Privacy & Cookie Policy

The Bastion Guard (“we”, “us”) runs bastionguard.co.uk, a men's fitness-as-purpose community across the West Midlands and Staffordshire. For any data protection query, contact us at hello@bastionguard.co.uk. We are the data controller for the personal data described below and act as a small organisation subject to UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018.

• Account details — name, email address, and the town you select at sign-up.
• Star submission videos — short videos you upload to earn a star, stored on our hosting provider's storage.
• Usage data — pages visited, rank, star count, and community activity (e.g. Kudos given/received).
• Technical data — IP address, browser type, and device information, collected automatically by our hosting and security providers.
• Communications — anything you send us directly, e.g. by email.

• To create and run your membership account, track rank progression, and run per-town leaderboards.
• To review star submission videos and confirm challenge completion.
• To send you service emails (e.g. confirmation, rank-up notices) and, where you've agreed, community updates.
• To keep the site secure and stop abuse.
• To understand how the site is used and improve it, where you've consented to non-essential cookies.

Our lawful bases are: performance of a contract (running your membership), legitimate interests (security, service improvement), and consent (marketing emails, non-essential cookies).

We use a small number of service providers (“processors”) to run the site. We don't sell your data.

• Vercel — hosting and infrastructure.
• Neon — database storage (PostgreSQL), account and star-submission records.
• Clerk — sign-in and account authentication, once enabled.
• Vercel Blob — storage for uploaded star submission videos.
• Resend / Loops — sending transactional and rank-segmented emails.
• YouTube (Google) — hosting unlisted challenge videos, embedded in privacy-enhanced mode.
• Anthropic — powers the “Ask the Guard” assistant for signed-in members, where enabled.

Each provider only receives the data it needs to perform its function, and we don't permit them to use your data for their own purposes.

We keep account data for as long as your membership is active, and for a reasonable period afterwards in case you return or to meet legal obligations. Star submission videos are kept while relevant to your rank history. You can ask us to delete your account and associated data at any time (see Section 7).

We use as few cookies as possible. When you first visit, a banner lets you accept all cookies or restrict us to strictly necessary ones only.

We don't currently run analytics or advertising cookies. If that changes, we'll update this table and only load them after you've accepted non-essential cookies.

Under UK GDPR you have the right to:

• Access the personal data we hold about you.
• Ask us to correct inaccurate data.
• Ask us to delete your account and data (“right to be forgotten”).
• Object to or restrict certain processing.
• Withdraw consent for marketing emails or non-essential cookies at any time.
• Request a copy of your data in a portable format.

To exercise any of these, email hello@bastionguard.co.uk. You can also complain to the UK Information Commissioner's Office (ico.org.uk) if you're unhappy with how we've handled your data.

The Bastion Guard is intended for adult men. We don't knowingly collect data from anyone under 18.

We may update this policy as the site develops. Material changes will be reflected in the “last updated” date at the top of this page.