Privacy Notice
This page explains, in plain English, what information Beyond the Headlines (BTH) collects, why, and what choices and rights are available. It describes BTH's actual, currently implemented practices — not a general template.
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1. Who we are
Beyond the Headlines ("BTH", "we", "us") publishes editorial briefings and related tools (including an interactive simulator, a premium membership, and — where you choose to use them — a newsletter and a self-service preferences page).
PRIVACY_CONTACT_EMAIL), please use whatever general contact channel BTH has published elsewhere on the site to reach us about privacy questions.2. Information BTH collects
BTH only collects information tied to the features described on this page. Specifically, BTH may hold:
- The email address you supply to unlock an article/briefing.
- Whether you gave optional newsletter marketing consent when unlocking an article or on the preferences page, and your current newsletter subscribed/unsubscribed state.
- A history of consent events (when consent was given or withdrawn, from where, and which wording/notice version you saw).
- Suppression / do-not-contact information — see Section 5.
- First-party engagement and session information (see Section 6) used to understand how the service is used.
- When you request a resource, your optional first name, resource signup history, source/campaign, associated article and interests/tags. Each interaction is recorded separately. Resource access does not require newsletter consent.
- Your article-unlock history (which briefings you unlocked with your email).
- Where you verify your email (for example, to access a Premium briefing or manage a membership), a short-lived email verification record and a resulting signed-in session.
- If you have a BTH Premium membership, membership and entitlement records (your current access status and its history).
- The Stripe customer and subscription identifiers BTH is given back by Stripe when you pay for membership (not your card details — see Section 7).
- Payment and membership history BTH keeps for its own records (for example: activated, renewed, cancelled).
- Internal privacy/data-rights audit records of actions like an export or an erasure request being carried out.
BTH does not store your payment card details. Card details are handled entirely by Stripe — see Section 7.
3. Why BTH uses this information
Article / briefing access
Your email is used to provide the access you asked for when you unlock a briefing. This is separate from, and does not create, newsletter marketing consent.
Resource signups
Your email and optional name record the resource you requested, its source and tags. The resource link is shown on the thank-you page; no automatic email is sent. Existing unsubscribe and suppression preferences remain in force.
Newsletter marketing
BTH only sends (or would send) newsletter-type communications where you have given explicit newsletter consent — see Section 4.
Account / membership service
Where you verify your email or hold a BTH Premium membership, BTH uses your information to operate that account and membership.
Payment / entitlement administration
Where you pay for membership, BTH uses payment-related identifiers and membership records to administer your entitlement and billing status.
Security / operations
BTH applies basic rate-limiting and request validation to protect the service from abuse. This does not involve any automated decision-making about you personally — see Section 12.
Analytics / engagement
BTH uses a first-party engagement system (see Section 6) to understand how the service is used — for example, which briefings are read, whether a briefing was unlocked, and whether the interactive simulator was used. This is currently a first-party mechanism; BTH has not sent this information to any third-party analytics provider.
4. Newsletter consent
- Unlocking an article does not subscribe you to the newsletter.
- The newsletter checkbox shown at unlock is always optional and unticked by default.
- You can withdraw consent at any time using the preferences/unsubscribe page linked from this notice and from BTH's footer.
- A later article unlock does not override an existing unsubscribe — once you have unsubscribed, simply unlocking another briefing (even with the checkbox ticked) will not resubscribe you.
- Only an explicit re-subscribe through the preferences page can restore newsletter consent after an unsubscribe.
5. Suppression / do-not-contact
When you unsubscribe or object to marketing, BTH keeps a minimal record so that you are not accidentally contacted for marketing again. This record does not contain your email address in readable form — BTH keeps a one-way cryptographic hash (a scrambled, non-reversible value) of your normalised email address, generated and checked for this purpose only. This value cannot be turned back into your email address, and BTH does not use it to send you marketing — only to check, before any future marketing action, that your address has not already objected.
6. Cookies, local storage and similar technologies
BTH currently uses first-party, server-set session identifiers stored as cookies in your browser. No third-party advertising, analytics or tracking scripts are loaded by BTH.
| Cookie | Purpose |
|---|---|
bth_engagement | A first-party identifier BTH uses to understand engagement with the service — for example, which briefings are viewed or unlocked — as described in Section 3. |
bth_reader | Remembers that you unlocked a briefing with your email, so you don't need to re-enter it during that access. |
bth_member | Set after you verify your email, so BTH can recognise you for Premium/membership access. |
bth_simulator | Lets you resume an in-progress interactive simulator session. |
bth_admin | Used only for BTH's own staff/administrative sign-in — not set for ordinary visitors. |
BTH does not currently claim that bth_engagement is "strictly necessary", and does not claim that all of the above are currently gated behind a cookie-consent banner. No consent banner exists on BTH at this time. Cookie and analytics consent handling is under active review as part of BTH's ongoing privacy work, and this notice will be updated when that review concludes.
7. Payment data
Stripe processes BTH's membership payments. BTH itself stores the customer and subscription identifiers Stripe gives it back, plus your membership status and history — BTH does not store your card details; these are held only by Stripe.
8. Who BTH shares information with
| Provider | What they receive |
|---|---|
| Stripe (payment processing) | Your email address and payment details, to process membership payments and identify your customer/subscription record. |
| Cloudflare (hosting/infrastructure — Workers, D1 database, R2 storage) | All data described in this notice, as BTH's hosting provider. |
| ElevenLabs (only when BTH's internal Podcast Studio tool is used to generate narration) | Script/narration text only. BTH's implementation does not send audience email addresses or other personal data to ElevenLabs. |
| OpenAI (only when BTH's internal Image Studio tool is used to generate an image) | The image prompt text only. BTH's implementation does not send audience email addresses or other personal data to OpenAI. |
BTH does not currently use a third-party email/newsletter delivery provider — no newsletter is sent by BTH at this time.
9. How long BTH keeps information
BTH organises retention into the following categories:
| Category | Why it's kept (legal basis) | How long, in plain terms |
|---|---|---|
| Article-unlock email (no newsletter consent) | Legitimate interest / providing the service you asked for | Reviewed for deletion after prolonged inactivity; never used for marketing without separate consent. |
| Newsletter marketing consent evidence | Consent | Kept while consent is active, and afterwards as evidence of what was granted or withdrawn. |
| Suppression / do-not-contact record | Legal obligation to honour your objection / legitimate interest | Kept indefinitely to avoid re-contacting you, unless you explicitly re-subscribe. |
| BTH Premium membership record | Contract | Kept for the life of the account plus a reasonable period after cancellation. |
| Stripe customer/subscription identifiers | Legal obligation (accounting/tax) | Kept per applicable financial record-keeping requirements. No card data is held by BTH. |
| First-party engagement/analytics events | Legitimate interest | Kept in pseudonymous form linked to a session/account identifier, reviewed periodically. |
BTH has not yet set exact statutory retention periods for every category above; where a period is not fixed, this notice says so honestly rather than inventing a number.
10. Your rights
Depending on the type of information and why BTH holds it, you may have the right to:
- Access a copy of the information BTH holds about you.
- Correct inaccurate information.
- Erasure of your personal information, where applicable — see Section 11 for how BTH actually carries this out.
- Restrict certain processing, where applicable.
- Object to processing based on legitimate interest.
- Withdraw newsletter marketing consent at any time — this is always available and does not require a reason; use the preferences page or a one-click unsubscribe link.
- Complain to the UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) if you believe BTH has not handled your information properly.
Not every right applies in the same way to every purpose above — for example, BTH cannot erase records it is legally required to keep for accounting purposes, and objecting to marketing is always honoured even where other processing (like a paid membership record) continues for contractual reasons.
11. Erasure and anonymisation
Where BTH carries out an erasure request, it currently works like this:
- Your email address and any free-text notes on your account record are replaced with a placeholder value — they are anonymised in place.
- Resource signup interactions are unlinked from your person record; first names and tags on those interactions are cleared. Anonymous signup counts remain.
- Some records — for example, payment, membership and consent-history records — may need to be kept for legal, contractual or audit reasons, even after your email is anonymised.
- A minimal suppression record (the one-way hash described in Section 5) is kept so BTH does not accidentally market to the same email address again.
- Any self-service preferences/unsubscribe link you were previously sent is invalidated as part of the same erasure action, so it can no longer be used.
In short: BTH anonymises what it safely can, keeps only what it must, and does not claim every record is physically deleted.
12. Automated decision-making
BTH does not currently use solely automated decision-making that produces legal or similarly significant effects about you. BTH's editorial production process, its interactive "You Are In Charge" simulator, and its engagement analytics are tools for producing and measuring content — they are not used to make automated decisions about individual people that have a legal or similarly significant effect.
13. International transfers
14. Version and last updated
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