Privacy Policy

refnation (“we”) operates refnation.uk and is the data controller for the personal data described here. For anything in this policy, contact us at contact@refnation.uk.

When you create an account, we collect your email address and the username you choose. After that, you can optionally add details to your profile: your postcode (used to find your parliamentary constituency), date of birth, gender, and employment status. None of these are required to use the site.

As you use refnation, we record your activity: the votes you cast, the referendums you submit, the opinions and replies you post, your reactions, and the timestamps of those actions. If you vote before creating an account, those votes are stored under a random identifier — not your name — and attached to your account if you later sign up.

We also collect usage data (pages visited, features used, device type) through the analytics described in our Cookie Policy. Analytics identifiers are only stored on your device if you accept optional cookies.

Your votes, and the political profile built from them, reveal political opinions. Under UK GDPR this is “special category data” and gets extra protection. Recording and reflecting where you stand is the entire point of refnation: we process this data with your explicit consent, which you give by choosing to cast votes on the platform. Your individual votes are never public — only aggregated results are — and deleting your account removes them.

We use the information we collect to:

• Operate your account and authenticate your identity
• Build your personal political profile — your leaning, your matches, and your written summary — generated automatically from the votes you cast
• Generate aggregated demographic analysis on referendum results — for example, showing how different age groups or genders voted, where people have chosen to share those details
• Surface constituency-level and national-level political trends across the platform
• Send you service emails — sign-in codes, confirmations, and reminders. Every non-essential email includes an unsubscribe link
• Prevent duplicate votes and detect abuse
• Improve the platform and understand how it is being used

Your username, the referendums you submit, and the opinions you post are visible to other users, as is your profile page with headline stats built from your activity (such as earned titles and how often you vote). Your individual votes are private — only aggregated, anonymised results are displayed publicly. Your personal details (email, postcode, date of birth) are never shown to other users.

We do not sell, rent, or trade your personal information, and we show no third-party advertising on refnation. Your data is shared only with providers who run parts of the service on our behalf, under agreements that limit them to processing on our instructions:

• Hosting and database — Vercel (site hosting) and Supabase (our database, hosted in Europe)
• Analytics — PostHog, hosted in the EU, as described in the Cookie Policy
• Email delivery — Resend, to send the service emails described above
• Profile generation — to produce your written political profile and analyse referendum questions, your votes and posted opinions (never your email address) are processed by large-language-model providers acting on our instructions, who do not use this data to train their models
• Constituency lookup — your postcode is checked against Postcodes.io to find your constituency
• Advertising measurement — we advertise refnation on X (Twitter). If you accept advertising cookies, X receives conversion signals (that an ad led to a visit or sign-up). If you don’t, nothing is sent to X

Our database and analytics are hosted in Europe. Some providers (email delivery, profile generation, advertising measurement) process data in the United States; where personal data leaves the UK, we rely on UK adequacy decisions and the standard international transfer safeguards (the UK Addendum / IDTA) those providers offer.

We retain your personal data for as long as your account is active. If you close your account, your personal details are deleted. Anonymised vote data may be retained to preserve the integrity of historical referendum results.

We take the security of your data seriously. All data is encrypted in transit and at rest. Access to personal data is strictly limited to authorised personnel. We regularly review our security practices to protect against unauthorised access, disclosure, or loss.

We use strictly necessary cookies to keep you signed in, and — only with your consent — optional analytics and advertising cookies. Nothing optional runs until you accept it, and you can change your choice at any time on the Cookie Policy page.

As a UK resident, you have the following rights over your personal data:

• Right of access — you can request a copy of the personal data we hold about you (a Subject Access Request).
• Right to rectification — you can ask us to correct inaccurate or incomplete data.
• Right to erasure — you can ask us to delete your personal data. We will do so unless we are required to retain it by law.
• Right to restrict processing — you can ask us to pause the use of your data in certain circumstances.
• Right to data portability — you can request your data in a structured, machine-readable format.
• Right to object — you can object to our processing of your data where we rely on legitimate interests as our lawful basis.
• Right to withdraw consent — at any time: for cookies, on the Cookie Policy page; for anything else (including your votes, by deleting your account), by contacting us.

To exercise any of these rights, contact us at contact@refnation.uk. We will respond within one month.

If you are not satisfied with how we handle your data, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) — the UK's independent data protection authority — at ico.org.uk or by calling 0303 123 1113.

We process your personal data under the following lawful bases as defined by UK GDPR:

• Contract — processing necessary to provide the service you have signed up for.
• Explicit consent — for the political opinions your votes express (special category data), given by choosing to vote, and withdrawable by deleting your account.
• Consent — for optional profile details and optional cookies, withdrawable at any time.
• Legitimate interests — generating anonymised demographic analysis, improving the platform, and preventing abuse, where these interests are not overridden by your rights.

refnation is for people aged 16 or over. We do not knowingly collect personal data from anyone younger; if you believe we have, contact us and we will delete it.

We may update this policy from time to time. When we make material changes, we will notify you by email or by a notice on the platform. Your continued use of refnation after changes take effect constitutes acceptance of the updated policy.

If you have questions about this policy or how we handle your data, contact us at contact@refnation.uk.