What information do we collect?

We collect information about the activity that occurs on the Support Broker. This includes aspects such as registration and engagement i.e. reading, writing, and evaluating the content shared here.

When registering on the Support Broker, you will be asked to enter your name and e-mail address. Please ensure you use your official email address and your legal name as we would like all our members to trust each other on the Support Broker. Your email address will be verified by an email containing a unique link. If that link is visited, we know that you control the e-mail address.

For safety and auditing purposes, when registering and posting, we record the IP address that the post originated from. We may also retain server logs which include the IP address of every request to our server.

What do we use your information for?

Any of the information we collect from you may be used in one of the following ways:

• To personalise your experience — your information helps us to better respond to your individual needs.
• To improve The Support Broker — we continually strive to improve our site offerings based on the information and feedback we receive from you.
• To improve member service — your information helps us to more effectively respond to your member service requests and support needs.
• To send periodic emails — The email address you provide may be used to send you information, notifications that you request about changes to topics or in response to your user name, respond to inquiries, and/or other requests or questions.

How do we protect your information?

We implement a variety of security measures to maintain the safety of your personal information when you enter, submit, or access your personal information.

What is your data retention policy?

We will make a good faith effort to:

• Retain email server logs containing the IP address of all requests to this server no more than 90 days.
• Retain IP address logs for security monitoring for no more than 90 days.
• Maintain platform backups on a rolling 7-day cycle, with a maximum of 5 backups retained (35 days total).
• Retain account information and user-generated content for the duration of your participation in the CyCOS project and indefinitely afterwards for research purposes.

If you decide to delete your account, it will be removed from active systems but may persist in backups for up to 35 days. Forum posts will be anonymised rather than deleted as otherwise it would affect the flow of discussions. You may request full deletion of your personal data by reaching us at contact@cycos.org and this is subject to legal and regulatory retention requirements.

Do we use cookies?

Yes. Cookies enable the site to recognise your browser and, if you have a registered account, associate it with your registered account.

Many websites use cookies or encourage their use as it makes the experience of using the platform smoother for you.

We use cookies to understand and save your preferences for future visits and compile aggregate data about site traffic and site interaction so that we can offer better site experiences and tools in the future. We may contract with third-party service providers to assist us in better understanding our site visitors. These service providers are not permitted to use the information collected on our behalf except to help us conduct and improve the experience of our members.

Do we disclose any information to outside parties?

We do not sell, trade, or otherwise transfer to outside parties your personally identifiable information. This does not include trusted third parties who assist us in operating our site, conducting our business, or servicing you, so long as those parties agree to keep this information confidential. We may also release your information when we believe release is appropriate to comply with the law, enforce our site policies, or protect ours or others rights, property, or safety. However, non-personally identifiable visitor information may be provided to other parties for marketing, advertising, or other uses.

Third party links

At our discretion, we may include or offer third party products or services on the Support Broker. These third party sites have separate and independent privacy policies. We therefore have no responsibility or liability for the content and activities of these linked sites. Nonetheless, we seek to protect the integrity of the Support Broker and welcome any feedback about these sites.

Lawful bases and data protection rights

Under UK data protection law, we must have a “lawful basis” for collecting and using your personal information. There is a list of possible lawful bases in the UK GDPR. You can find out more about lawful bases on the ICO’s website.

Please note, forum posts in accordance with UK GDPR article 17 (3) are not subject to it unless personal data is included in the post. As such, we strongly advise against putting personally identifiable data in posts.

Which lawful basis we rely on may affect your data protection rights which are set out in brief below. You can find out more about your data protection rights and the exemptions which may apply on the ICO’s website:

• Your right of access - You have the right to ask us for copies of your personal information. You can request other information such as details about where we get personal information from and who we share personal information with. There are some exemptions which means you may not receive all the information you ask for. Read more about the right of access.

• Your right to rectification - You have the right to ask us to correct or delete personal information you think is inaccurate or incomplete. Read more about the right to rectification.

• Your right to erasure - You have the right to ask us to delete your personal information. Read more about the right to erasure.

• Your right to restriction of processing - You have the right to ask us to limit how we can use your personal information. Read more about the right to restriction of processing.

• Your right to object to processing - You have the right to object to the processing of your personal data. Read more about the right to object to processing.

• Your right to data portability - You have the right to ask that we transfer the personal information you gave us to another organisation, or to you. Read more about the right to data portability.

• Your right to withdraw consent – When we use consent as our lawful basis you have the right to withdraw your consent at any time. Read more about the right to withdraw consent.

If you make a request, we must respond to you without undue delay and in any event within one month.

If you remain unhappy with how we’ve used your data after raising a complaint with us, you can also complain to the ICO.

The ICO’s address:

Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

Helpline number: 0303 123 1113

Website: https://www.ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint

Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act Compliance

The Support Broker is directed to people who are at least 18 years or older. Anyone younger than 18 years of age (for instance, as part of an apprentice programme working at an SME) must seek approval from the CyCOS team prior to registration.

Online Privacy Policy Only

This online privacy policy applies only to information collected through the Support Broker and not to information collected offline.

Your Consent

By using the Support Broker, you consent to our web site privacy policy.

Changes to our Privacy Policy

If we decide to change our privacy policy, we will post those changes on this page.

This document is CC-BY-SA. It was last updated [08 November 2025].