Privacy notice
How we handle personal data. Plain English, because the whole brand is about not hiding things. Last updated 18 July 2026.
Who we are
The Crossbencher is published by Crossbencher Media Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales. We are the data controller for the personal data described here. Contact: privacy@crossbencher.co.uk.
What we collect, and why
The newsletter. If you sign up, we store your email address and the date you signed up, so we can send you the weekly email. Our lawful basis is your consent, given by confirming your address (double opt-in). You can withdraw it at any time using the unsubscribe link in every email - no reason needed, effective immediately.
Membership and payments. If you become a paying member, payment is handled by Stripe; we never see or store your card details. We store your email and subscription status so we can give you access. Our lawful basis is performance of a contract (providing the membership you paid for).
The public record. Our tools archive public statements, votes and figures by public figures acting in public roles - MPs, ministers, public bodies, publicly-funded broadcasters. Where this involves personal data, our lawful basis is legitimate interests (accountability journalism in the public interest), and we rely on the journalism exemption in the Data Protection Act 2018 (Schedule 2, Part 5). We have documented the balancing test; a summary is below.
Games. Your scores and streaks are stored on your own device (local storage). We don’t collect them.
What we don’t do
We don’t sell or rent your data. We don’t run advertising, and we don’t let advertisers target you. We don’t use third-party tracking or analytics cookies that follow you around the web. Being ad-free and untracked is part of the point.
Analytics
We measure traffic with cookieless analytics (Cloudflare Web Analytics): aggregate page views and referrers only - no cookies, no fingerprinting, no profile of you. Conversion counts (for example how many people join the newsletter) are recorded in our own database as plain event tallies, tied to your account only where you have one.
Cookies
We use strictly-necessary cookies only: one keeps you signed in to your account (and one keeps the site’s administrators signed in). If you arrive on a writer’s shared link, a 30-day cookie remembers which writer sent you, so we can pay them a share if you later subscribe - it identifies the writer, not you, and tracks nothing else. If you arrive from one of our own posts or videos, a 30-day cookie (cb_src) remembers which channel brought you - it names the channel (for example “video”), not you, so we can see which of our own work is working. There are no tracking or advertising cookies.
How long we keep it
Newsletter data: when you unsubscribe we mark your address unsubscribed immediately and stop sending; the row is retained so we can prove the unsubscribe and never re-add you. Ask us at the address below and we’ll delete it entirely. Membership data: for the life of your membership plus what we’re legally required to keep for accounting. The public record is retained for its accountability purpose - it is, by design, a permanent archive of public acts, with corrections layered on top rather than deletions.
Your rights
You have the right to ask what we hold about you, to correct it, to have it deleted, to restrict or object to processing, and to data portability. For the newsletter, unsubscribe does all of this instantly. For anything else, email privacy@crossbencher.co.uk and we’ll respond within one month. Note the journalism exemption may limit some rights where they would prevent legitimate reporting on public figures - we apply it narrowly and only to the public record, never to your newsletter or account data.
The legitimate-interests balancing test (summary)
For the public record we asked: is there a legitimate interest? Yes - holding power to account with sourced evidence. Is the processing necessary for it? Yes - the archive is the evidence; without it the accountability fails. Does it override the individual’s rights? For public figures acting in public roles, on the public record, with no special-category data and a strong public interest, the balance favours processing. We apply more caution the less public the person, and we do not build profiles of private individuals.
Complaints
If you think we’ve mishandled your data, please tell us first so we can put it right. You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ico.org.uk).