Last updated 6 October 2026

This notice explains what information The UK Energy Forum holds about you, why, and what you can do about it.

Who is responsible

The forum is run by Richard Lyon, an individual based in Edinburgh, Scotland. He is the data controller, meaning the person legally responsible for your information. You can reach him by sending a message to the moderators from inside the forum, or by email using the address on the About page.

If you only read the forum

You don’t need an account to read, and we don’t ask who you are. Like any website, our server records the internet address and browser type of each visit. We use these records only to keep the site running and to stop abuse. They are deleted after about a week, though copies survive in our backups for up to five weeks (see “How long we keep it” below).

If you create an account

We hold:

  • Your account details: username, email address, and a name if you choose to give one. Your password is stored in scrambled form that nobody, including us, can read.
  • What you write: posts, replies, private messages, likes, flags, and your profile.
  • How you use the forum: which topics you have read, so the forum can show you what’s new, and your settings.
  • Technical details: the internet address and browser type you used when you signed up and when you log in. We use these to protect accounts and stop spam and abuse.
  • Emails we send you: a record of each email and whether it was delivered.

Why we use it

  • To run your account and the forum. We need your email to confirm your account, let you log in and send you the notifications you choose. You can change which emails you get in your preferences.
  • To keep the forum safe. We use technical details and moderation records to stop spam and abuse and to meet our duties under the Online Safety Act. This is in our legitimate interest, and sometimes a legal requirement.

We don’t use your email for marketing. We don’t add you to any mailing list or newsletter, including the founder’s. We don’t sell your information, show adverts, or use tracking or analytics services.

Who can see it

  • Everyone: your posts, username, profile and the date you joined are public, and search engines can find them. Your email address is never shown publicly.
  • Moderators and the administrator: can see your email address and technical details, so they can moderate. The administrator can technically read private messages, but does so only when one is flagged or the law requires it.
  • Our service providers: Cloudflare, which carries traffic to the forum and protects it from attacks, and Mailgun, which delivers our emails. They handle information only on our instructions. Both are US companies certified under the UK–US “data bridge”, the arrangement the UK government recognises as protecting UK information sent to the US. Our Mailgun account uses its European servers.
  • Google Fonts: the forum’s typefaces are loaded from Google, so your browser’s internet address reaches Google when a page loads.
  • Gravatar: when you sign up, the forum checks Gravatar, a profile-picture service run by Automattic, for a picture linked to your email address. It sends a scrambled version of the address, not the address itself. If one exists, it becomes your forum picture, and you can change it.
  • Authorities: if the law requires us to, or to report illegal content as our Terms of use describe.

The forum itself, and everything stored in it, is on our own server in the United Kingdom.

How long we keep it

  • Your account and posts stay until you ask us to delete them.
  • If you delete your account, your personal details are removed. Posts that other members have replied to may stay, so conversations still make sense, but your name is taken off them. Ask us if you want particular posts removed.
  • Sign-ups that are never confirmed are deleted after 14 days.
  • Email delivery records are deleted after 90 days.
  • Server records of visits are deleted after about a week.
  • We keep backups so the forum can be restored after a failure. Backups are overwritten on a rolling basis, so anything deleted from the forum is gone from the backups within about five weeks.

Cookies

We use only the cookies the forum needs to work: to keep you logged in, to protect against forged requests, and to remember your settings. Cloudflare may set a security cookie to tell people from automated attacks. We use no advertising or tracking cookies, so there is nothing to opt out of.

Your rights

You can ask us to:

  • give you a copy of your information. You can also download your own posts from your preferences page;
  • correct anything that is wrong. You can change most of it yourself in your preferences;
  • delete your information;
  • stop or limit how we use it, if you object.

To do any of these, send a message to the moderators, or email the address on the About page. We will reply within one month.

If you’re unhappy with how we have handled your information, you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office at ico.org.uk or on 0303 123 1113. We’d be grateful for the chance to put it right first.

Children

The forum is for people aged 18 and over. If we learn that an account belongs to someone younger, we will close it and delete its information.

Changes

If we change this notice, we will post the new version here with a new date. If the change is significant, we will announce it on the forum.