Privacy Policy

1. Who we are

The HG Collective is a Community Interest Company limited by guarantee focused on improving pregnancy sickness and hyperemesis gravidarum care.

For the purposes of data protection law, The HG Collective CIC is the data controller responsible for deciding how and why your personal data is processed.

• Data controller: The HG Collective CIC
• Registered/correspondence address: Baswyc, Ongar Hill, Addlestone, Surrey, KT15 1BZ
• Company/CIC number: 17400471
• Contact for all privacy queries: hello@hgcollective.org.uk

2. Who this policy covers

This policy applies to everyone who interacts with The HG Collective, across a few different relationships. We have tried to be specific about which sections apply to you:

• Visitors to our website, hgcollective.org.uk
• People who sign up to our newsletter
• Expert Panel founding members and panellists (HG Voices, HG Clinicians, HG Researchers)
• In future, anyone using a support or counselling service we go on to offer

3. Information we collect

3.1 Website visitors

• Enquiries you send us through a contact form (name, email, and whatever you tell us in your message).
• Search performance data via Google Search Console—this tells us which search terms bring people to our site; it does not identify you personally.
• Once live, Google Analytics data—how you use the site, pages visited, approximate location and device type, gathered via cookies (see Section 4).

3.2 Newsletter subscribers

• Your email address, and name if you give it, plus your engagement with our emails (opens/clicks) via our email platform.

3.3 Expert Panel founding members and panellists

• Contact details: name, email, phone number.
• Panel information: which panel(s) you are on, your bio, professional or academic affiliation where relevant.
• Equality monitoring information (ethnicity, disability, age band)—collected only with your explicit, separate consent, used solely to check our panels are representative, and not seen by Panel Chairs or used in any decision about you.
• For HG Voices members: information you choose to share about your experience of HG. This can be health information (a “special category” under data protection law) and is only collected and used with your explicit consent.
• Your phone number is visible to other members of your panel's WhatsApp group once you join, as set out in the Panellist WhatsApp Agreement.

3.4 Future: support and counselling services

We plan to introduce wider support services, including counselling delivered by independent bank counsellors, but this is not running yet. When it launches, this policy will be updated to explain what health data is collected, who the data controller is for that service, and how it is kept separate and secure—and you will be asked to agree to the updated policy before using the service.

4. Cookies

Our website uses cookies to help it run and, once Google Analytics is live, to understand how visitors use the site. You will be shown a cookie banner where you can accept or decline non-essential cookies and change your preference at any time.

• Strictly necessary cookies—needed for the site to function; these do not require consent.
• Analytics cookies (Google Analytics)—only set once you have consented via the cookie banner.

Google Search Console does not use cookies or track individual visitors—it only shows us aggregate search performance.

5. How we use your information, and our legal basis

6. Who we share your data with

We use a small number of trusted services to run The HG Collective. We do not sell personal data, and we only share what each service needs to do its job:

• Google (Forms, Sheets, Drive, Analytics, Search Console)—for registration forms, document storage and website analytics.
• WhatsApp (Meta)—for panel group communication. Your number is visible to other members of your panel group(s).
• Crank (wearecrank.com)—our website host and designer.
• In future, bank counsellors—only once this service is live, and only for people who choose to use it.

7. International data transfers

Some of the services above (Google, Meta) are based in or transfer data to the United States. Where this happens, we rely on the safeguards those providers have in place—such as the UK's International Data Transfer Addendum or equivalent approved mechanisms—to keep your data protected to UK standards.

8. How long we keep your data

These are our current intended retention periods. We will review them as the organisation grows, and this section will be updated if they change:

9. Your rights

Under UK data protection law, you have the right to:

• Ask what personal data we hold about you, and get a copy of it (right of access)
• Ask us to correct inaccurate data (rectification)
• Ask us to delete your data, in certain circumstances (erasure)
• Ask us to restrict or object to how we use your data
• Ask for your data in a portable format, where relevant
• Withdraw consent at any time, where we are relying on consent—including equality monitoring or health information you have shared with us

To use any of these rights, email hello@hgcollective.org.uk. We will respond within one month.

10. Children

Our website and Expert Panels are aimed at adults. We do not knowingly collect personal data from anyone under 18, and panellists confirm as part of registration that they are 18 or over.

11. Keeping your data secure

We store data using reputable providers (principally Google's Workspace tools) with industry-standard security, limit access to those who need it to do their role and treat any health or equality data with extra care—including storing it separately from general panel administration where practical.

12. Changes to this policy

We will update this policy as The HG Collective grows—particularly once support and counselling services launch. We will let panellists and newsletter subscribers know of any significant change and, where we are relying on your consent, ask you to reconfirm it.

13. Complaints and the ICO