Privacy Policy

Who we are

SEN Village is operated by SEN Digital Solutions Limited (company number 17188846), a private limited company registered in England and Wales.

We provide a closed, account-based community platform for registered parents, guardians, and carers of children with special educational needs (SEN). It is not a public marketplace or guest-access service.

How to contact us (all addresses are monitored by our founding team):

• General enquiries: info@sen-village.co.uk
• Privacy / data rights (including DSARs) and safeguarding / community safety: support@sen-village.co.uk
• Security vulnerability disclosure: security@sen-village.co.uk

Closed, account-based community

Registration is required before any use of the SEN Village app, including viewing notices, profiles, or support listings. There is no guest or anonymous access within the app. This is intentional: all content is member-generated and relates to children and families.

For email registration, you must confirm that you control your email address before full community access.

Membership is free. Optional in-app credits may be purchased only to publish notices for a chosen duration. Credits are not required to create an account, complete membership, browse notices, connect with families, or use messaging once you are a registered member.

Information we collect

We may collect account details (such as name, email and login data), profile information you provide, messages you send in-app, noticeboard posts you publish (including text, optional links, audience tags, and poster images or PDFs you attach), connection and matching preferences, privacy visibility settings, and technical data like device type, app events, error logs, and crash reports. If you choose to share it, we also collect coarse location data (such as your general town or region, rather than precise GPS coordinates) to improve community matching.

SEN Village is designed to minimise the collection of identifiable information relating to children and individuals with SEN needs. We use illustrated avatars rather than profile photos, and messaging is text based, to reduce accidental sharing of identifying images. Noticeboard posters are optional publishing media for events and community posts, not profile photos, and are screened before publication.

If you buy credits or optional in-app features, payment is processed by your app store provider. We receive confirmation of the purchase and your credit balance, not your full payment card details.

Biometric authentication

If you choose to enable biometric login (such as fingerprint or facial recognition), your biometric data is never sent to our servers. It is stored and verified securely by your device's operating system. Our app only receives a cryptographic key confirming your identity.

Special category data

Some information related to SEN needs may be sensitive personal data. We process this information only where you actively choose to provide it and where you have given explicit consent. We use this solely for providing core app features and safeguarding. You can withdraw this consent at any time by deleting the information from your profile or adjusting your privacy settings.

Community visibility

As SEN Village is a closed community platform, information you choose to share is visible to other registered members depending on your settings and the feature you use. Noticeboard posts may be visible to wider community audiences according to the filters and audience you select when posting. Private messages are visible to you and the families you have connected with.

We recommend being mindful of sharing highly identifiable details in public or widely shared spaces. You control much of what others can see through Privacy settings, described below.

Noticeboard content and posters

When you publish a notice, we process the text you enter and any optional poster file (such as a JPEG, PNG, WebP, or PDF image of a flyer) so that registered members can view it according to the audience you choose. Poster files are stored with your notice and may be resized or previewed for display performance.

Before publication, notice text and poster images may be checked automatically using Microsoft Azure AI Content Safety to help keep the community family-safe. Content that fails these checks is not published. Members can also report notices in-app. If three different parents report the same notice, we may remove it from the noticeboard automatically. Credits used for a removed notice are not refunded.

Tagging a charity or organisation on a notice may display information that organisation has published in Support (such as a name, logo, description, and contact links) to other members. Linking does not transfer ownership of that organisation's details to you.

Privacy visibility and discovery controls

You can manage visibility for child related profile fields such as needs, aids, age range, and bio. For each field you can choose whether it is visible to everyone, matched families only, or nobody. Organisation accounts can similarly control visibility of their about text, SEN focus areas, and aids where shown on their profile.

You can also pause your profile from appearing in Village discovery while continuing to use Support, notices, and existing chats. These settings are stored with your account in our UK-hosted database so they apply across your devices when you sign in.

How we use your information

We use your data to create and manage your account, deliver app features, maintain safety, respond to support requests, deliver push notifications where enabled, process credits and optional purchases, and improve reliability and performance.

We may also use third-party tools such as Google Firebase and Sentry to monitor app performance, reliability, and crashes.

Community matching

To help you find relevant support and connections, SEN Village uses a matching feature available to registered members. This system connects you with others based entirely on information you control and provide, such as your coarse location, SEN type, and SEN aids. We do not use hidden algorithms for behavioural profiling; matches are strictly based on the preferences you set in your profile.

Community Equipment Exchange

Community Equipment Exchange is a member-only notice category within SEN Village. It lets registered families share information about donating, passing on, or seeking SEN-related equipment within the community.

It is not an e-commerce or payment service. SEN Village does not process payments between members or guarantee transactions. Any arrangement between members happens outside the app and at their own discretion.

Posting or responding to equipment exchange notices requires completed membership (profile, avatar, child details, terms acceptance, and onboarding). We may process notice content and related messages where reasonably necessary for safeguarding and moderation.

Legal basis for processing

We process data under UK GDPR using one or more legal bases: contract (to deliver services), explicit consent (for sensitive data), legitimate interests (to improve and secure the service), and legal obligations (including safeguarding and regulatory duties).

We rely on legitimate interests to understand app performance, improve reliability, maintain platform safety, and enhance community features, while balancing these interests against your privacy rights and freedoms.

Sharing your information

We do not sell your personal data. We may share limited data with trusted service providers (such as analytics, email communications, cloud hosting, payment confirmation via app stores, and security tools), and where strictly required by law, safeguarding, or to prevent serious harm.

To check public noticeboard and profile content against family-safe standards, relevant text and notice poster images may be sent to Microsoft Azure AI Content Safety for automated analysis. That processing supports moderation only; we do not sell your content.

Where your data is stored (international transfers)

Your core account and community data is securely stored and hosted on Microsoft Azure servers located entirely within the United Kingdom.

To monitor app performance and understand how our community uses SEN Village, we use trusted third-party tools like Google Firebase and Firebase Analytics. Some limited technical and usage data (such as device identifiers and app interaction logs) may be transferred to and processed in countries outside the UK, including the United States.

Whenever we transfer your data internationally, we ensure it is protected by strict legal safeguards approved under UK GDPR, such as the UK Addendum to the Standard Contractual Clauses or an approved Adequacy Decision.

App tracking and analytics

While our app does not use traditional web cookies, we use software development kits (SDKs) provided by Google, including Firebase Analytics. These tools collect technical data to help us monitor app performance, understand how the community interacts with the app, and deliver push notifications. They do not track you across other third-party apps or websites for targeted advertising.

Website cookies and consent

On this website we show our own cookie preference panel when you first visit, and when you choose Cookie settings in the site footer. You can accept all cookies, choose essential cookies only, or save separate choices for analytics and advertising.

Your choices are stored in your browser and passed to Google Consent Mode so Google Analytics and Google AdSense respect them. Where you consent to analytics, we use Google Analytics (measurement ID G-TF5J1ECDVE) to understand how the website is used. Where you consent to advertising, we may show Google AdSense advertisements on this website, including a footer display unit. See Google's Privacy Policy for more information.

Advertising

Advertising helps keep core matching and messaging free for many families. We do not sell your personal data to advertisers.

In the app, we use Google AdMob to show banner (and similar) advertisements on selected screens. We request ads in a non-personalised way where the AdMob SDK allows that setting, so ads are not selected using a personalised profile built from your SEN Village account data. On Apple devices, Apple may also require App Tracking Transparency (ATT) permission before certain cross-app tracking; if you decline, advertising continues in a more limited form consistent with Apple's rules. Google and its advertising partners may still process limited technical information (such as device and approximate location signals) under their own policies to deliver and measure ads.

On this website, where you consent to advertising cookies, we may show Google AdSense advertisements (including a footer display unit), subject to your cookie choices and Google Consent Mode.

Third party advertisers may show ads within the app or on this website according to their own policies. We do not endorse third party advertisers or their products, and your interactions with them are at your own risk. See Google's Privacy Policy. You may use credits to remove ads for a limited period where that option is available in the app.

In-app purchases and credits

Credits can be purchased through your device's app store, such as Google Play or the Apple App Store. All payments are processed securely by the app store provider and are subject to that provider's payment terms. We receive purchase confirmation and your updated credit balance, not your card or wallet details.

Credits are used for noticeboard posts and, where available, optional features such as ad removal. Credits are not required to create an account, complete membership, browse notices, or use messaging and matching once you are a registered member. Credits are non transferable, cannot be exchanged for cash, and are non refundable except where required by law or the app store's policies.

Push notifications

If you enable push notifications, we may send alerts about messages, matches, notices, and important app updates. You can manage or disable notifications at any time through your device operating system settings.

Data retention and account deletion

We keep personal data only as long as needed for service delivery, legal obligations, dispute resolution, and safeguarding. When data is no longer needed, we delete or anonymise it.

You have the right to request deletion of your account and associated data at any time. In the app, go to Settings > Account Management > Delete profile, or email support@sen-village.co.uk (general enquiries: info@sen-village.co.uk). Deleting your account removes your profile, conversations, and notices you posted, and is not recoverable.

You may also exercise privacy rights, including access, correction, restriction, objection, or data portability, by contacting support@sen-village.co.uk.

Safeguarding and community safety

We may review reports, messages, or shared content where reasonably necessary to investigate abuse, protect users, enforce our community standards, or comply with legal and safeguarding obligations. Public profile information and noticeboard content (including text and poster images) may be checked automatically before it is published. Private chat is encrypted and is not automatically scanned for moderation. Repeated or serious reports may lead to notice removal or account restrictions. In particular, three independent parent reports on the same notice can remove that notice automatically, and five independent reports on the same account can suspend access pending review. See our Safety & safeguarding page for more detail.

Security

We use technical and organisational safeguards designed to protect your data, including encryption in transit (HTTPS) between the app and our services, UK hosting for core account and community data, and layered network protection in front of our live API.

Private messages are encrypted before they are stored. Public-facing profile text and noticeboard text and images may be checked automatically before publication to help keep the community safe. We do not automatically scan private chat messages for moderation; reporting and safeguarding processes still apply, as described above and on our Safety & safeguarding page.

While no system is completely risk-free, we continuously monitor and improve security controls. Sensitive configuration and credentials are handled on our servers, not inside the mobile app.

Your rights

You have the right to access, correct, delete, restrict, object, or port your data, and to withdraw consent where processing is based on consent. We will respond to legitimate data requests within one calendar month. You may also complain to the UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO).

Children's information

SEN Village is intended for adults (18+) who are parents, guardians, or carers. You should only share child-related information that you have the legal authority to share. We do not knowingly collect personal data of children under 18.

Changes to this policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. Material changes will be clearly communicated within the app or by other appropriate means. Where required by law, we will seek your consent before material changes take effect.