Privacy policy

Smartphone Free Childhood collects and processes your personal information in accordance with this privacy policy. This policy provides you with information regarding our obligations and your rights in compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Who we are

Smartphone Free Childhood Limited is a company limited by guarantee registered in England and Wales (company no. 16041317). Smartphone Free Childhood Charitable Fund is a restricted charitable fund operating under the auspices of Prism the Gift Fund (registered charity no. 1099682). We are the data controller for the information described in this policy. You can contact us at hello@smartphonefreechildhood.org or at 73 Cornhill, London, EC3V 3QQ, United Kingdom.

Information we collect

Information you give us

Sign-up forms on our website (Parent Pact, School Organiser, Schools Network, petitions, phone-finder quiz)

  • Your name and email address
  • Your child's school, or your region if they are home-educated or not yet at school, and their school year
  • Your phone number (School Organisers)
  • Your postcode (petitions)
  • Your role at the school, your school's current phone policy and your answers to a few short questions (Schools Network)
  • Your email address, if you ask for your phone-finder quiz results
  • Your newsletter and data-sharing preferences

Newsletter form

  • Your name and email address

Parent Pact app (parentpact.app.smartphonefreechildhood.org)

  • Your name and email address
  • Each child's school or region, and school year
  • Your newsletter preference

School Smartphone Survey (schoolsmartphonesurvey.org)

  • If you set up a survey: your email address, the school and the year groups
  • If you answer a survey: how many children you have at the school, their year groups, what kind of phone each child has, which apps they use, your views on smartphones and social media, and any comments you type. We do not ask for your name, your email or your children's names.
  • If you volunteer to help: your name, email and, optionally, phone number

Class Poll (smartphonepoll.org)

  • If you set up a poll: the school, the year group, and optionally a class name and a WhatsApp group link
  • If you answer a poll: the age you think children should get a smartphone, and whether you would delay together. We do not ask for your name or email.

Information we collect automatically

  • Website and app analytics: pages viewed, links and buttons clicked, and anonymised error information, collected by PostHog
  • IP address, when you submit a form or survey, kept with petition signatures and survey responses
  • A note on your device that you have answered a survey or poll, so you can see your results and delete your answers

Information we receive from other sources

  • WhatsApp groups offering support and volunteering
  • Subscriptions to services
  • Tools where you enter your details, such as writing to your MP
  • Donations made through our iRaiser platform

How we use your information

  • To provide the service that you signed up for: recording your pact, setting up your survey or poll, and sending you confirmation or results emails.
  • To show progress: our counters and leaderboards show how many families have signed the pact for each school, region and year group. They never show names.
  • To show survey and poll results: as totals and percentages. Comments and volunteer details are only shown to the person who set up the survey.
  • To keep in touch: if you opt in to our newsletter, we add you to our Mailchimp list. School Organisers and Schools Network members are added to a separate list for that community. You can unsubscribe from any email.
  • To connect you with others, where you have asked us to: School Organisers with other organisers and regional leaders; Schools Network members with other schools or local SFC organisers.
  • To understand and improve our work: by analysing sign-up, survey and poll data in aggregate.
  • To prevent spam and abuse: using IP addresses and rate limits.

We never sell your information. We only share it as described here or where the law requires. You are free to withdraw your consent at any time.

Cookies and website analytics

  • Main website: analytics cookies from PostHog.
  • Parent Pact app: uses PostHog to record which screens you visit, linked to a random identifier.
  • School Smartphone Survey and Class Poll: no analytics and no cookies.
  • Essential cookies: our website host and cookie banner set the cookies needed to make the site work and remember your choice.

Who we share your information with

People

  • Journalists, for example if you have agreed to share a personal story or quote and your details through a sign-up form.
  • Other SFC members, organisers or schools, where you have ticked a box asking us to.
  • The person who set up a survey, who can see volunteer details and comments from that survey

If you volunteer to help with a School Smartphone Survey, we pass your name, email and phone number to the parent who set up the survey. From that point they hold your details themselves, as a separate data controller, and we have no control over how they use them and cannot retrieve or delete their copy. You can ask us to delete our copy at any time, but this does not undo sharing that has already happened. If you want the survey organiser to delete their copy, you will need to ask them directly.

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Service providers

These companies process data on our behalf and only in accordance with our instructions.

  • Hetzner (EU): the servers and database that store sign-ups, survey and poll data
  • Webflow (USA): hosts our main website
  • Vercel (global): hosts the Parent Pact app, the School Smartphone Survey and the Class Poll
  • Mailchimp (USA): our mailing lists and the emails we send you
  • PostHog (EU): website and app analytics
  • Adobe Fonts (USA): web fonts on some pages
  • YouTube (USA): video embeds
  • iRaiser (EU): donations

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Where a provider is outside the UK, we rely on UK adequacy decisions or standard contractual clauses to protect your data.

We link to WhatsApp so you can share the pact or join a local group. WhatsApp's own privacy policy applies once you click through.


Prism the Gift Fund

Smartphone Free Childhood Charitable Fund is a restricted fund operating under the auspices of Prism the Gift Fund (charity no. 1099682). In the instance that Smartphone Free Childhood becomes its own charity or similar entity, Prism the Gift Fund will share your personal data with the relevant new charity or entity. We do this to ensure that you are still able to continue to support the relevant cause as initially intended.

If you would prefer us not to share your information in this way, please let us know by contacting Prism the Gift Fund’s Head of Compliance at harry@prismthegiftfund.co.uk.

Lawful bases

Under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR), the lawful bases we rely on for processing this information are:

(a) Your consent. You are able to remove your consent at any time. You can do this by contacting hello@smartphonefreechildhood.org

(d) We have a vital interest.

(e) We need it to perform a public task.

(f) We have a legitimate interest.

For website analytics cookies specifically, the lawful basis we rely on is your consent (basis (a) above), given via our cookie banner.

How we store personal data

Your information is securely stored in our own database and in our mailing list system, which only the SFC team are permitted to access. We will only retain personal information for as long as is necessary. For further details on our data retention periods please contact us. We will then dispose of your information by deleting all personal information from our systems. If you opt out or unsubscribe from SFC we remove your information within 24 hours.

Website analytics data collected via PostHog is retained in accordance with PostHog's standard data retention settings and is stored within the EU.

Data protection rights

Under data protection law, you have rights including:

  • Your right of access. You have the right to ask us for copies of your personal information.
  • Your right to rectification. You have the right to ask us to rectify personal information you think is inaccurate. You also have the right to ask us to complete information you think is incomplete.
  • Your right to erasure. You have the right to ask us to erase your personal information in certain circumstances.
  • Your right to restriction of processing. You have the right to ask us to restrict the processing of your personal information in certain circumstances.
  • Your right to object to processing. You have the right to object to the processing of your personal information in certain circumstances.
  • 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, in certain circumstances.

Because survey and poll answers are anonymous, we cannot tell which answers are yours, so we are not able to show you, correct or delete an individual response on request. You can, however, delete your own School Smartphone Survey answers from the device that you originally answered on.

You are not required to pay any charge for exercising your rights. If you make a request, we have one month to respond to you.

Please contact us at hello@smartphonefreechildhood.org if you wish to make a request.

Complaints

If you have any concerns about our use of your personal information, you can make a complaint to us at hello@smartphonefreechildhood.org.

You can also complain to the ICO if you are unhappy with how we have used your data.

The ICO's address:

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

Helpline number: 0303 123 1113

ICO website: https://www.ico.org.uk

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This policy will be reviewed by the Founders of Smartphone Free Childhood (SFC) on an annual basis. Approved and endorsed by SFC on: 27/02/26. Next review date: February 2027