Privacy

Clean New Malden is run by residents of New Malden. It is not affiliated with the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames, and it is not a commercial operation.

This page explains what information the site collects, why, and what you can ask us to do about it. If anything here is unclear, email us at [email protected] and we will explain it properly.

Who is responsible

Clean New Malden is run by Arron, a resident of New Malden, who is the data controller for the purposes of UK data protection law. You can contact us at [email protected].

What we collect when you add evidence

When you submit a photograph to the evidence log, we collect:

• The photograph itself, exactly as your device produced it. Photographs from phones usually contain hidden information (EXIF data) including the date and time it was taken and, if your location was switched on, the coordinates.
• The street or location you tell us about, or the pin you place on the map.
• The grade you assess it at, and your description of what is there.
• A quote, if you choose to give one.
• Your name, if you choose to be credited.
• Your email address, if you choose to give one.
• The council report reference, if you have reported it and tell us the number.
• A one-way hash of your IP address. We do not store the address itself. The hash lets us prevent abuse of the form without holding information that identifies your connection.

Giving a name and an email address is optional. A submission without them is just as useful as evidence.

What we publish, and what we never publish

Nothing is published automatically. Every submission is reviewed by a person before it appears.

We publish: the photograph, the date, the street, the grade, your description, your quote, the council report reference, and your first name if you asked to be credited.

Before publishing, we:

• Strip all hidden data from the published copy of the photograph. The version that appears on the site carries no EXIF at all — no capture time, no camera details, no coordinates.
• Round the map location to about 11 metres. That is precise enough to identify the stretch of pavement and blunt enough that a photograph taken outside a front door does not publish that doorstep.
• Check for people, faces, number plates and identifiable private property. If we cannot publish a photograph without showing one of those, we reject it rather than publish it.

We never publish: your email address, your IP address or its hash, your full name, or the unrounded coordinates.

Why we keep the original photograph

We keep the untouched original — hidden data intact — separately and privately. It is never published.

This matters: the embedded capture time and location are what make a photograph evidence rather than an assertion. If this record is ever put to the council, to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman, to a magistrates’ court or to a journalist, the original is what allows the claim to be checked. We also keep a cryptographic checksum of each original so it can be shown that a published photograph has not been altered.

What we collect when you contact us

The contact form collects your name, your email address, the category you select, your message, and a one-way hash of your IP address. We use it to reply to you, and for nothing else. We do not publish anything sent through the form without asking you first.

Our lawful basis

We rely on legitimate interests: documenting whether a public authority is meeting a statutory duty, and making that record available to residents, elected representatives and the press. We have considered the interests of people whose photographs or details might appear and built the moderation process, the EXIF stripping and the location rounding specifically to protect them.

Where you choose to be credited by name, we rely on your consent, which you can withdraw at any time.

How long we keep things

• Published entries and their originals: for as long as the campaign is active, and for the duration of any complaint, ombudsman case or legal proceedings that relies on them. This is the point of the record — a log that deletes itself after six months cannot evidence a pattern.
• Contact form messages: 12 months.
• Hashed IP addresses: 12 months.

Where the information is held

• The website runs on a server rented from Hetzner, in Germany.
• The database is hosted by Supabase in London.
• Photographs are stored on the server’s own disk.
• Encrypted backups are stored in Google Drive. The database backup and configuration are encrypted before they leave the server.
• Email is sent using Resend.
• The site is served through Cloudflare.
• Map tiles are supplied by OpenStreetMap. When the map loads, your browser requests tiles directly from them, which means they receive your IP address. We have no control over that and no access to it.
• Postcode lookups use postcodes.io.

Cookies

We set one cookie, and only for the moderator sign-in. There is no analytics, no advertising, and no tracking of any kind. We do not know who visits this site or how many of you there are.

Your rights

You can ask us to:

• tell you what we hold about you
• correct anything that is wrong
• delete your submission or your message
• stop using your information

Email [email protected] and we will do it. There is no charge and you do not need to give a reason.

If you want a photograph removed from the evidence log, tell us the reference number (it looks like NM-XXXXXX) and we will take it down.

If you think we have handled your information badly, you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office at ico.org.uk, or call 0303 123 1113.

Photographs of you

If you appear in a photograph on this site and would rather not, email us with the reference number and we will remove it. We will not ask you to justify it.

Changes

If this notice changes we will say so here, with the date.

Last updated: 31 July 2026