No automatic user accounts

What happens when someone signs

The signatory fills in the form on the petition page and presses Sign. If the petition collects email addresses, we send a confirmation message, and the signature is counted once they open the link in it or type the code from it.

That is the whole process. The information they gave is stored as a signature on your petition, for the purposes they consented to. It does not become a user profile.

How a signatory manages their signature without an account

The messages we send about a signature carry links for managing it, so a signatory can come back to their own signature and nothing else. From there they can edit the details they gave or remove the signature.

A signatory who prefers to be able to return later can log in before signing: the signature is then tied to their account, which is useful on petitions that do not collect email addresses. The sign form says so plainly: "If you log in before signing, you will be able to edit or remove your signature later." It is an offer, not a condition.

When an account is created

• You start a petition. A petition has to be managed, edited and its signatures downloaded, so the create page sets up an account with the email address and password you give. If you are already logged in, your account is used.
• Someone registers on purpose. The registration page creates an account for anyone who wants one.
• Someone logs in with Google and has no account yet. We stop and ask. A page titled "Create an account?" explains that no account exists for that address and what will happen next. The account is created only after they press "Create the account and continue"; there is a Cancel button beside it.

Signing a petition is not on that list.

How this differs from some petition platforms

Some petition platforms register every signatory automatically. One signature becomes a member of the platform, with a profile, a login and a stream of messages about other campaigns. The signatory finds out when the first email arrives.

An account also outlives the petition. Long after your campaign has ended, the platform still holds a user whose only connection to it was a single signature.

Who this helps

It helps the petition. Asking people to create an account costs you signatures: every extra step between reading the petition and sending the form loses some of them. A parents' group collecting signatures outside a school needs people to sign in a minute on a phone, not to invent a password.

It also helps you explain the petition to the people you ask. Nobody has to be told that signing will register them somewhere, because it will not.

Good to know

An email address given on a signature form is still stored, because the signature has to be confirmed and because it is part of what you collect. The point is that the address is not turned into a login.

Signatories can remove their signature themselves, and the site has a separate page for asking us to delete the personal data we hold about them.