Privacy Policy

The Free Speech Union Limited (“the FSU”, “we” or “our”) understand that your privacy is important to you and that you care about how your personal data is used. We will only collect and use personal data in ways that are described here, and in a way that is consistent with our obligations and your rights under the data protection law.

If you have any questions about this policy, including any requests to exercise your legal rights, or if you have any complaints or would like to contact our Data Protection Officer, please contact us at [email protected].

We may update this policy from time to time. You are strongly encouraged to read this policy and check back regularly.

This policy applies to all personal data collected by the FSU, whether via our website, social media, at any of our events or through some other channel.

How do we use your data?

To provide our services to you when you sign up to become a member and to manage your membership, we will collect your name, email address, phone number, address, payment details and any other information relevant to your membership. We collect this in order to take steps to enter into a contract with you and sign you up as a member.

Where you are a member, we will process your personal data to provide you with your membership benefits, including the weekly newsletter and discounted event information, in line with the preferences you have provided. Our basis for processing this data is contract.

To support you with your prospective or current case (including any triage of your case and ongoing support and case administration) we will collect your name, email address, phone number, address, the reason for contacting us and any other information relevant to your case, including any special category data you may provide to us that is relevant to your case (including, for example, health data, religious or political beliefs, sexual orientation, ethnicity and membership of a trade union). We collect and use this information as it is in our legitimate interest to support you with your case. In cases where we collect your special category data (because you have provided this), we will process this with your explicit consent.

When you donate to us or leave us a legacy in your will, we will process your name, address, donation history (including any donations to be left in a will) and your payment details (where applicable). We may also carry out due diligence checks on larger donations such as screening the donor's name against watchlists, making reasonable enquiries as to the source of funds and the donor's business activities, and checking publicly available information, such as media coverage or Companies House filings. We collect this as it is in our legitimate interest to raise financial support for the FSU and to satisfy ourselves that a donation does not expose the FSU to legal or reputational risk.

Where you are applying for our student funding programmes, we may collect your name, your student union and contact email address and in limited circumstances your bank account details. We collect this as it is in our legitimate interest to support student funding programmes related to free speech.

When you contact us either by phone, email or via social media, we will usually collect your name, social media handle and/or contact details, because it is in our legitimate interest to make sure we can properly respond to your query.

When you use our website we will collect information about how you use it. We may use your personal data contained within this information to improve our website, to secure it, and to better understand how people use it. When you consent to the use of cookies, we may also use such further information as is stored in the cookie for these same purposes. More details on the information we collect and how we do this is set out in our Cookie Policy below.

To contact you electronically about services which we think may interest you. Where you have opted in to receive marketing and updates from us we will use your name and email address to send you updates because it is in our legitimate interests to promote our other products and services we think you might be interested in.

You can opt out of marketing at any time by contacting us at [email protected] or, where relevant, by following the unsubscribe link in any marketing communication you receive from us.

When you purchase tickets to our events, we or our event partners (such as Ticket Tailor and Eventbrite) will usually collect your name, address, email address and payment details. We collect this in order to take steps to enter into a contract with you and provide you with an event ticket.

Where you interact with us at a third-party event we also attend (including virtual events), we may collect your name, address, email address and/or phone number. We collect this personal data because it's in our legitimate interests to promote our business.

To conduct supporter insight and market research activities in order to better understand your needs, your preferences, behaviours and to improve the services we offer. We may use your name, contact details, membership account data or any responses to survey or feedback requests for this purpose. We do this because we have a legitimate interest in understanding our supporters' needs and experiences in order to develop and improve our services.

Sharing data with third parties

In order to make certain services available to you, we may need to share your personal data with some of our service providers, particularly for delivery of goods and services and communications with you.

The FSU only allows its service providers to handle your personal data when we have confirmed that they apply appropriate data protection and security controls. We also impose contractual obligations on service providers relating to data protection and security, which mean they can only use your data to provide services to the FSU and to you, and for no other purposes.

Aside from our service providers, the FSU will not disclose your personal data to any third party, except as set out below. We will never sell or rent our customer data to other organisations for marketing purposes.

We may share your data with:

• business partners, suppliers and subcontractors for the performance of the contract we enter into with them or you;
• with your consent, third parties that support us in managing your case, including external solicitors, barristers, and related professional advisers; and in addition, we may also, with your consent, share your personal data with journalists or parliamentarians where this may support your case;
• with your consent, parties to whom we have referred your case, for example, where FSU is not best placed to support your case we may find other bodies who are able to better support you;
• governmental bodies, regulators, law enforcement agencies, courts/tribunals and insurers where we are required to do so in order to comply with our legal obligations or to exercise our legal rights (for example in court cases), or for the preventions, detection and investigation of crime or prosecution of offenders, and to safeguard and protect our employees, customers or other individuals.

Where do we store your data?

We store your data on third party servers which are based both in the UK and outside of the UK.

To deliver products and services to you, it is sometimes necessary for the FSU to share your data outside of the European Economic Area. This will typically occur when service providers are located outside of the EEA, or if you are based outside of the EEA. Whenever we transfer your personal data outside of the UK and the EU, we ensure it receives the necessary protection as required by law. To keep this notice as short and easy to understand as possible, we haven't set out the specific circumstances when each of these protection measures are used. You can contact us at [email protected] for more information about this.

How long do we keep your data?

We will not retain your data for longer than necessary for the purposes set out in this Policy unless we are required to keep it for longer to comply with our legal, accounting or regulatory requirements.

Different retention periods apply for different types of data, however, the longest we will normally hold any personal data is six years.

In some circumstances we may carefully anonymise your personal data so that it can no longer be associated with you, and we may use this anonymised information indefinitely without notifying you. We use this anonymised information to improve the way we work and our service.

Children's Information

The FSU does not knowingly collect any Personal Identifiable Information from children under the age of 16. If you think that your child provided this kind of information on our website, we strongly encourage you to contact us immediately and we will use our best efforts promptly to remove such information from our records.

Your rights

You have the following rights under applicable data protection laws, including:

• the right to ask for a copy of personal data that we hold about you (also known as a "subject access request");
• the right to request that we delete personal data held on you;
• the right to ask us to update and correct any out-of-date or incorrect personal data that we hold about you;
• the right to withdraw your consent to us handling your personal data (if applicable);
• the right to object to how we are using your personal data;
• the right to ask us to restrict processing of data; and
• the right to ask us to provide a copy of your personal data in a readable format to another organisation (also known as the right to "data portability").

You also have the right to lodge a complaint with us or the Information Commissioner's Office, the supervisory authority for data protection issues in England and Wales. If you are based in the EU you can find your relevant supervisory authority here.

Please keep in mind that privacy law is complicated, and the exercise of these rights may be restricted in certain circumstances.

Cookie Policy

Our websites use cookies and similar technologies to distinguish you from other users of our website. This helps us to provide you with a good experience when you browse our website and also helps us make improvements and understand how people use our website.

A cookie is a small file of letters and numbers that we store on your browsers or in your device's storage. We only use (and store) non-essential cookies if you provide your consent.

This policy was last updated in July 2026.