Privacy Policy

GroundWork is a service operated by Aulter Ltd ("we", "us", "our"), a company registered in England and Wales under company number 10931400. We are the data controller for the limited personal data described in this policy.

GroundWork is built so that the sensitive contents of your readiness document never leave your device. Your readiness document - and the locations, layout, procedures, coordinates, signatures, and PDF content it contains - is created and stored entirely within your own web browser and on your own device. We do not automatically transmit those details to our servers. Our separate Data Statement explains this in full. Information you deliberately enter into a contact or urgent-report form is handled as described below.

Non-sensitive index data. To allow a document to be verified as genuine, we retain a small non-sensitive record for each document produced. This contains: the site number and document reference; the document version, type, tier, and status; the organisation name, category, town, postcode, and (where applicable) company number and UPRN; the responsible person or signatory name and a contact email; the relevant dates (created, reviewed, and review-due); and a cryptographic fingerprint (hash) of the document. It contains no location data, procedures, floor plans, or any description of how your premises is laid out or protected.

Contact data. When you contact us, we process the name, email address, organisation, and message you provide.

Academy notification data. When you ask to be notified about the GroundWork Academy, we process your name, email address, and any organisation you choose to provide.

Urgent-report data. When you report an urgent matter, we process the nature of the matter, your name and email address, any phone number or document reference you choose to provide, and the brief summary you enter. The form tells you not to include sensitive premises details such as locations or procedures.

Payment data. Payments are processed by our payment provider, Stripe. We do not receive or store your full card details; Stripe handles card data directly.

Optional readiness signals. If you enable occupancy-band verification or site-density signals, we record that consent choice in the non-sensitive document index. Once the relevant integration is available, a technology partner may use sensor observations to produce an anonymous occupancy band, vehicle count or density band. GroundWork receives only that result linked to the premises UPRN - not raw sensor data, headcounts, identities, images, number plates or vehicle identities.

Technical data. Our systems record standard technical information such as IP address and browser type in server logs, for security and to operate the service reliably.

We do not collect or store the sensitive contents of your readiness document.

We process the non-sensitive index data to enable verification of readiness documents and to operate the service, on the basis of our legitimate interests in providing a functioning, verifiable product and, where you have purchased a document, the performance of our contract with you. Optional occupancy and site-density signals are processed only when you opt in; you may withdraw that consent at any time. We process contact and urgent-report data to respond to your enquiry or act on the matter you report, on the basis of our legitimate interests in answering the people who contact us and protecting the service. We process Academy notification data with your consent so we can tell you when the Academy is ready; you may withdraw that consent at any time by contacting us. We process payment data to take payment for the service, on the basis of performance of our contract with you. We process technical data to secure and operate the service, on the basis of our legitimate interests in keeping it safe and available.

We share data only as needed to run the service.

Where a document is verified - by you, or by a party you have given your document reference to, such as an event organiser or your insurer - we confirm only limited non-sensitive status information (that the document is genuine, its version, its status, and the relevant dates). We never disclose contact details or any content of the document through verification.

Where an insurer or other authorised party validates documents at scale, they must obtain the document references from their own customers (the sites), not from us, and they receive only non-sensitive validation data. This is described in our Data Statement.

Enabling an occupancy-band or site-density signal does not disclose it to an insurer, lender or other third party. Any such sharing requires a separate, explicit choice by the premises. An authorised recipient receives only the anonymous band or count approved for sharing, not raw sensor data, images, identities, headcounts, number plates or vehicle identities.

We use trusted service providers who process data on our behalf as our processors: Airtable for the non-sensitive index, contact, Academy notification and urgent-report records, and Stripe for payments. These providers act only on our instructions.

We do not sell your data. We do not share your data for third-party advertising or marketing. We do not use your data, and do not permit it to be used, to train artificial intelligence or machine-learning models.

We keep the non-sensitive index record for as long as the associated readiness document remains relevant for verification, and for up to two years after a document is superseded or a review becomes overdue, after which it is deleted or anonymised. We keep contact enquiries and urgent reports for up to two years from your last contact with us, unless a longer period is needed to investigate or respond to the matter. We keep Academy notification data until the Academy launch notification has been sent or you withdraw your consent. Payment records are kept for the period required by law for financial and tax purposes.

Our non-sensitive index, contact, Academy notification and urgent-report records are stored using Airtable. Where personal data is transferred outside the UK by our processors, that transfer is protected by appropriate safeguards, such as the UK's International Data Transfer Agreement or equivalent contractual protections.

Under UK data protection law you have the right to access the personal data we hold about you, to have inaccurate data corrected, to have your data erased, to restrict or object to our processing, and to data portability. Because we do not hold the sensitive contents of your document, those remain within your own control on your device rather than ours. You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) at ico.org.uk.

We hold only non-sensitive data centrally, which substantially reduces the impact of any security incident. The sensitive contents of your document are never transmitted to us and so cannot be exposed by any compromise of our systems. We apply appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect the non-sensitive data we do hold.

GroundWork uses only the cookies necessary to operate the website securely and to remember your session. We do not use advertising or third-party tracking cookies.

We may update this policy from time to time. The "last updated" date at the top shows when it was last revised. Where changes are material, we will make this clear on our website.