitting the form, to notify you when the hosted platform opens.
Analytics: processed with your consent, given via the cookie banner. Nothing loads until you accept.

Who we share it with

We use the following processors to run this website. None of them are permitted to use your data for their own purposes.

Formspree, Inc. (United States) receives and stores waitlist form submissions on our behalf. Formspree's own privacy policy applies to this transfer, which relies on Formspree's standard contractual clauses for UK/EU data.
Google Ireland Limited (Google Analytics) receives anonymised traffic data, but only if you accept analytics cookies.
Cloudflare, Inc. (United States) hosts this website on its global network and forwards email sent to our addresses. Cloudflare's own privacy policy applies, and its data processing addendum covers transfers of UK/EU data with standard contractual clauses.
Zoho Corporation B.V. (Netherlands) provides our mailbox, hosted in its EU data centres.

We do not sell personal data, and we do not use advertising or cross-site tracking cookies.

How long we keep it

Waitlist entries are kept until the hosted platform launches and you either convert to an account or ask us to delete your entry, or for a maximum of 24 months of inactivity, whichever comes first. Analytics data is retained in Google Analytics for 14 months, Google's shortest available setting.

Your rights

Under UK GDPR, you have the right to:

ask what personal data we hold about you, and get a copy of it;
have inaccurate data corrected;
ask us to delete your data: for the waitlist, simply reply to any email from us or contact us below;
object to or restrict processing based on consent, at any time and with no effect on any other services;
withdraw consent at any time, as easily as you gave it;
complain to the UK's data protection regulator, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), if you think we've handled your data wrongly.

Cookies

This site uses Google Analytics to understand traffic (page views, referral source), but only if you accept the cookie banner when you first visit. If you decline, or don't respond, no analytics script loads and no analytics cookies are set. IP addresses are anonymised in Analytics. We don't use advertising or cross-site tracking cookies. You can change your choice at any time via "Cookie settings" below.

The hosted platform, once it launches

The items below describe our intended and in-progress approach to data handling for the FOI Director product itself, once the hosted version is live. Some of it, marked below, is not yet in place.

Account details (name, email, organisation), connected email credentials or OAuth tokens used only to send and receive your FOI correspondence, and the FOI questions, authority lists, and correspondence you send through the platform.
Credentials and tokens encrypted at rest. Not yet complete.
Hosted on infrastructure with HTTPS throughout. In progress.
A data processing agreement for platform customers. Not yet published.
An independent security review before public launch. Not yet scheduled.

You'll be able to export or delete your platform data on request once it's live.

Changes to this policy

If we change how we handle your data, we'll update this page and change the "Last updated" date above.

Questions

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