Privacy Policy

1. Who we are

Isle of Culture is a not-for-profit community guide to cultural events and venues across Thanet. It is run by Isle of Culture CIC, a community interest company registered in England and Wales. We are the “data controller” for your personal data, which simply means we are responsible for looking after it.

• Company registration number: 17069892
• Contact: hello@isleofculture.org

2. What personal data we collect

You can browse Isle of Culture without an account. We collect personal data in a few ways:

• Account data. When you create an account we collect your name, email address, the name of the organisation you represent, and the account type you choose (event organiser or venue manager). Your password is handled securely by our sign-in provider and is never visible to us.
• Content you submit. When you add or manage an event or venue, we collect the details you enter — titles, descriptions, dates, locations, prices, links, uploaded images, and any optional contact details (such as a venue phone number, email, or website) — along with any notes or messages you send us (for example a note to reviewers or a request to manage a venue).
• Information collected automatically. When you visit the site, our hosting provider processes technical data such as your IP address and request logs to deliver and secure the service, and we use privacy-respecting, cookieless analytics to understand aggregate usage such as page views. See section 4.
• Records of moderation activity. When you or our administrators approve, reject, or change listings and accounts, we keep an audit record of the action for security and accountability.

We also list venues and events sourced from public listings — see section 7.

3. How we use your data

We use your personal data to:

• run the service — creating and managing your account, publishing approved events and venues, and powering features such as search, the map, and the planner;
• keep in touch about your account — sending essential emails such as address verification, password resets, and updates on your submissions or venue requests;
• keep the site safe and useful — reviewing submissions for quality and preventing misuse; and
• understand how the site is used — through cookieless, aggregate analytics, never a profile of you.

Our lawful bases for this are straightforward: where you have an account, we are delivering the service you signed up for; everything else rests on our legitimate interest in running a useful community guide. We do not sell your personal data, use it for advertising, or send marketing emails.

4. Cookies and analytics

We keep our use of cookies to a minimum:

• Strictly necessary cookies. When you sign in, we set secure cookies that keep you logged in and protect your session. The site cannot work without these, so they do not need your consent.
• Local preferences. We store your light/dark theme choice in your browser's local storage. This stays on your device and is not personal data.
• Cookieless analytics. We use privacy-respecting analytics that measure aggregate usage (such as page views) without tracking cookies or building a profile of you.

We do not use advertising or third-party tracking cookies. Because we set only strictly necessary cookies and our analytics are cookieless, we do not show a cookie-consent banner.

5. The tools and companies that help us run the site

We do not sell your data. To run the site we rely on a small number of trusted companies, and we only ever share what each one needs to do its job:

• Supabase stores our database, sign-ins, and uploaded files — so it holds account details, your submissions, and photos.
• Vercel hosts the website and provides our cookieless analytics.
• Resend sends our account and notification emails.
• Google Maps shows the interactive maps. When a map loads in your browser, Google receives your IP address and map interactions, as described in Google's own privacy policy. We also use Google Places to source venue information and photos.
• postcodes.io is a free UK postcode lookup that turns a venue's postcode into map coordinates.

We may also share personal data where the law requires it, or to establish, exercise, or defend legal claims.

6. What is public and what is private

Isle of Culture is a public directory, so some information is meant for everyone to see, while your account details are not.

• Public. Once approved, event and venue listings — including any images, descriptions, and the contact details a venue chooses to publish (such as a public venue phone number, email, or website) — are visible to everyone.
• Private. Your account details, including the email address and any phone number on your profile, are not shown publicly. They are visible only to you, to our administrators, and — where you interact over a listing — to the relevant venue manager, so that submissions can be reviewed.

7. Venue and event information from public sources

To build a directory that is genuinely useful, some venue and event listings are put together from publicly available sources, such as public map and ticketing listings. These usually cover a business name, address, publicly listed contact details, and photographs, and we rely on our legitimate interest in keeping a complete, accurate local cultural guide. If a listing is about you and you would like it corrected or taken down, just email us at hello@isleofculture.org and we will sort it out.

8. Where your data is stored

We aim to keep personal data in the UK or Europe. A few of the companies above (for example our email and mapping providers) are based in the United States, so some data is handled there. When that happens, we rely on the data-protection safeguards approved under UK law to keep it just as protected as it would be here.

9. How long we keep your data

We keep account data for as long as your account is active, and for a reasonable period afterwards. Published listings are kept while they remain on the site. We keep moderation and security records for a limited period so that decisions stay accountable; these records may retain a copy of the acting user's email address even after an account is closed. When data is no longer needed, we delete or anonymise it.

10. Your rights

Under UK data protection law you have the right to:

• access the personal data we hold about you;
• ask us to correct inaccurate or incomplete data;
• ask us to delete your data (the right to erasure);
• ask us to restrict or object to how we use your data;
• ask us to transfer your data to another provider (portability); and
• withdraw consent where we rely on it.

You can update much of your profile and your listings yourself by signing in. To use any other right, or to request deletion or a copy of your data, email us at hello@isleofculture.org. We will respond within one calendar month.

11. Children

Isle of Culture lists events for the whole community, including family-friendly activities, but it is meant for a general audience. Accounts are for adults acting for themselves or an organisation. We do not knowingly collect personal data from children. If you believe a child has given us personal data, please contact us and we will delete it.

12. How we keep your data secure

We protect your data with encryption in transit, access controls, and database row-level security that limits who can read personal data. No online service can be completely secure, but we take reasonable steps to protect your information and to keep access to it limited.

13. Changes to this policy

We may update this policy from time to time. When we make significant changes we will update the “Last updated” date at the top of this page, and, where it makes sense, let you know by email.