Privacy Policy

Who we are

Female Founders Surrey CIC ("FFS", "we", "us") is a community interest company registered in England & Wales, company number 17295533. We run femalefounderssurrey.com and a community for women building businesses in Surrey. For anything privacy-related, contact us at gabi@femalefounderssurrey.com. We keep this simple on purpose: we collect as little as we can, we never sell your data, and we only use it to run this community.

What we collect, and why

(a) When you register your interest via the form on our site: your name, email, phone number, business name and website, whether you've started trading, your county, and whether you'd like to take part in our user research (surveys, interviews, group chats). We use this to keep you updated about FFS — events, launches, and what we're building — and, if you opted in, to invite you to research sessions. Legal basis: your consent, given when you tick the boxes on the form. Stored in HubSpot (our CRM), hosted in their EU data centre.

(b) When you submit a business to the Spotlight: your email address (used once to verify you're human, and kept so we can contact you about your listing), your business name, town, link, description and photo. The business details and photo are published on our site if approved — that's the whole point — but your email address is never shown publicly. Legal basis: your consent and our legitimate interest in running the directory. Stored in our website database (Supabase, via our hosting provider Lovable).

(c) When you sign in or verify your email: we send you a one-time code and set a session cookie so the site remembers you. That's it.

(d) When you book an event: bookings and payments happen on Eventbrite, not on our site. Eventbrite's own privacy policy applies to what you share there.

What we don't do

We don't sell your data. We don't share it with third parties for their marketing. We don't run advertising trackers on our site.

Who processes data for us

HubSpot (CRM and forms, EU-hosted), Lovable/Supabase (website hosting and database), and our email delivery provider (for verification codes and updates, sent from femalefounderssurrey.com addresses). Each acts under contracts appropriate to UK GDPR.

How long we keep it

Register-your-interest details: until you unsubscribe or ask us to delete them. Spotlight listings: while your business is featured, and removed on request. Verification/session data: expires automatically.

Your rights

Under UK GDPR you can ask us at any time to: see the data we hold about you, correct it, delete it, restrict how we use it, or object to our use of it. You can withdraw consent whenever you like (every email we send has an unsubscribe link, and "delete my listing" is one email away). To exercise any of these, email gabi@femalefounderssurrey.com. If you're not happy with how we handle it, you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ico.org.uk).

Cookies

We use only the cookies needed to make the site work: a session cookie if you sign in to verify or administer, and cookies set by our HubSpot form so it functions. No advertising cookies.

Changes

If we change this policy, we'll update this page and the date at the top. If a change is significant, we'll tell registered members by email.