Your privacy

Who we are

Living With Addicts CIC (“we”) runs this website and is responsible for the personal information described here. You can contact us about privacy at [email protected] or through our contact form.

What we collect and why

You can read everything on this site without giving us any personal information. We only collect information when you choose to send it.

Contact form

Your name, email address, optional subject and message, and the IP address the message came from. We use these to read and reply to you, and the IP address to stop abuse. Messages are stored privately in our content system and are never published. Our legal basis is our legitimate interest in responding to people who write to us.

Noticeboard questions

The display name and question you submit, an optional email address and your IP address. A moderator reads every question before anything appears. If published, only the question and your chosen display name are shown — never your email or IP address. Our legal basis is your consent, which you can withdraw by asking us to remove your question.

Forum accounts

To post in the forum you create an account with a username, display name, email address and password. We store your password only in scrambled (hashed) form. We record the IP address each post came from and keep a record of any reports you make or that are made about your posts. Your display name and posts are public once published; your email, IP address and reports are not. Our legal basis is providing the service you signed up for, and our legitimate interest in keeping the community safe.

Moderation records

When moderators approve, edit, reject or remove content, or act on a report, the content system keeps a record of the content and its status so we can handle complaints and repeated abuse consistently.

Server logs

Like most websites, our content server keeps short-lived technical logs (including IP addresses) to diagnose faults and defend against attacks.

How long we keep it

• IP addresses attached to messages, questions and forum posts: deleted automatically after 30 days.
• Contact messages: deleted automatically after 12 months.
• Noticeboard questions that are not published: deleted automatically 90 days after they were last reviewed. Published questions stay until you or we remove them.
• Forum accounts whose email address is never verified: deleted automatically after 14 days. Verified accounts and their posts stay until you ask us to delete them.
• Content-server technical logs: 14 days.
• System backups, which may contain any of the above, are overwritten on a rolling basis and kept for a few weeks at most.

Who can see it

Private information (emails, IP addresses, unpublished submissions and reports) can only be seen by our administrators and moderators, who sign in to a separate, protected administration system. It is never shown on this website and is not available through our public data interfaces. We do not sell or share your information for marketing, and we do not use advertising or tracking.

Where it is stored

This website and our content system run on servers we manage, hosted by Hetzner in Finland (European Union). Traffic passes through Cloudflare, which protects the site from attacks. Email is handled by our mail provider, Purelymail.

Cookies and browser storage

We do not use analytics, advertising or tracking cookies. If you sign in to the forum, your browser stores a sign-in token so you stay signed in; signing out removes it. Cloudflare may set strictly necessary security cookies.

Your rights

Under UK data protection law you can ask to see the personal information we hold about you, ask us to correct or delete it, object to how we use it, or withdraw consent. Contact us and we will respond within one month. If you are unhappy with how we have handled your information you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ico.org.uk).

Community terms

• Be kind. People here are often going through something very hard.
• Don’t post anyone’s real name, address, workplace or other identifying details — including your own.
• No harassment, hate, sales, spam or promotion of services.
• Posts are peer experience, not professional advice.
• Moderators may edit, decline or remove content, and suspend accounts, to keep the community safe.

Safeguarding

Our noticeboard and forum are not emergency services and are not monitored around the clock. If you or someone else is in immediate danger, call 999. For urgent support and helplines, see Help & Support. If a moderator sees a post suggesting someone may be at risk, we may contact the poster privately using the details they gave us, and signpost emergency help.