We do not use your petition to grow our mailing list

What the consent questions are

Above the consent questions, the signature form says: "I agree that the petition author may use the information I provide on this form for the purposes I select below:" Every question under that line comes from your own choices on the create page:

• Publicly display name, city, country, and comment, shown to the signatory as "Show my signature publicly online".
• Hand the information over to the decision-makers, shown as "I authorize [your name] to hand over the information I provide on this form to the decision makers." If you named decision-makers, each one gets its own question with its own name.
• Email signatories about the petition's progress, shown as "Email me when there is an update about this petition".
• Verifying the signature by phone, shown as "I agree that the petition author may contact me by phone to verify my signature." This question appears only if you ask for a phone number.
• Up to three purposes you write yourself, in your own words.

You can also drag the consent questions into the order you prefer. Not one of them is ours.

How this differs from many of the biggest platforms

Many of the biggest petition platforms add their own marketing consent to the signature form of every petition they host, sometimes ticked in advance. The box that says "keep me informed about this petition" is the same box that signs the person up for the platform's campaigns, so a supporter cannot follow your petition without joining the platform's list.

The signatures then do double duty: they support your cause and they feed a mailing list you have no part in. We do not do this. The consent your signatories give is about your petition and the purposes you named.

Which messages we send, and why

Three kinds of email reach a signatory from us, and all three are about the petition they signed:

1. The confirmation message, which asks them to confirm their signature with a link or a code. Without it the signature is not counted.
2. A thank-you message after the signature is confirmed, which invites them to share the petition.
3. The updates you publish, when the signatory agreed to receive them.

We do not use the addresses to advertise our other petitions or our service to the people who signed yours.

Who this helps

It helps an author who will be asked where the data went. A trade union collecting signatures from its members can state, honestly, that the names were collected for the petition and the purposes printed in its privacy policy, and that no third party added a consent of its own to the form.

It also helps anyone who wants their own list. If you want signatories on your newsletter, write that purpose yourself and ask for it openly. The people who agree to it have agreed to you, by name.

Good to know

Signatories do accept two things in order to sign: the privacy policy of the petition, and that they are at least 16 years old. That is a legal requirement, not a mailing list.

Petitions on this site may show advertising, and our own privacy policy covers what we do as the operator of the service, such as keeping the site running and preventing abuse. That is separate from the data your signatories give to you on the form.