Privacy Policy

FutureGov is a limited company based in the UK. In addition to consultancy services we run this website (wearefuturegov.com) as well as the digital products and prototypes listed on our products pages (wearefuturegov.com/products). As a company we apply human centered design processes to our work. This means putting people first, understanding their needs and respecting their rights. This includes respecting their rights to data protection as protected in law.

This page details the data FutureGov may collect about you and how we use it. It also includes information relating to third parties we may use to store and process your data.

If you’ve got any questions, or want to exercise your rights to request a copy of the data we might have collected about you for review or to request it’s deletion then please contact us at [email protected]. Further information around exercising your rights can be found here.

How we work to protect your privacy

Whether we are conducting research, designing services or building digital products we will always conduct our work with the privacy of individuals in mind. This means collecting as little personal data as possible, storing it securely and being clear about how we will use that data. When collecting data we ask for consent in ways that are clear, simple and easy to understand. If at any time you have reason to believe we have not acted in this way then please do not hesitate to contact us. We have implemented the appropriate technical and organisational measures to ensure that your personal data is stored with a high level of security.

When we collect your information and how it’s used

If you register an account to use one of our products.

If you have registered an account for one of our products we use your email address to allow you to interact with the product, store your preferences and be notified by email about information that you have indicated is of interest to you (we will always give you a clear opt out). Further information can be found on the individual terms page relating to that individual product.

If you provide feedback on a product survey or report a problem.

Product surveys are used to improve our products and services and we only collect your contact information if you have indicated that you wish us to contact you with follow up information. Once you are satisfied the issue is resolved we will delete your contact information unless otherwise indicated.

If you participate in user research as part of one of our projects.

User research is used to inform and improve the design of products and services created by FutureGov or on behalf of our clients. On all of our projects we start by undertaking a Data Impact Assessment. This ensures we think about the level of information we need and consider things like consent carefully before starting work. User research is conducted after obtaining specific consent from participants. This consent will explain what data is being collected, how it will be stored and how it will be used. In general terms we keep the amount of personally identifiable information in our research to a minimum and outside of a team working on a project the information we share about people is a high level synthesis.

If you sign up to one of our events or newsletters.

FutureGov operates two email newsletters. One is used to update partners and clients of important company news and events and the other is a weekly curated digest of news relevant to our sector. The subscriber data is only used for the purposes of operating these services and subscribers have the ability to unsubscribe at any time. If anybody has given us their contact information in relation to one of our events then this information is only used to contact them in relation to this event and will only be stored for further marketing purposes if explicit consent is given.

If you visit any of our websites.

Website usage information is used and stored to understand and improve the experience of our products and services. The information stored is aggregated and anonymous but could include information about what pages you’ve visited, what features you have used during your visit, your computer's IP address & geolocation information and the duration of your visit.

Services we use to process data

Below is a list of third party services we use to store and process your data, a description of how we use them and links to the privacy policies of these parties. We have done a thorough review to make sure these companies are fully compliant with GDPR.

• Sendgrid - Is a service that our products use to send emails to users to ensure efficient and effective email delivery. (Privacy Policy)

• SupportBee - Any replies to our automated emails are processed by this service so we can track responses and offer a better service (Privacy Policy)

• Google Analytics - Is used to collect and analyse website data across all of our sites. You can opt out of being tracked by google here (Privacy Policy)

• AppSignal - Is used for performance monitoring and error handling. We use the service to capture errors when things go wrong with anonymised data (Privacy Policy)

• Feedbackify - Is a service we use to capture product feedback. This can be used anonymously or you can provide an email address if you'd like us to contact you. Feedbackify privacy policy can be found (Privacy Policy)

• Memset / Linode / AWS (through Heroku) - Cloud hosting providers for our UK based products. These not only host our application servers but also our databases that store all user account data. (All data remains within the EU).

• Mittwald - Our German hosting provider for our German clients. Not only host our application servers but also the databases for these products.

• Binary Lane - Our Australia hosting provider for our live products in Australia. Not only host our application servers but also the databases for these products.

• Cloudflare - Is a service which we use as a content delivery network, protecting us from malicious attacks and improving the performance of our websites. (Privacy Policy)

Your data and your rights

When collecting and storing your personal data Futuregov will adhere to your rights as outlined by the GDPR to access, rectify and/or remove your data entirely. Upon request Futuregov will respond within 30 days:

• Providing confirmation as to whether or not your personal data is being processed, by us and any third party tools
• Send you your personal data in a structured and machine-readable format to you and / or another service that you have instructed us to transfer the data to.
• Update and rectify any inaccurate personal data as requested.
• Erase all your personal data from our systems and our third party processing tools.

If you’ve got any questions, or want to exercise your rights as stated above, then please write to us at [email protected].

FutureGov’s Data Protection Lead

FutureGov has appointed an internal Data Protection Lead. They are responsible for keeping this policy up to date and for helping us make sure we follow these practices in our everyday work.

To contact our Data Protection Lead - Stuart Mackenzie, please email [email protected].