This privacy policy describes how we will collect and use your personal data. Please read it carefully, and if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us at hello@nowfoster.org.
Our Contact Details
The Now Foster website and platform are owned and operated by Now Foster, which is registered in England and Wales as a company limited by guarantee (company number 13988407). Registered and postal address: Stanford Farm, Halfway House, Shrewsbury, England, SY5 9DW. Our ICO registration number is ZB746438. Our Data Protection lead can be contacted via email at hello@nowfoster.org.
What Data Do We Collect and How?
We currently collect and process the following information:
- Identity data: full name, title
- Contact data: address, email address(es), telephone number, mobile phone number
- Business data: business name, job title, profession
- Profile data: preferences and interests, username and password
- Registration of Interest: fostering address, interest in weekending, fostering type, fostering groups, skills & experience, activities and interests
- Home visit: nationality, language skills, sexual orientation, religion, work, significant relationships, fostering/adoption experience, health information (including any ongoing medical treatment), caution or conviction of an offence, children you and your partner have, child’s health, details of any pets, and financial information (including combined savings and household income)
- Application form: marital status, any children under 6 years of age, 10 years of address history, 5 years of work experience, six reference contact details, previous involvement with a local authority, any children removed from your care, prohibited from being a foster parent, full details of your children, and emergency contact details
- Technical data: IP address, browser type and version, operating system
How We Use Your Personal Data (and the legal basis for processing)
Most of the personal data we process is provided directly by you. Under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR), we are required to have a lawful basis for processing this information. The table below lists the processing purposes and the lawful basis.
| Purpose for Processing |
Legal Basis |
| Manage initial enquiries |
Legitimate Interests |
| Cultivate a pipeline of potential weekend foster carers |
Legitimate Interests |
| Carry out the initial home visit on behalf of the local authority |
Legitimate Interests |
| To manage the confidentiality, availability and integrity of the Now Foster platform |
Legitimate Interests |
| To share the pre-approval summary information with the applicable local authority social work team |
Consent |
Most of the information collected by the Now Foster platform is provided directly from you, the prospective foster parent, with the exception:
- Introduction chat write-up (from Now Foster employee)
- Pre-approval summary (from Now Foster employee)
- Home visit notes (from the social worker)
Who do we share your data with?
- The information on you, the prospective foster carer, will be shared with your assigned local authority to progress the fostering application.
- The complete application form will be shared via YotiSign, allowing all parties to sign the document.
- Oxford Code Labs, as the developers of the platform, will have access to all the data stored within the platform for system administration purposes.
- The pre-approval summary will be produced using ChatGPT.
If any of your personal data is shared with a third party, as described above, we will ensure that it is handled safely, securely, and in accordance with your rights, our obligations, and the third party’s obligations under the UK GDPR.
Your personal data may be transferred to a third party if we sell, transfer, or merge all or part of our business or assets. Any new owner of our business may continue to use your personal data in the same way(s) that we have used it, as specified in this Privacy Notice.
Do we transfer your personal data outside of the United Kingdom?
The Now Foster platform is hosted on servers in the EU; therefore, current data transfers are covered by the UK-EU adequacy decision.
Where data is to be processed in a third country that does not have an adequacy decision, the ICO’s data transfer risk assessment will be completed to ensure the third country has appropriate safeguards in place to protect the personal data of the individuals stored within the Now Foster platform. These will be supported by implementing the ICO’s international data transfer agreement.
How do we store your personal data?
The security of your personal data is essential to us, and to protect your data, we take several necessary measures, including the following:
- Limiting access to your personal data to those employees, agents, contractors, and other third parties with a legitimate need to know and ensuring that they are subject to duties of confidentiality.
- Procedures for dealing with data breaches (the accidental or unlawful destruction, loss, alteration, unauthorised disclosure of, or access to, your personal data), including notifying you and/or the Information Commissioner’s Office where we are legally required.
- The Now Foster platform is hosted and supported by several global software-as-a-service providers, all of whom hold current ISO 27001 certifications.
- Our outsourced development team are Cyber Essentials certified.
- Our staff have all received data protection and cybersecurity training and have signed confidentiality agreements.
- We have signed data sharing agreements with each of the local authorities that are granted access to the Now Foster platform.
How long will we retain your personal data?
We will retain your personal data for only as long as necessary, which is the duration of the application process.
What are your Individual Rights?
Under data protection law, you have rights, including:
- The Right of Access. You have the right to ask us for copies of your personal information.
- The Right to Rectification. You have the right to ask us to rectify personal information you think is inaccurate. You also have the right to ask us to complete information you think is incomplete.
- The Right to be Forgotten. You can ask us to erase your personal information in certain circumstances.
- The Right to Restrict of Processing. You have the right to ask us to restrict the processing of your personal data in certain circumstances.
- The Right to Object. You have the right to object to the processing of your personal data in certain circumstances.
- The Right to Withdraw Consent. If we rely on consent to process your personal data, you can withdraw that consent at any time.
- The Right to Portability. You have the right to ask that we transfer the personal data you gave us to another organisation or to you in certain circumstances.
You are not required to pay any charge to exercise your rights. If you make a request, we have one month to respond.
How to Complain
If you have any concerns about our use of your personal information, you can complain to us at hello@nowfoster.org. You can also complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) if you are unhappy with how we have used your data. The ICO’s address is the Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF. Alternatively, you can phone their helpline at 0303 123 1113 or complete an online form via the ICO website (https://www.ico.org.uk).
Date last reviewed: 30/06/2025