Last updated 26 September 2026
The short version
The Village is run by AESC Digital Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales (company number 17430946). We are the controller of your personal data, registered with the Information Commissioner's Office under registration number ZC256816.
Questions about your data, or requests to use your rights: email hello@the-village.club.
| Information | Why we need it | Legal basis |
|---|---|---|
| Mobile number | To sign you in with a one-time code. It is never shown to other members. | Contract |
| First name, baby's stage (including if you're expecting), first baby or not, availability, how you get around, interests, what you're looking for, and your answers about meeting up | To build your profile and suggest mums you're likely to click with, at times and places that suit you both | Contract. Whether you're pregnant is health information, so we only use it with your explicit consent: if you choose “Pregnant”, we ask you to switch on a separate consent before saving. You can withdraw it at any time by choosing another stage. |
| Optional answers (relationship status, sleep, budget, what your days look like) | To improve suggestions. Your budget answer is never shown to anyone | Consent: skip any of these and nothing breaks |
| Your area | To suggest mums nearby. We store an approximate point for your area, never your address, and other members only see the area name | Contract |
| Your intro, and the words you give us to draft it | Shown on your profile, and used to match you with mums who share your interests | Contract |
| Verification selfie | A member of our team checks it before you can be matched, to keep The Village for real mums. It is deleted once reviewed; we keep only the outcome. We don't use face recognition or any automated processing of your face. | Legitimate interests: keeping members safe |
| Messages you send to your matches | To deliver them. We only read them if someone reports a conversation to us, or if the law requires it | Contract |
| Reports and blocks | To act on reports and stop blocked members seeing or contacting each other | Legitimate interests: member safety |
Our servers log technical details of each request (such as IP address and the page requested) to keep the service secure, stop abuse such as repeated sign-in attempts, and fix faults. We also keep a security log of sign-ins, failed sign-in attempts, reports and account deletions, with the IP address and a scrambled form of the mobile number that can't be read back. The app contains no advertising or analytics trackers.
We use your profile answers to rank a small number of suggested mums for you. Suggestions are only introductions: nothing is decided about you automatically that affects you legally or in a similar way. You can object to this processing, but The Village can't suggest matches without it.
We don't sell your information or share it for advertising. We use a small number of service providers who process it for us under contracts that require them to keep it secure and use it only on our instructions:
| Provider | What for | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Fly.io | Hosting our servers and database | United Kingdom (London) |
| Twilio | Sending sign-in codes to your mobile number | United States |
| Anthropic | Drafting your intro from the interests and words you give us | United States |
| Resend | Sending emails to interest sign-ups and partner businesses | United States |
| GitHub | Storing encrypted backups of our database | United States |
| Company email, and website analytics | EU / United States | |
| Expo | Delivering app updates to your phone | United States |
Anthropic receives only the interests and words you give us for your intro, never your name or phone number, and may not use them to train its models. Where information goes outside the UK, we rely on the UK's adequacy decision for the US (the UK-US data bridge) or the ICO's International Data Transfer Agreement or Addendum.
We may also share information where the law requires it, or with the police or emergency services if we believe someone is at risk of harm.
| Information | How long |
|---|---|
| Your account, profile, matches and messages | Until you delete your account, or after two years without using the app. If we have your email address we'll warn you a month before, and signing in once keeps it |
| Verification selfie | Until our team has reviewed it, and never more than 14 days (the photo is then deleted; we keep only the result, and you can send a new one if it expired) |
| Reports | Up to two years after they're resolved, so we can spot repeated behaviour |
| If we remove you for breaking our terms | A coded (hashed) version of your mobile number, for two years, so the account can't be recreated |
| Interest sign-ups | Until you unsubscribe or The Village opens in your area and we've told you |
| Database backups | 30 days, encrypted |
| Server logs and the security log | Up to 12 months |
In the app: go to You → Delete my account. Your profile, matches, messages and verification record are removed immediately, and they drop out of our encrypted backups within 30 days.
Can't get into the app? Email hello@the-village.club from any address with the subject “Delete my account” and the mobile number you signed up with. We'll confirm it's you and delete it within 30 days.
If you've reported someone, we keep the report (without your account) so we can keep acting on it.
You have the right to access the information we hold about you, to correct it, to have it deleted, to restrict or object to how we use it, to receive a copy to take elsewhere, and to withdraw consent at any time. Email hello@the-village.club and we'll respond within one month.
If you're unhappy with how we've handled your information, please tell us first. You can also complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint or on 0303 123 1113.
Everything travels over encrypted connections, our database is hosted in the UK, backups are encrypted, and access is limited to the people who need it to run The Village. If something goes wrong that puts your information at risk, we'll tell you and the ICO as the law requires.
The Village is for mums and mums-to-be aged 18 or over. We don't knowingly collect information from anyone under 18. We never ask for your baby's name or date of birth, only their stage.
If we make a significant change to this policy, we'll tell you in the app before it takes effect.