Privacy notice

Last updated 22 October 2026

Who we are

WardIntel is run by Loomspark, which is the data controller for the information described here and is registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). Contact us about anything in this notice at privacy@wardintel.co.uk.

If you post in a local community group

What we collect

For each group we cover, we check that the group is public, then collect posts made during the reporting week. As each post arrives we throw away the author’s name, profile, picture and any photos or videos. To tell when one person is behind many posts on a subject, we turn each author into a code that only works for one week (the same code as their comments that week); after that week’s report we destroy the key, so the codes can’t be linked to anyone. We keep only:

• the text of the post
• when it was posted, and how many reactions and comments it had
• whether it had a photo or video (not the photo itself)
• the post’s link and ID, so we can avoid counting it twice

For busier posts and posts about topics our readers follow, we also read the comments, and occasionally replies. As with posts, we throw away who wrote each comment as it arrives (name, profile, picture, user ID and location), and keep only the comment’s text, when it was posted, and how many likes and replies it had. To tell when a few people are doing most of the talking, we turn each commenter into a code that only works for one week; after that week’s report we destroy the key, so the codes can’t be linked to anyone. We never read comments under posts about illness, bereavement or similar personal matters. When a serious incident is reported, we read comments only to tell readers whether the discussion has turned hostile, and delete them straight after.

Post text can still contain personal details, such as a name or a description of someone’s circumstances, so we treat it as personal data and handle it as described below.

Why, and our lawful basis

Councillors, council officers and MPs’ offices want to know what residents are raising, such as fly-tipping, road safety or reactions to a planning decision, and what is happening locally. Many of them already read these groups by hand. WardIntel does that reading for them and passes on the themes, so issues reach the people able to act on them. We also keep a record over time, so we can show how local issues develop from week to week and year to year.

Our lawful basis is legitimate interests (UK GDPR Article 6(1)(f)): the interest of these public representatives in understanding their communities, and our interest in providing that service. We have weighed this against your privacy and concluded that it is fair because of the safeguards below. We don’t seek out information about health, crime or other sensitive matters, and we take steps to keep it out of what we publish.

How we protect you

• Public groups only. We check every group before each run and skip any that are private.
• Details removed first. Phone numbers, email addresses, vehicle registrations, house numbers, full postcodes and tagged names are stripped out by our own software before any AI service sees the text.
• Names checked twice. The AI that writes the summary is told never to name private individuals; a second check looks for any names that slipped through, and a final automated check blocks a report from being published if anything still looks like personal information.
• Sensitive topics handled with care. Individual posts about mental health, suicide, self-harm, bereavement, illness or being a victim of crime are left out. Where many people raise such a topic, we describe it only in general terms, with no quotes or links.
• Fair reporting. Claims are reported as claims (“residents say”), not facts, and we never describe people by nationality, ethnicity, religion or immigration status.
• Reports aren’t public listings. Each report is reached only by a private link sent to its readers, and is hidden from search engines.

Short quotes and links

To show readers that a theme is real, a report may include a short quote, with personal details removed, and a link to the original post on Facebook. Our report does not show who wrote it, but someone who follows the link will see the post on Facebook as any member of the public could. If you’d rather your post wasn’t quoted or linked, tell us and we’ll remove it (see how to object).

A report may also quote a short comment, with personal details removed and labelled as a comment, with a link to the post it replied to. We don’t show who wrote it, but someone who follows the link may find the comment on Facebook. If you’d rather your comment wasn’t quoted, tell us and we’ll remove it.

Who else handles the data

We use these service providers, who act only on our instructions:

• SocialCrawl, which collects posts from public groups for us.
• Anthropic (Claude) and Google (Gemini), AI services that turn the post text into themes and event listings. They receive text only after the details above have been removed.
• Vercel, which hosts this website and the published reports, and runs our daily collection of posts in London. Reports contain no personal data.
• Neon, which hosts our database in London, where collected posts and our archive are stored, along with the anonymous counts of how reports are used.
• Postmark, which sends our email. It handles readers’ and enquirers’ email addresses and messages, never residents’ posts.

Some of these providers may process data outside the UK, including in the United States. Where they do, we rely on the safeguards UK law requires, such as the UK Extension to the EU–US Data Privacy Framework or the ICO’s international data transfer agreement.

Reports go to the councillors, officers and MPs’ offices who subscribe, and they may share them with colleagues. We don’t sell data or pass post text to anyone else.

How long we keep it

Everything below is stored in an encrypted database in London, separate from this website, and we review it every year.

• Posts as collected: deleted within 90 days. We keep them only long enough to check and, if needed, redo a report. The weekly codes for authors are destroyed after that week’s report.
• Comments as collected: deleted within 90 days, or straight after the weekly report for comments under a serious incident. The weekly codes for commenters are destroyed after that week’s report. Our archive keeps only counts about comments, never their text.
• Our archive: a copy of each post with phone numbers, email addresses, vehicle registrations, house numbers, full postcodes and tagged names removed, and still with no record of who wrote it. A name written in the text of a post may remain in the archive, but never appears in a report. Each post is labelled with the topics it relates to. We keep this for up to six years so we can track how local issues change over time and spot longer-term patterns. For posts about the sensitive topics listed above, we keep only the topic labels, not the text.
• Published reports (which contain no personal data): kept for up to six years, so readers can look back at earlier weeks.
• Overall counts and trends that can’t identify anyone may be kept for longer.

How to object or have your posts left out

You can object at any time and you don’t need to give a reason. Email privacy@wardintel.co.uk with the link to each post. We’ll delete those posts from our archive, leave them out of future reports, and remove any quote or link to them from reports already published. You can do the same if you’ve deleted a post on Facebook and want our copy gone too.

This includes comments: send us the link to your comment (on Facebook, select the time under your comment to get its link). We’ll delete it, leave it out of future reports and remove any quote of it from published reports.

Because we deliberately don’t keep who wrote each post, we can’t search our data by your name. Links to the posts are the most reliable way for us to find them. We’ll confirm what we’ve done within one month, and usually much sooner.

If you run a group, you can ask us to leave out your own posts in the same way. If you have concerns about the group as a whole, please get in touch and we’ll talk it through.

Your other rights

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

• ask for a copy of data we hold about you
• ask us to correct it, delete it, or limit how we use it
• complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office at ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint or on 0303 123 1113

We’d appreciate the chance to put things right first, so please contact us before going to the ICO. No decisions are made about you by automated means.

If you read a report or visit this site

• We don’t use cookies or third-party trackers.
• We count how reports are used, such as visits, how far people read and which links they follow, so we can make them more useful. We do this ourselves, in a way that can’t identify you: we don’t store your IP address, and counts can’t be linked from one day to the next. Some report links carry a code for a group of readers, such as an office, so we can see how that group uses them; it never identifies a person. If you use Share or Copy link, the link carries a random code so we can count how far a report is passed on; we never know who sent or opened it, and nobody sees who opened a link they shared. We keep the detailed counts for 90 days, then only totals.
• If you’d rather not be counted, use the button below, or turn on your browser’s Global Privacy Control setting.
• Our fonts and images are served from this site, so visiting it doesn’t send your details to Google, Facebook or anyone else.
• Our host, Vercel, briefly records technical details such as your IP address to keep the site running and secure.
• If you follow a link to Facebook from a report, Facebook’s own privacy policy applies from that point.
• If you subscribe or contact us, we use your name, email address, organisation and the areas you follow to send your reports and reply to you, and keep them while you subscribe and for up to 12 months after.

Changes to this notice

We’ll update this page if what we do changes, and change the date at the top.