About the Contribly Privacy Policy

We are committed to giving you transparency of our privacy practices and control over your data in connection with Contribly’s Services. Contribly collects and uses your personal data strictly within the legal limits of the data protection law in England and Wales. This Privacy Policy covers Contribly’s treatment of personally identifiable information and other data that Contribly gathers when you are accessing Contribly’s Services. The Services are not available to individuals who are younger than 16 years old.

This privacy policy has been updated in the light of the EU General Data Protection Regulation which came into effect in May 2018. Contribly is registered with the UK Information Commissioner’s Office in London, registration reference ZA174707

This policy informs you about:

• General aspects such as the data controller and general principles of the collection and use of your personal data by Contribly
• Personal data we collect and use when you visit our website
• What happens when end users use applications with content published through the Contribly Platform
• Your rights
• Changes to this policy
  
  
  

General Aspects

The Data Controller for the purpose of data protection law is The Contribly Data Controller, 112-114 Witton Street, Northwich, Cheshire CW9 5NW. Please email any questions or concerns you may have regarding data privacy to: privacy@contribly.com

 

What information does Contribly collect when you visit contribly.com?

We may collect, store and use the following kinds of personal information:

(a) information about your computer and about your visits to and use of this website (including your IP address, geographical location, browser type and version, operating system, referral source, length of visit, page views, and website navigation.

(b) Cookies

The Contribly company website uses Google Analytics, a service provided by Google. This uses cookies. These are text files that are stored on your computer and permit an analysis of your use of the website. The information about your website use generated by the “Cookie” (including your truncated IP address) is transmitted to a server controlled by Google in the USA and is stored there. Google uses this information to analyse your use of the website, to generate reports about website activities for website operators and to provide further services related to website and internet use. Google may also share such information with third parties to the extent it is legally required to do so and/or to the extent third parties process data on behalf of Google. You may deactivate Google Analytics with the help of a browser add-on if you do not want this website analysis. This add-on can be downloaded at: http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout?hl=en

What information does Contribly collect when you are a Contribly client?

(c) As a Contribly client we hold your personal details for the purpose of providing the Contribly service you have purchased to you (access to the Contribly moderation tool, and the Contribly APIs) and for the purposes of formally contracting with your organisation, for billing and for providing ongoing training and support.

(d) When you request a ‘demo’ account we collect your name and email in order to set up a new account and provide the trial service

(e) when you join our mailing list by explicitly consenting via our website, we collect your name, company details and email. Contribly uses mailout services from SendInBlue for the purposes of providing the email communication to you. Your details are not shared with anyone else. You can request removal of your personal information by emailing us at privacy@contribly.com or using the ‘unsubscribe’ option.

 

How does Contribly use your personal information?

We will not provide your personal information to any third parties for the purpose of direct marketing.

We use your personal information as follows: to provide you with the services that you request from us, for example, your demo account; or your Contribly service; to send you general (non-marketing) commercial communications, for example to notify you about changes to our products or services; to send statements and invoices to you, and collect payments from you; to carry out our obligations and enforce our rights arising from any contracts entered into between you and us; to send you email notifications which you have specifically requested.

When you sign up to receive our news and marketing information via our website we collect your name and email address, company details and telephone number. Your details are not shared with anyone else. You can request removal of your personal information by emailing us at privacy@contribly.com or using the ‘unsubscribe’ option.

 

Does Contribly share my personal information with others?

Your personal details are not shared with third parties without your express consent except in the cases described below:

We may use contractually hired third parties and external service providers in order to provide our services, for instance regarding accounts processing (Xero, Dropbox, Google Apps), hosting or other software services (eg Fastly, Amazon Web Services). All client content is stored on AWS held within the EU and the UK.

In these cases we share information with such companies or individuals to enable them to carry out their tasks. Such external service providers are carefully selected in order to ensure your privacy. Service providers may only use the data for the purposes specified and are contractually and / or legally obliged to process data strictly in compliance with data privacy laws.

To comply with any court order, law or legal process, investigate fraud, including responding to any government or regulatory request, lawful requests by public authorities, or to meet national security or law enforcement requirements.

To enforce or apply our terms of service and other agreements, including for billing and collection purposes.

If we believe disclosure is necessary or appropriate to protect the rights, property, or safety of Contribly, our customers, or others. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organizations for the purposes of fraud protection and credit risk reduction.

 

How long does Contribly retain my information?

When your contract terminates, your personal data will be deleted from our databases.

For demo accounts, your personal data will be deleted after three months, unless you specifically request that this period is extended and Contribly confirms this to you by email.

We retain client data for the duration specified in our client agreements. Following contract termination, all personal data is securely and permanently deleted from our production systems and encrypted backups in accordance with the timelines defined in our Data Processing Agreement (DPA), typically within 90 days.

 

Sale and Sharing of Personal Information

Contribly does not “sell” or “share” personal information for cross-context behavioral advertising, as those terms are defined under US state privacy laws. When acting as a Service Provider, we only process personal information for the specific purposes outlined in our client agreements.

 

What happens when end users use the Contribly Platform

When providing services to our clients, Contribly acts as a Data Processor under UK/EU law and as a Service Provider under US state privacy laws like the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). In this relationship, our client is the Data Controller or Business. 

As a Contribly client, you are able to integrate the content that has been uploaded via the Contribly platform by your end users into your web and mobile applications. This happens through a Contribly application programming interface (API) that delivers content stored on Contribly’s servers into these web and mobile applications. The application programming interfaces (APIs) we provide are embedded in such applications and solely facilitate developers to request and work with content from Contribly’s servers.

When operating as a service provider for our clients, Contribly’s APIs deliver content to our clients’ applications. The APIs do not perform cross-site tracking of end-users or collect user profile information for Contribly’s own purposes. To ensure the security and integrity of the service, we do process end-user IP addresses on behalf of our client for security logging and fraud prevention. This processing is necessary to provide the service securely

The Contribly platform will potentially process personal data on behalf of you, the client, in order to provide the service to you. In this context, you are the data controller and Contribly is the data processor.

As Contribly does not have an EU office, in accordance with Article 27 of the GDPR, we have appointed Mr Ivan Blum as our EU Data Representative. Mr Blum can be contacted at ivanblum@contribly.com and at 4 Avenue Caroline, 92210, St Cloud, France

 

Your Rights

How do I find out what personal information Contribly holds about me?

You are entitled, upon request, to disclosure regarding your personal data held by us. You are also entitled to have any incorrect data corrected and rights to blocking or deletion.

Please address any requests to privacy@contribly.com. We’ll acknowledge receipt and respond to your request within 30 days.

You have the right to lodge a complaint about our data processing activities with a supervisory authority. As Contribly is based in the UK, our lead supervisory authority is the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

 

Notice to United States Residents

Certain US states provide their residents with specific rights regarding their personal information. This notice supplements the information in this Privacy Policy to address these rights.

When Contribly acts as a Service Provider for our clients (e.g., when we process user-generated content for them), any requests to exercise your privacy rights should be directed to our client, who is the Business responsible for your data. We will assist our clients in responding to verified consumer requests.

For personal data where Contribly is the  Business (e.g., data from visitors to our own website), you may have rights to request access to or deletion of your personal information, and the right to not be discriminated against for exercising these rights.

 

Changes to this Policy

We may amend this privacy policy from time to time. All such changes will take effect once they have been posted on the site and you will be deemed to have accepted any such changes by your use of the site from time to time. Details of changes will be set out below.

Updated May 2025 to add Notice to US Residents