Privacy Policy

Welcome to our privacy policy

Your privacy matters to us. This policy explains what information we collect, how we use it, and the choices you have when it comes to your data. We believe in transparency and want you to feel confident knowing how your information is handled — clearly, responsibly, and with your trust in mind.

Let’s walk through how we protect your privacy, one step at a time.

Forest Community Energy CBS Limited is a Community Benefit Society

Registration No:

9620

Registered address:

The Club House, Milestone Walk, Sling, Coleford, GL16 8JP

 Collection of personal information

The following types of personal information may be collected, stored and used:

• information about your computer, including your IP address, geographic location, browser type and version, and operating system.
• information about your use of this website including the referring source, length of visit, page views, and website navigation paths.
• information such as your name and email address, which you provide to us.
• information contained in any communications you send to us by email or on our website, including their content and metadata.
• any other personal information you provide to us.

Use of your personal information

Personal information provided to us via our website will be used for the purposes described in this policy, or on the relevant website pages. We may use your personal information to:

• contact you
• administer our website and business
• maintain the security of our website and prevent fraud

We will not provide your personal information to third parties for their direct marketing or that of other third parties, without your express consent.

Disclosure of your personal information

We may disclose your personal information:

• to the extent that we are required to do so by law
• in the context of any current or future legal proceedings
• to establish, exercise or defend our legal rights (including providing information to others for the purposes of fraud prevention and reducing credit risk)
• to anyone whom we reasonably believe to be part of a court or other competent authority for the disclosure of such personal information if, in our opinion, such court or authority would be likely to require disclosure of such personal information.
• except as provided in this policy, we will not share your personal information with third parties.

Retention of your personal information

This Section details our data retention policies and procedures, designed to help us comply with our legal obligations regarding the retention and deletion of personal information.

Personal information that we process for any purpose is not kept longer than necessary for that purpose or those purposes (2 years).

Notwithstanding the other provisions of this Section, we will maintain documents (including electronic documents) containing personal data:

• to the extent that we are required to do so by law
• if we believe the documents may be relevant to any pending or potential legal proceedings
• to establish, exercise or defend our legal rights (including providing information to others for the purposes of fraud prevention and reducing credit risk)

Database Usage & Service Policy

FCE uses AirTable (a cloud-based database service) as one of the technical platforms for storing membership, share-register data, etc. AirTable provides encrypted storage, access controls, and backup/restore capability; FCE evaluates and monitors these controls as part of its overall data protection framework.

It should noted that, while FCE uses AirTable:

• FCE’s policy is that members have the right to request export of personal data, rectification or erasure, in accordance with this policy and applicable law.
• In the event FCE ceases using AirTable (or a member ceases being such/a shareholder), FCE will either export the data to another platform or an archive and will securely delete member data from the AirTable environment or anonymise it, as per FCE’s data-retention schedules.
• Any data transfers outside the UK/EEA will be subject to standard contractual clauses or other safeguards. AirTable’s servers that FCE uses are in the United States; accordingly, FCE relies on adequate safeguards for international data transfers.
• FCE has signed a Data Processing Addendum (DPA) that legally binds AirTable to UK GDPR-compliant behaviour, including sub-processor transparency, incident reporting, and audit rights.
• Access to member data is limited to authorised personnel only, and FCE reviews permissions, uses strong authentication, and monitors access logs to protect such data.

Security of your personal information

We will take reasonable technical and organisational precautions to prevent the loss, misuse or alteration of your personal information.

You acknowledge that the transmission of information over the Internet is inherently insecure, and that we cannot guarantee the security of your data sent over the Internet.

Cookies

Our website uses cookies.

A cookie is a file containing an identifier (a string of letters and numbers) sent by a web server to a web browser and stored by the browser. The identifier is then sent back to the server each time the browser requests a page from the server. Cookies can be “persistent” or “session”.

A “persistent” cookie is stored by the browser and remains valid until its expiry date, unless deleted by the user before this expiry date. A “session cookie” expires at the end of the user session, when the browser is closed.

Cookies generally do not contain any information that personally identifies a user, but the personal information we store about you may be linked to information stored in cookies and/or obtained by cookies. We only use session cookies and persistent cookies on our website.

Most browsers allow the user the option to refuse or accept cookies, as well as the option to remove cookies ‘manually’ as part of a clear browsing data option.

Contact us

If you have any questions about this policy, please contact us on info@forestcommunityenergy.org.uk. In the case of a compliant needing to be raised FCE’s data protection officer/contact point can also be reached via this email address.

Please also note that, should FCE's response to a complaint not satisfy you, you have the right to lodge a complaint to the UK supervisory authority, i.e., Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).