Privacy Policy
Last updated: 20 October 2026
1. Who we are
CommonGround is an app that helps separated and co-parenting families communicate and keep an organised record. It is provided by COMMONGROUND PARENTING LTD, a company registered in England and Wales (company number 17058823), registered office First Floor, Swan Buildings, 20 Swan Street, Manchester M4 5JW, United Kingdom ("CommonGround", "we", "us").
We are the controller of the personal data described in this policy. We are registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office under number ZC181211.
You can contact us about privacy at support@commongroundparenting.co.uk, or write to us at our registered office.
2. The information we collect
Information you give us
- Account details: your first and last name, email address, phone number, date of birth, gender (optional), profile photo (optional) and password. If you sign in with Apple or Google, we receive your name and email address from that provider.
- Professional details: if you join as a professional, your organisation and your professional type (for example lawyer or mediator).
- Family details: your family space name, the members you invite (including their email addresses), each member's role and relationship, and the permissions set for them.
- Content you create: messages and attachments, calendar events (including any location you type), event responses and change requests, documents and their descriptions, tasks, private notes, and messages you star.
- Evidence exports you request: the date range and sections you choose, and the PDF we generate.
- Support messages you send us.
Information created when you use the app
- When you read a message, the time you read it.
- Records of key actions in your family space, such as signing in, sharing a document, changing an event or changing a member's access. These form the audit trail that makes the record reliable.
- A fingerprint (SHA-256 hash) of each document you upload. Your device calculates it.
- Device details needed to send notifications: a push notification token, your platform (iOS or Android), a device identifier and the app version.
- Your notification preferences and quiet hours.
- Subscription details from Apple or Google, via our payment provider RevenueCat: your product, status, purchase and expiry dates and a transaction reference. We never receive your card details.
- Technical error records, which may include your user ID.
What we do not collect
We do not collect your device location, your contacts, or advertising identifiers. We do not use analytics or advertising trackers in the app. We do not sell your personal data or use it for advertising.
Information kept only on your device
Your sign-in session and app lock setting are stored securely on your device. App lock and Face ID / fingerprint checks happen on your device; we never receive your biometric data.
When you use our website
If you contact us through a form on this website, we collect what you enter: your name, email address and message and, depending on the form, your organisation, the topic and any screenshot you attach. You don't need a CommonGround account to use these forms. We use this information to reply to you and, for bug reports and suggestions, to improve the app.
This website does not use analytics, advertising or tracking cookies, and it does not set any cookies when you visit it. The only cookies are the ones our own staff receive when they sign in to manage the site. Like any website, our hosting provider's servers keep a short-term technical log of each visit, such as your IP address and browser, to keep the site running and secure.
3. Sensitive information and information about other people
Because CommonGround is about family life after separation, what you write may include sensitive information: about your children, your health, a dispute, or safeguarding concerns. It will also include information about other people, such as your co-parent and your children.
Please share only what you need to. We process this information only to provide the service to you and the members of your family space, and to keep it secure. Where the law treats it as special category data, we rely on your explicit choice to enter it into the app, and on its use in establishing, exercising or defending legal claims.
4. How we use your information and our legal bases
| What we do | Legal basis (UK GDPR) |
|---|---|
| Create and run your account, family space, chat, calendar, documents and tasks | Contract |
| Show your content to the members and professionals you have given access to | Contract |
| Keep an audit trail and generate evidence exports you request | Contract; our legitimate interest in a reliable record |
| Send notifications you have allowed | Consent (you can turn them off in the app or in your device settings) |
| Send account emails, sign-in codes and invitations you ask us to send | Contract |
| Process subscriptions and check what your plan includes | Contract |
| Keep the service secure, prevent misuse and fix errors | Legitimate interests |
| Respond to support requests, website enquiries and reports of misuse | Legitimate interests |
| Comply with a court order or other legal requirement | Legal obligation |
5. Who can see your information
- Members of your family space can see the family chat, events shared with the family and documents you share to the family, subject to the permissions set for them. Direct messages are visible only to the two people in the conversation. Documents are private to you until you share them, and sharing cannot be undone.
- Professionals you or your family invite (for example a mediator or solicitor) get read-only access to the areas the invitation allows, for a limited period. A family manager can remove their access at any time.
- Our authorised staff can access account and family data where needed to provide support, investigate a report of misuse, keep the service secure or meet a legal obligation. Access is restricted and logged.
- Courts, the police and other authorities may receive your information if we are legally required to provide it. Anyone in your family space can also export the record they can see and share it, for example with their solicitor.
6. Our service providers
We use these providers to run CommonGround. They act on our instructions and may not use your data for their own purposes.
| Provider | What they do | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Supabase | Database, sign-in, file storage, real-time messaging | London, UK (eu-west-2) |
| Google Firebase Cloud Messaging | Delivers push notifications. A notification can contain up to 160 characters of a message. | USA and other locations |
| Apple Push Notification service | Delivers push notifications to iPhones | USA and other locations |
| RevenueCat | Manages subscriptions bought through the App Store or Google Play | USA |
| Twilio SendGrid | Sends sign-in codes, account emails and invitations | USA |
| A2 Hosting | Hosts this website and stores messages sent through its forms | Netherlands |
| Zoho Mail | Our support email, including copies of messages sent through the website | EU |
| Apple and Google | Sign-in (if you choose it) and subscription payments | Under their own privacy policies |
Where data is transferred outside the UK, we rely on UK adequacy regulations (including the UK Extension to the EU-US Data Privacy Framework where the provider is certified) or the UK International Data Transfer Addendum.
7. How long we keep information
| Information | How long |
|---|---|
| Your account and profile | Until you delete your account |
| Content only you can see (private documents, private notes, stars, your exports) | Until you delete it or your account |
| Content you shared into a family space (messages, events, shared documents, audit trail) | For as long as the family space exists, including after you delete your account (see section 9) |
| In-app notifications | 90 days |
| Technical error records | 90 days |
| Push notification tokens | Until you sign out, delete your account, or the token stops working |
| Subscription records | As long as required for tax and accounting law, normally 6 years |
| Messages sent through the website forms, and support emails | 2 years, then deleted |
| Backups | Up to 90 days |
8. How we protect your information
Data is encrypted in transit and at rest. Access to each record is checked against your account by database security rules. Files are stored privately and opened through links that expire after a short time. You can add an app lock using your device passcode, Face ID or fingerprint.
Messages are not end-to-end encrypted. No system is completely secure, and we will tell you and the ICO if a breach puts your rights at risk, as the law requires.
9. Deleting your account
You can delete your account in the app under Settings > Account and security > Delete account. We then delete your account, your profile and the information only you can see.
Messages you sent, events and documents you shared, and the audit trail in a shared family space stay available to the other members. They are part of those members' record too. They will show your name with a note that the account has been deleted. If you were the only member of a family space, the whole space is deleted.
Deleting your account does not cancel a subscription bought through Apple or Google. Cancel it in your App Store or Google Play subscription settings. For more detail, see https://www.commongroundparenting.co.uk/account-deletion.
10. Children
CommonGround accounts are for adults aged 18 or over. The app is not directed at children, and we do not knowingly create accounts for children. Parents will naturally write about their children; that information is protected in the same way as all other content and visible only to people with access to the family space.
11. Your rights
Under UK data protection law you have the right to:
- access your personal data and get a copy of it
- have inaccurate data corrected
- have your data deleted
- restrict or object to how we use it
- receive your data in a portable format
- withdraw consent at any time, where we rely on consent
Some rights are limited where data is also another person's information, for example a message you received from your co-parent. Contact support@commongroundparenting.co.uk to make a request. We will respond within one month.
12. Complaints
Please contact us first so we can try to help. You can also complain to the Information Commissioner's Office: ico.org.uk, 0303 123 1113.
13. Changes to this policy
We will post any changes on this page and update the date above. If a change is significant, we will tell you in the app or by email before it takes effect.