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Privacy Policy

Last Modified: 29 October 2026

This Policy explains how Eco handles personal information. Our Terms of Use and Code of Conduct also apply.

Information Eco uses

Depending on how you use Eco, we may process:

  • Your email address, name and account information
  • An email address you use as your own proof, plus organisation details where you represent an organisation
  • Your postcode and matched geographic areas
  • Your email alert frequency, content choices and confirmation or unsubscribe status if you sign up
  • Your Saved, Hidden and Completed content choices
  • Your signed-in content views
  • Recorded page views, card opens, external link exits, share actions, and changes to your Saved, Completed and Hidden choices
  • Content and organisation details you submit
  • Stripe customer and subscription identifiers for an Organisation payment card, if you add one
  • Technical and security information needed to operate and protect Eco
  • Your ECO ID and, if you sign up through a referral or campaign link, its referral code and UTM campaign details

Approved organisation and Content information is public and may be indexed or shared elsewhere. Account emails, postcodes and private content choices are not included in public listings.

How information is used

We use information to provide and secure accounts, send Sign In and verification links, match opportunities by location, save progress, review and publish submissions, prevent misuse and maintain Eco.

If you choose Eco email alerts, we use your confirmed email address, postcode and selected topics to send newly published local Actions, Events and Jobs at your chosen frequency. Each alert contains up to three items per selected topic. You can manage alerts in your Account or use the Eco unsubscribe link in an alert email.

We use information where needed to provide Eco, for legitimate interests in operating and protecting the platform, to meet legal obligations, or with consent where required.

We use recorded activity to show members their own history, give Organisations totals for engagement with their profile and listings, and check whether Eco's links and reporting work. Our basis for this activity reporting is our legitimate interest in providing and improving these features. We limit the event details, restrict Organisation reports to totals and allow members to object to further signed-in event collection.

Eco does not sell personal information or use postcodes and private content choices for advertising, fundraising or political profiling.

Postcodes and progress

Eco uses a postcode service to match searched UK postcodes to geographic areas. For each successful search, a protected cache keeps a keyed form of the full postcode, its outward district, rounded coordinates and matched areas. It does not keep the full postcode in this cache. The cache is retained without a fixed expiry to avoid repeated provider requests and support the homepage map. A cached match is refreshed no more often than every seven days when that postcode is searched again.

Your browser may remember your postcode, location and content choices. If you are signed in, your postcode and progress may also be stored with your account and synchronised across devices.

The homepage shows approximate dots for listings with a public venue, postcode catchment or constituency area. Those positions are rounded to a fine grid. Wider listings appear in area totals without a location dot. Postcode dots are grouped by outward district and placed on a broader half degree grid. The postcode totals count distinct postcodes checked through Eco, not individual people. The map does not show a full postcode or an exact address.

When you open the full map, your browser loads the visible map tiles from OpenStreetMap. OpenStreetMap can receive your IP address, browser details and Eco's domain as the referrer. Eco sends no saved member postcode or account details with those tile requests. The full map shows outward postcode areas only where at least five verified members share one.

You can change your postcode through Eco and remove browser information through your browser settings.

Cookies and analytics

Eco uses essential cookies and browser storage for Sign In, location, progress and security features. Cloudflare may also use security cookies when protecting the website.

We use Simple Analytics on public pages to measure visits and clicks on outbound, download, email and telephone links. Click information can include the link destination. This is separate from Eco's own activity and pageview records described below. We exclude account, sign-in, subscription-management and token-bearing pages from Simple Analytics.

Our Simple Analytics scripts and fallback image are configured to collect visits even when a browser sends a Do Not Track preference. You can read Simple Analytics' privacy information for details about that service.

If you follow a referral or campaign link, Eco automatically stores its referral code and UTM parameters in a first party cookie, local storage and session storage for up to 30 days. A later qualifying link replaces the earlier details. If you create an account during that time, Eco saves the details with your account to credit verified referrals and understand which campaigns lead to accounts. We accept a referring ECO ID only when it belongs to a verified active account. You can remove the browser copies through your browser settings. To ask Eco to remove attribution already saved on an account, contact Support using the rights process below.

The ECO ID is a public sharing code, not a sign-in credential. Referring members see aggregate verified referral counts and months, not the identities of people they referred. Account attribution remains with the account until it is erased under an accepted request or the account is removed under Eco's retention process.

Eco's public pageview badges are lifetime route totals without account details. Separately, dated analytics events can include your account ID when you are signed in. They record an event type and time, and limited page, Organisation, listing, surface or destination codes. They do not contain an IP address, browser details, referrer, postcode, raw external URL or share message. Historical public view totals do not provide dated member history.

You can see your own activity in Personal Analytics. An Organisation representative can see aggregate counts for their Organisation and listings in Organisational Analytics. They cannot see visitor names or individual visitor timelines. Small totals may still need careful handling, so we review who can access these reports.

External web and share links on Eco pass briefly through a first party redirect. A recorded exit is an attempt to open another destination, not proof that a visit, application or social post was completed. Essential account and security storage is separate from this server-side event journal.

Service providers and external websites

We use service providers for hosting, website security, content delivery, transactional email and postcode matching. They may process limited information needed to provide those services.

If you add an Organisation payment card, Stripe Checkout collects the card and billing details and Stripe manages the resulting £0.00 yearly subscription. Eco receives customer and subscription identifiers and their status, but not the full card number. Stripe's hosted card management page lets you update the card. We use these details to provide and administer the Organisation payment card step.

Some providers may process information outside the United Kingdom. Eco reviews provider arrangements and safeguards as the service develops.

Organisation pages may embed a video from YouTube's privacy-enhanced domain. Loading that video sends your browser to YouTube, which may process technical information under its own privacy policy. Other external websites and social platforms also have their own privacy policies. Eco is not responsible for how they handle information after you leave Eco.

Retention and security

We currently retain detailed analytics events without a fixed expiry date to provide lifetime activity and reporting. Events linked to an account remain linked while that reporting is needed. We review this retention at least annually and remove account links or erase information when an accepted privacy request or the end of the purpose requires it. Older monthly totals already created by the former three-year process remain available for Organisation reporting. Existing account choices, public lifetime pageview totals, security records and backup copies have separate retention arrangements. Backup copies are managed through a manual deletion process.

We keep other information only for as long as reasonably needed to operate and protect Eco, maintain useful public records and meet legal requirements. Public Content may remain available as past or archived listings.

Resolved email alert delivery records are removed after 90 days. Uncertain delivery outcomes and blocked records remain available for manual investigation. Subscription choices and unsubscribe or suppression status remain while the alert account is needed, subject to accepted privacy requests.

Eco uses proportionate technical and organisational safeguards. No online service can guarantee complete security.

Your rights

Data protection rights may include access, correction, deletion, restriction, portability, objection and rights relating to consent. These rights depend on the circumstances and applicable law.

To request access to analytics, object to further signed-in event collection, or ask us to erase information, contact info@meeteco.org. We will verify the requester, assess the request, suppress future signed-in events where an objection applies, and coordinate any accepted erasure across analytics and other account records. A recoverable account deletion does not itself erase those records.

You may complain to the Information Commissioner's Office or another data protection authority that applies where you live.

Age

Eco is for people aged 18 and over. People under 18 must not use Eco, create an account or submit personal information.

Changes

We may update this Policy as Eco develops. The current version will be published here.