Privacy Policy

Last updated: 23 September 2026

This policy explains how Join The Officials Limited ("The Officials," "we," "us," "our") collects, uses, and protects your personal data when you visit our website, join our membership, take our courses, attend our events, work with us in mentorship, or attend training booked by your employer.

We are the data controller for the personal data described in this policy.

Who we are

• Legal entity: Join The Officials Limited, trading as The Officials
• Company number: 12543520 (registered in England and Wales)
• Registered office: 167-169 Great Portland Street, Fifth Floor, London, W1W 5PF, UK
• Email: hello@jointheofficials.com
• ICO registration number: ZA763835

We are not required to appoint a Data Protection Officer. Questions about this policy go to hello@jointheofficials.com.

Please tell us if your personal details change so we can keep our records accurate.

The data we collect

Identity and contact data: such as your name, pronouns (optional), date of birth, email address, and phone number.

Professional data: such as your job title and employer.

Transaction data: what you have bought from us, when, and how much you paid. We do not see or store your full card details. Payments are processed by Stripe, through our membership platform (Mighty Networks) and our checkout provider (ThriveCart). Stripe handles your card information under its own security standards.

Account and community data: your membership login details, the profile you create in HQ, and anything you post, comment, or upload in the community.

To join HQ, you create an account with Mighty Networks, the platform that hosts our community. Mighty Networks also handles some of your account information under its own privacy policy.

Communication data: messages you send us by email, contact form, social media, or any other channel. We use an AI assistant (Town) connected to our email to help us organize our inbox and draft replies, so emails you send us are processed by that service.

Mentorship data: if you work with us in mentorship, we record sessions with your agreement using Zoom, Google Meet, Fathom, or Otter, which also create a transcript. We share each recording with you, and we use the transcript to write your session notes and follow-up documents. See "Mentorship recordings and AI tools" below.

Survey and feedback data: answers you give in surveys, quizzes, onboarding forms, and event feedback.

Technical data: your IP address, browser type, device, time zone, pages visited, and how you move around our website and membership platform.

Marketing data: whether you have agreed to receive marketing from us, and your email preferences. We do not track whether you open our emails or click links in them.

How we collect it

• Directly from you, when you fill in a form, buy something, join the membership, post in the community, attend a session, or email us.
• From your employer, when they book training for you (see "Corporate training" below).
• Automatically, through cookies and similar technologies on our website and platforms.

Some information is required to provide our services. For example, we need your name and email address to create your membership, register you for training, or process a purchase. If you do not give us this information, we may not be able to provide the service. Other information, such as your pronouns or career goals, is optional.

How we use your data and our lawful basis

• Giving you access to courses, membership, events, and mentorship you have paid for. Data: identity, contact, transaction, account. Lawful basis: contract.
• Taking payment and keeping financial records. Data: identity, contact, transaction. Lawful basis: contract; legal obligation.
• Replying to your messages and support requests. Data: identity, contact, communication. Lawful basis: legitimate interests (responding to people who contact us).
• Running and moderating the HQ community. Data: account and community. Lawful basis: contract; legitimate interests (keeping the community safe and useful).
• Preparing mentorship session notes. Data: mentorship. Lawful basis: contract; consent for recording.
• Recording live training sessions and events for our course library. Data: attendees' names, images, voices, and chat contributions. Lawful basis: legitimate interests (providing recorded training to members).
• Improving our training and resources. Data: survey, feedback, technical. Lawful basis: legitimate interests (developing our products).
• Sending you marketing emails. Data: identity, contact, marketing. Lawful basis: consent, or soft opt-in for existing customers (see below).
• Measuring website traffic. Data: technical. Lawful basis: consent via our cookie banner.
• Publishing testimonials. Data: your name, job title, photo, and the words you gave us. Lawful basis: consent. We only publish a testimonial with your permission, and you can ask us to remove it at any time.
• If we run social media advertising, showing you our ads and measuring them. Data: technical, marketing. Lawful basis: consent via our cookie banner.
• Keeping records to establish or defend legal claims. Data: any relevant data. Lawful basis: legitimate interests.

We only use your data for the purpose we collected it for, or a compatible purpose. If we need to use it for an unrelated purpose, we will tell you first and explain the lawful basis.

Special category data

We do not ask for special category data, such as information about your health, ethnicity, religion, or sexual orientation. Sometimes members and mentees choose to share this kind of information, for example in a mentorship session or a community post. If you do, it may appear in your session recordings, transcripts, and notes, or in the community where you posted it.

We only use this information to support you, we do not share it with anyone outside the service providers listed below, and we delete it on the same schedule as the rest of your data. For mentorship, we ask for your explicit consent to this at the start of your engagement. You never have to share this kind of information with us, and you can ask us to remove it from your notes or recordings at any time.

Mentorship recordings and AI tools

We only record mentorship sessions with your agreement, given at the start of each engagement. You can ask us not to record any session.

We record and transcribe sessions using Zoom, Google Meet, Fathom, or Otter, depending on how the session is held. We share each recording with you so you can rewatch your session. We use AI tools, including Google Gemini and Town, to help draft your session notes, and some of our recording and workspace tools include built-in AI features that summarize content. We review every document before sending it to you. We test many AI tools as part of our training work, but we never use your mentorship recordings, transcripts, or notes to do so. Where a provider offers the option, we choose account settings that stop your data being used to train AI models, and we check these settings regularly. Where a provider does use data for training, we say so in the provider list below.

We keep your recordings, transcripts, and session notes while you are a premium member and for one year after your membership ends, then delete them. You can download your recordings at any time before then, and you can ask us to delete them sooner.

Nothing you share in mentorship is disclosed to your employer or anyone else without your permission, unless the law requires it.

Corporate training

When your employer books training with us, they give us your name and work email so we can register you and give you access to the session and materials. We use this data to deliver the training and to report attendance back to your employer.

We will not add you to our marketing list because your employer booked you. If you sign up for our emails or membership yourself, that is covered by the rest of this policy.

Marketing

We send marketing emails if you have agreed to receive them, or if you have bought from us and we are writing about similar products and services (the "soft opt-in"). Every email includes an unsubscribe link. You can also email hello@jointheofficials.com to opt out.

Unsubscribing from marketing does not stop service emails about things you have bought, such as login details or event reminders.

Cookies and tracking

We use cookies and similar technologies on our website and platforms.

• Strictly necessary cookies make the site and your login work. These do not need your consent.
• Analytics cookies tell us how people use our website.
• Advertising cookies are only used if we run social media advertising. They let us show you our ads on other platforms and measure them.

We only set analytics and advertising cookies with your consent, which you give or refuse through the cookie banner. You can change your choice at any time using the Cookie Settings link in our website footer.

Who we share your data with

We do not sell your personal data. We share it with service providers who process it on our behalf, under contracts that require them to keep it secure and use it only on our instructions.

The providers we use, what each one does, where it processes data, and the transfer safeguard that applies are listed below. We update this list whenever we add or remove a provider.

Training and event partners: when you sign up for training or an event we run with a partner, we share your name and contact details with that partner so they can take part in delivering it. We tell you who the partner is and that your details will be shared when you sign up. The partner handles your details under its own privacy policy.

We may also share data with professional advisers such as accountants, lawyers, and insurers; with HMRC, the ICO, or other authorities where the law requires it; and with a buyer or successor if we sell or transfer all or part of our business.

International transfers

Some of our providers store or process data outside the UK. When that happens, we make sure one of these safeguards applies:

• the country has UK adequacy regulations (this includes the EU and EEA);
• the US provider is certified under the UK Extension to the EU-US Data Privacy Framework (the "UK-US data bridge"); or
• we have the ICO's International Data Transfer Agreement or the UK Addendum to the EU Standard Contractual Clauses in place with the provider.

Email us if you want details of the safeguard for a particular provider.

How we protect your data

We use access controls, two-factor authentication, and reputable providers with their own security certifications. Only people who need your data to do their work can access it, and they must keep it confidential.

If a personal data breach puts your rights at risk, we will tell you and the ICO where the law requires us to.

How long we keep your data

• Financial and transaction records: 6 years from the end of the financial year they relate to (legal requirement).
• Membership account and community data: length of your membership plus 12 months.
• Mentorship recordings, transcripts, and session notes: while you are a premium member, plus one year after your membership ends.
• Recordings of training sessions and events: kept indefinitely in our course library, unless you ask us to remove your contribution.
• Enquiries and correspondence: 2 years from last contact.
• Marketing data: until you unsubscribe, then kept on a suppression list so we do not email you again.
• Corporate training attendance: 3 years from the date of the training.

We may anonymize data so it no longer identifies you and use it for statistics without a time limit.

Your rights

You have the right to:

• access the personal data we hold about you;
• have inaccurate data corrected;
• have your data erased;
• restrict how we use your data;
• object to how we use your data, including for marketing;
• receive your data in a portable format;
• withdraw consent at any time, where we rely on consent.

To use any of these rights, email hello@jointheofficials.com. There is no fee. We may ask you to confirm your identity first. We respond within one month, or up to three months for complex requests, in which case we will tell you within the first month.

You can read more about your rights on the ICO website: ico.org.uk/for-the-public

Automated decisions

We do not make decisions about you based solely on automated processing.

Age requirement

Our services are for working professionals and are not intended for anyone under 18.

Complaints

If you are unhappy with how we have handled your data, please email hello@jointheofficials.com with "Data protection complaint" in the subject line. We will acknowledge your complaint within 30 days and respond fully without undue delay.

You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) at ico.org.uk or on 0303 123 1113.

Third-party links

Our website and community may link to other websites, including affiliate links to products we recommend. When you click a link, the other website may collect data about you or set its own cookies. We are not responsible for their privacy practices. Please read their privacy policies before sharing data with them.

Changes to this policy

We update this policy when our services or the law change. The date at the top shows when it was last updated. If we make a significant change, we will tell members and customers by email.