Privacy

We store as little personal data as possible, and only to guide you through your application.

What we store

• Your first name, only if you give one
• Your email, only if you add one to save your progress
• Your answers, your route, and your checklist progress
• The names you type into the name check
• Your appointment dates and any reference numbers you save

We do not ask for or store copies of your documents. There are no document uploads.

Your choices

Your progress is stored on our server from your first answer. Before you add an email, it's linked to an anonymous record, and your device keeps a cookie that identifies that record. That means you can only get back to it on the same device.

When you add an email, we send a link to that address. Once you use the link to confirm it, your progress is attached to your email and you can sign in on any device. Until then, the address isn't linked to anything. You can download all your data or delete everything at any time from your data.

Where your data is kept

The guide runs on servers in London provided by Fly.io. Your name, email, date of birth, the names you type, your reference numbers, and anything you send through feedback are encrypted before they're stored, so they can't be read from the database or its backups without our key.

A backup of the database is kept with Amazon Web Services, also in London, so nothing is lost if a server fails, and your personal details stay encrypted in it. When you delete your data, it's removed from our server straight away and from the backups within 8 days.

Sign-in

There are no passwords. We email you a one-time link to sign in, which expires after 30 minutes.

Feedback and messages

If you answer "Is this page useful?", report a problem or send a message through "Get in touch", we store:

• your answer and anything you write
• the address of the page you were on
• your IP address and browser details

This isn't linked to your progress or your saved email. Please don't include personal details, such as names from your documents.

We keep your IP address and browser details for 90 days so we can stop abuse and, if a message is threatening or unlawful, report it to the relevant authorities. After 90 days they're deleted automatically, and they're gone from our backups within 8 days after that. We keep the feedback itself to improve the guide.

If you give an email address with a "Get in touch" message, we only use it to reply to you. Reply to that email if you'd like your message deleted.