Privacy notice

This explains what UKBYW collects about you, why, and what you can do about it.

What we collect

• Account details: your username, email address, password (stored scrambled, so nobody can read it) and date of birth.
• What you post: threads, replies, your profile picture and "about you" text.
• Technical details: the IP address used for each post, and when you were last active. These help us stop spam and deal with abuse.
• Private messages: the messages you send and receive. Staff can only read a conversation if a message in it is reported to them.
• Reports: anything you send us through the report form.

Why we use it

• Your email is used to confirm your account, reset your password and contact you about your account. We don't send marketing and never share it.
• Your date of birth is used only to check you're old enough to join and to switch on protections for members under 18. It's never shown to anyone, and only staff can see which age group you're in.
• IP addresses and activity are used to keep the forum safe and stop spam.

Cookies

We use one cookie to keep you logged in (and a second one for up to 60 days if you tick "Stay logged in"), one to remember you've closed a pop-up notice so it doesn't keep appearing, one to remember your colour theme if you pick one, and, if someone enters an age under 13 at sign-up, one to remember that for 30 days. We don't use advertising or tracking cookies. The site loads its fonts from Google Fonts. YouTube preview pictures load from YouTube; videos themselves (from YouTube, TikTok, Dailymotion, Vimeo, Google Drive or the Internet Archive) only load when you tap play, and YouTube videos use its privacy-enhanced mode. Pictures that members link from other websites load from those websites, so only members aged 18 and over see them; the forum doesn't send those websites who you are.

Who can see what

Your posts, username, profile picture and "about you" are public (for under-18s, profiles are visible to logged-in members only). Your email, date of birth and IP addresses are only seen by the forum's staff when needed to run and protect it.

How we protect it

Your email address, date of birth, IP addresses, private messages and anything you send through the report form are encrypted before they're stored. The key is kept separately from the database, so a copy of the database on its own can't be read. Your password is never stored at all, only a scrambled version of it that can't be turned back into the password.

How long we keep it

We keep your details for as long as you have an account. You can delete your account at any time from Settings. This wipes your email, date of birth, profile and picture straight away, and you can choose whether your posts are removed too.

Your rights

Under UK data protection law you can ask for a copy of your data, ask us to correct it or delete it, and complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ico.org.uk). To ask, email admin@ukbyw.com.