Privacy policy

Last updated 28 September 2026

ParentGlow is built for separated families, so we take your privacy seriously. It's the whole point. This policy explains, in plain English, what we collect, why, and the control you have. We never sell your data, and exporting your family's records is always free.

1. Who we are

ParentGlow is an independent co-parenting app, built and operated in the United Kingdom as a sole trader. ParentGlow is the “data controller” for the information described here. For anything in this policy, or to exercise your data rights, contact us at hello@parentglow.co.uk.

2. What we collect

ParentGlow is in pre-launch early access, so the app itself isn't collecting anything yet. There are only two ways we hold information about you today: if you join the early-access list, and the ordinary technical record that any website keeps.

When you join the early-access list

Your email address. The only thing we actually ask for.
Your first name, if you'd like to give it. Optional, and only so we can say hello properly.
Your answer to “what brings you here?”, if you'd like to give one. Optional, and one of four choices: you're co-parenting now, you're separating at the moment, you work with families as a mediator, solicitor or Cafcass adviser, or you're just having a look. On our pages for professionals, the "work with families" answer starts selected; you can change it to another answer before you send, but not leave it blank.
Which page you signed up from, and which browser you used.
How you found us, if the link you followed says. Some links to this site carry a short campaign label that tells us roughly where the link was shared, such as the link in a social media bio. If yours had no label, we note only the name of the website that sent you, never the full address. The link in an invitation from the ParentGlow app carries no label at all.
A scrambled, one-way version of your IP address. We never store the address itself. It's there so we can spot someone hammering the form, and look into abuse if it happens.
Dates. When you signed up, when we sent your confirmation email, and whether you've confirmed.

When you visit the site

Basic technical data that any website receives: your browser type, approximate region and the pages you visit, from standard server and hosting logs. We do not use third-party advertising or analytics that identify you as an individual.

We also count visits and page views, so we can see which pages people find useful. The counting is done by a privacy-focused measurement service run by the company that hosts this site. It uses no cookies, keeps no record of your IP address, and cannot follow you to other websites. What we see is a total: how many people visited, which pages they read, and roughly which country and browser they came from. Nothing in it can be traced back to you. Before a visit is counted, everything in the web address except a campaign label is removed, so anything else a link happened to carry never reaches the count.

The technical detail, if you like that sort of thing

Your IP address goes through a one-way SHA-256 hash, with a secret salt, before anything is written down. What the database holds is a fingerprint that can't be turned back into an address, and it's used for rate limiting and abuse triage only.

The confirm and unsubscribe links in our emails work the same way. Each link carries a random token, but the database keeps only a SHA-256 hash of it. The usable link exists in your inbox and nowhere else, so even if our database were somehow exposed, nobody could use it to confirm or unsubscribe anyone.

The list is held in our own database rather than an outside mailing tool, and only the sign-up service itself can read it.

3. How the early-access list works

Joining takes two steps, on purpose. When you put your email in, we store it as pending and send you one email with a confirmation link. Nothing else happens until you tap that link. If you never do, we never send you anything.

That's called double opt-in, and it means nobody can put you on our list just by typing your address into our form. Confirmation links last seven days; if yours runs out, put your email in again and we'll send a fresh one.

Once you're confirmed, you get a welcome email, occasional early-access updates while we build, and one email when it's your turn to come in. Every email has a one-click unsubscribe.

Every email carries an unsubscribe link that works in one click, with nothing to log into and no form to fill in. It takes you to a page confirming you're off the list. If you'd rather we deleted your email address altogether than simply stopped writing to you, say so at hello@parentglow.co.uk and we will.

4. Why we use it, and our lawful basis

To send your confirmation email, and then to tell you when your place is ready, on the basis of your consent, which you give by tapping the link and can withdraw at any time by unsubscribing.
To reply to you when you get in touch, on the basis of our legitimate interest in answering you.
To keep the sign-up form free of bots and abuse, which is what the bot check and the scrambled IP address are for, on the basis of our legitimate interest in running a service that isn't swamped by junk.
To remember that you unsubscribed, on the basis of our legitimate interest in not writing to you again by mistake.
To keep the site secure and working, on the basis of our legitimate interest in running a safe service.

5. The app, when it launches

When the app goes live, it will hold the family information you choose to add: your shared calendar, messages, expenses and your children's records. That data is yours. It's shared only with the co-parent and the people you invite, you can export all of it for free at any time, and we will never sell it. We'll expand this section with the full detail before the app launches.

6. Who we share it with

We don't sell your data and we don't share it for advertising. We use a small number of established service providers (“processors”) to host the site, keep the early-access list and send our emails. Each only handles your data to provide that service to us, under their own data-protection terms, and none of them may use it for anything else. We may also disclose information if the law requires it.

7. Where your data is processed

Our providers are established businesses that operate internationally, so some of them may process data outside the UK. Where they do, we rely on appropriate safeguards (such as UK-approved transfer mechanisms) so your data keeps an equivalent level of protection.

8. How long we keep it

If you sign up and never confirm, we delete the record after 90 days. An unconfirmed sign-up isn't a consent, so we don't sit on it.
If you confirm, we keep your details until you unsubscribe or ask us to delete them. We'll review the whole list once the app has launched, and clear anyone we've never heard back from.
If you unsubscribe, we keep your email address on a do-not-contact record so we don't write to you again by mistake. Ask us and we'll delete that too.
The technical bits attached to a sign-up (the scrambled IP address, your browser, the page you came from and how you found us) are cleared after 12 months. They're only there to stop abuse and to tell us which links work.

You can ask us to remove you at any time, and we will.

9. Your rights

Under UK GDPR you have the right to access your data, to have it corrected or erased, to restrict or object to how we use it, to data portability, and to withdraw consent. To exercise any of these, email hello@parentglow.co.uk and we'll respond within the legal timeframe.

If you're unhappy with how we've handled your data, you can complain to the UK's Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk, though we'd appreciate the chance to put it right first.

10. Cookies, and the bot check

The website uses only the essential cookies needed for it to work and stay secure. We do not use advertising or cross-site tracking cookies. The visit counting described in section 2 sets no cookies at all.

Every page that carries the early-access form also runs Cloudflare Turnstile, a bot check. Most of the time you won't see it. It looks at ordinary technical signals (your IP address, your browser and which site you're on) to work out whether you're a person or a script, and it stores what it needs to in your browser so it can remember that you passed. It isn't advertising, and it doesn't follow you around other websites. Cloudflare runs it on our behalf, and also uses those signals to improve its own bot detection; their Turnstile privacy addendum has the full detail.

11. Children

ParentGlow is a service for parents and carers, who are adults. It is not directed at children, and we don't knowingly collect data directly from them.

12. Changes to this policy

As ParentGlow grows, and especially when the app launches, we'll update this policy and change the “last updated” date above. Significant changes will be made clear.

13. Contact

Questions about your privacy? Email a real person at hello@parentglow.co.uk.

← Back to home