ISMS.online Privacy Notice
Context and Scope
The scope of this privacy notice is for the ISMS.online cloud software solution and this complementary website. It also covers the related services we offer for customers across the lifecycle of ISMS.online.
This privacy notice aims to give you information on how we collect and process personal data through the use of our services. It is important that you understand this privacy notice, and if you are also a customer of ours, that you read it together with our Customer Licence Agreement and support policy.
We may update this notice from time to time. Where a change is significant, we’ll make sure we let you know, usually by sending you an email or if you are a user of ISMS.online then by alerting you on the platform itself.
Who We Are and How to Contact Us
Alliantist Limited (company registration number 04922343, place of registration in England and Wales) is the organisation behind ISMS.online. This privacy notice aims to give you information about how we collect and process personal data in accordance with our obligations.
You can contact us at any time through support@isms.online or engage our Data Protection Lead by directly contacting them at dataprotection@isms.online
Our Head Office and postal address is:
Nile House
Nile Street
Brighton, BN1 1HW
Telephone 01273 041140
You have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues (www.ico.org.uk). You can also complain to us directly by emailing dataprotection@isms.online. We will acknowledge your complaint within 30 days, look into it without undue delay and tell you the outcome.
As a responsible supplier we really want to help where we can do so. Our philosophy for data protection and privacy extends beyond personal data into the protection and privacy for all valuable information, as underpinned by our strong security credentials including UKAS certified ISO 27001 and ISO 27701.
Personal Data
Personal data means different things to different people, so we adopt the meaning from the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and, where it applies, the EU GDPR. Personal data we process includes data such as first name, surname, email address, avatar/profile photo, IP address, job role, contact information, recordings and transcripts of calls and meetings and AI-generated summaries of them along with any personally identifiable content in support requests. Payment and banking information is generally provided at a corporate information level but it will also be considered personal data where, in the unlikely event, an individual is paying for the services from their own account and we may need to know some of that banking or credit card information.
We do not ask for or intend to collect any Special Categories of Personal Data about you (this includes details about your race or ethnicity, religious or philosophical beliefs, sex life, sexual orientation, political opinions, trade union membership, information about your health and genetic and biometric data). Nor do we collect any information about criminal convictions and offences. Please do not include this information in support requests, chats or calls. If you choose to share it with us, for example accessibility needs for an event, we will only use it for that purpose.
This notice does not cover people who work for us or apply to work for us. If you apply for a job with us, or join us, we will give you a separate privacy notice that explains how we handle your personal data, including any special category data we need for employment.
We may also collect, use and share Aggregated Data such as statistical or demographic data for any purpose. Aggregated Data may be derived from your personal data but is not considered personal data in law as this data does not directly or indirectly reveal your identity. For example, we may aggregate your Usage Data to determine the attractiveness of a particular feature or evaluate performance for future investments. However, if we combine or connect Aggregated Data with your personal data so that it can directly or indirectly identify you, we treat the combined data as personal data which will be used in accordance with this privacy notice.
Where we need to collect personal data by law, or under the terms of a contract we have with you and you fail to provide that data when requested, we may not be able to perform the contract we have or are trying to enter into with you (for example, to provide you with support for ISMS.online). In this case, we may be relieved of that specific contractual obligation or choose not to proceed with a request but we will notify you if this is the case at the time.
Collecting personal data
When you visit our website or use our services, we collect personal data. The ways we collect it can be broadly categorised into the following:
- Provided directly by you – for example by completing our website forms for a demo, using the chat service to ask questions, signing up for our content downloads, calling in for help, participating in a webinar and completing your profile in ISMS.online or by contacting us for support. You don’t have to share much personal data at all to benefit from the services and you can ask us to delete it later, subject to your legal rights. If you choose not to share the relevant personal data, you understand that might mean we cannot provide the services.
- Collected automatically – we collect information such as IP address, device type, pages you visited and what links you clicked on. For our website and marketing work this means we can get a better understanding of user journeys and areas of interest, so we can keep providing great experiences and personalising content where appropriate. For ISMS.online user activity we collect similar information to ensure the service is optimised, and for performing some of our contract obligations to corporate customers, such as keeping audit logs and forensic histories of work done. Some of this information is collected through the use of cookies and related tracking technologies, including Google Ads.
You can set your browser to refuse all or some browser cookies, or to alert you when websites set or access cookies. If you disable or refuse cookies, please note that some parts of our services may become inaccessible or not function properly. Our cookie policy explains that in more detail.
- Information we get from other parties – We obtain business contact and company information from business data providers such as ZoomInfo, Clay and LeadMagic, professional networks such as LinkedIn, webinar platforms such as BrightTALK, and public sources such as company websites and Companies House. We use it to identify organisations that may benefit from ISMS.online, to contact the right people, to personalise our services and to keep our records accurate. We also use credit reference agencies such as Creditsafe to check new customers. If we contact you using information we obtained this way, we will tell you where we got your details and how to opt out.
- Information added by customers – a registered user of a customer or partner on the ISMS.online platform may add personal data into the secure cloud service as part of their purpose for using the platform. We have contractual obligations to those customers in our role as a data processor and those customers are responsible for that data and providing their own privacy notice to individuals about that data.
Important note – If you’re someone who doesn’t have a relationship with us but believe that an ISMS.online user has entered your personal data into our platform, you’ll need to contact that user’s organisation for any requests. They will be the data controller in that instance, and we are the data processor. This includes where you want to access, correct, amend, or request that the user delete your personal data, or address any other individual’s rights. If you did still contact us, we will attempt to redirect you to contact the organisation you think may have entered the data.
ISMS.online is not intended to be marketed to, sold to, or used by children. In our capacity as a data controller we do not knowingly collect data relating to children. If you think children’s information is being processed by us in our role as a data controller please contact us.
How we share your personal data
We will not share your personal data with a third party for their marketing purposes.
Sometimes we can help you by introducing you to one of our partners, for example a consultant or certification body. We will only share your contact details with a partner for an introduction where you have asked us to or agreed to it.
Your data may technically be shared for the purpose of sub processing as part of a contract we have with a third party supplier, for example a third-party data centre processing information on our behalf. We may also be required to share your data with law enforcement, government agencies, courts, or regulators in order to comply with applicable laws. Where allowed, we will notify you of this type of disclosure. Your data may also be shared with a potential acquirer or investor of our company, or any part of it, and any other people where we have your consent.
Who we share personal data with as Data Controller
In our role as Data Controller we share personal data with the following organisations. Most are processors acting on our instructions; some, such as Creditsafe, LinkedIn, G2, Lovetts and Google (for advertising), use it as independent controllers under their own privacy notices: Akamai, Anthropic, Atlassian, AWS, BrightTalk, CCIM, Clay, Creditsafe, Debt Domain, FreshWorks, GoCardless, Google, G2, HeyReach, HubSpot, LeadMagic, Lemlist, LinkedIn, Lovetts, Matomo, Microsoft, OpenAI, Quotient, Railway, RingCentral, Smartlead, Stripe, Supabase, Typeform, Usercentrics, UserGems, Userflow, WordPress, Xero, Zefi and ZoomInfo.
Third Party Processors
Our carefully selected partners and service providers may process personal information about you on our behalf, as described in this notice. We do not currently appoint digital marketing agents to process personal information on our behalf. If we do in future, we will list them here.
Lawful basis for use of your personal data
We will only use your personal data when the law allows us to, following one of the lawful bases within the GDPR. Most commonly, we will use your personal data in the following circumstances:
- Where we need to perform the contract we are about to enter into or have entered into with you.
- Where it is necessary for our legitimate interests and, your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests. In those instances we will have conducted a Legitimate Interest Assessment.
- Where we need to comply with a legal or regulatory obligation.
- Where you have given your consent.
We will only use your personal data for the purposes for which we collected it, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose. If you wish to get an explanation as to how the processing for the new purpose is compatible with the original purpose please contact us.
If we need to use your personal data for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and we will explain the legal basis which allows us to do so.
You have the right to withdraw consent or opt out at any time by contacting us or using the relevant mechanism provided in the communication at the time e.g. unsubscribe from a mail marketing campaign, or ‘do not contact’ response in a specific email sent by one of our staff.
Once opted out a minimal amount of data will be held in a suppression / do not contact list so that we avoid any future contact.
Purposes for use of your personal data
We have set out below, in a simple table format, a description of the ways we might use your personal data, and which of the legal bases we rely on to do so. We may process your personal data for more than one lawful basis depending on the specific purpose for which we are using your data. Please contact us if you need details about the specific legal ground we are relying on to process your personal data where more than one ground has been set out in the table below.
| Purpose / Activity | Type of data | Lawful basis |
|---|---|---|
| To deliver our cloud platform services and related support for you as a registered user of the platform | First name Surname Email address IP address (Users can optionally add more data if they choose to including avatar/photo profile and phone number) | Performance of a Contract (where you are our customer) / Legitimate interests (where you use the platform on behalf of your employer, our customer) |
| To process and deliver your order including carrying out credit checks, managing payments, collecting and recovering debts | First name Surname Phone number Address (business) Payment information | Performance of a Contract (and Legitimate Interests for credit checks and if pursuing a debt) |
| To market and promote our services to prospective buyers and customers | First name Surname Job role Email address Contact number | Consent / Legitimate interests |
| To use data analytics to report on and improve our website, products/services, marketing, customer relationships and experiences | First name Surname Email address IP address | Legitimate interests / Performance of a Contract (if not using aggregated reporting and anonymised information) |
| To prevent incidents, protect customers and respond quickly to security issues | First name Surname Email address IP address Phone number | Performance of a Contract / Necessary to comply with a Legal Obligation |
| To respond to legal or regulatory demands | Any or all information held depending on the request | Necessary to comply with a Legal Obligation |
| For monitoring and quality control of sales demonstrations and phone calls, and for training and improvement of staff, including transcribing and summarising calls using AI tools | A recording of the call and screen share (if used), and any transcript or AI-generated summary Your name and email address (for demonstrations) or phone number (for sales calls) | Legitimate interests (we tell you at the start of the call) |
Set out below is a little more about the types of lawful basis that we will rely on to process your personal data.
- Legitimate Interest – means the interest of our business in conducting and managing our business to enable us to give you the best service/product and the best and most secure experience. We make sure we consider and balance any potential impact on you (both positive and negative) and your rights before we process your personal data for our legitimate interests. We do this using a Legitimate Interest Assessment and you can learn more about that by going to the ICO website. We do not use your personal data for activities where our interests are overridden by the impact on you (unless we have your consent or are otherwise required or permitted to by law). You can also contact us for further information about how we assess our legitimate interests against any potential impact on you.
- Performance of Contract – means processing your data where it is necessary for the performance of a contract to which you are a party or to take steps at your request before entering into such a contract.
- Comply with a legal or regulatory obligation – means processing your personal data where it is necessary for compliance with a legal or regulatory obligation that we are subject to. Consent – means you have agreed to the processing for a specific purpose. You can withdraw consent at any time.
Use of AI tools
Like many businesses, we use AI tools to help us work more efficiently. For example, we use them to transcribe and summarise calls and meetings, to summarise customer records, and to identify themes in feedback so we can improve ISMS.online. We do this on the basis of our legitimate interests in running our business efficiently and improving our services. You have the right to object to this processing. Where we transcribe or summarise a call, we will tell you at the start of the call.
These AI tools are provided by the service providers listed in this notice. They are subject to the same written contracts, due diligence and security checks as our other suppliers. Where a provider processes data outside the UK, we use the safeguards described in the International transfers section.
Our contracts with these providers do not allow them to use your personal data to train or improve their own AI models.
We do not make decisions about you that have a legal or similarly significant effect based solely on automated processing, whether using AI or otherwise. Where AI tools support our work on such decisions, a member of our team reviews the information and makes the decision.
If your organisation is an ISMS.online customer: for the data you store in ISMS.online, we act as a processor and only process it on your organisation’s instructions under our data processing agreement. We will not apply AI tools to that data unless your organisation has enabled the relevant features. We will not use it to train AI models. See our terms for more details.
International transfers
For customers using our UK data centre: The UK is the primary processing location for your personal data within ISMS.online. For backup and redundancy purposes, a copy of that data is transferred to a data centre in Ireland.
For customers using our EU data centre: Germany is the primary processing location of your personal data within ISMS.online. For backup and redundancy purposes, a copy of that data is transferred to a data centre in Sweden.
For customers using our APAC data centre: Australia is the primary processing location of your personal data within ISMS.online. All backup data is also held within a second data centre within Australia.
For customers using our US data centre: US is the primary processing location of your personal data within ISMS.online. All backup data is also held within a second data centre within the US.
Personal data provided for support queries, accounting, sales and marketing purposes, is primarily handled in the UK. Some members of our customer success team are based in the Philippines to better support customers in the APAC region and may access your personal data to support your account. It may also involve transferring your data outside the UK because some of the third parties we use for sub processing have their facilities in other countries. Where your personal data is transferred outside the UK, it will only be transferred to countries that have been identified as providing adequate protection for UK data, to US organisations certified under the UK Extension to the EU-US Data Privacy Framework, or to a third party where we have approved transfer mechanisms in place to protect your personal data such as the UK International Data Transfer Agreement or the European Commission’s Standard Contractual Clauses with the UK Addendum.
Please contact us if you want further information on the specific mechanism we use when transferring your personal data out of the UK.
Data protection and security
We have put in place measures to protect the confidentiality, integrity and availability of your personal data. This includes achievement of UKAS certified ISO 27001 and ISO 27701 and a host of other security practices you can read about on our security credentials page. We aim to be a responsible supplier and prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, and avoid it being altered or disclosed where it shouldn’t be. In addition, we limit access to your personal data to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal data on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality and each one has relevant contracts in place to reinforce that aim.
We have also put in place procedures to deal with any suspected personal data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so. Where required, we will notify the ICO within 72 hours of becoming aware of a breach, and tell you without undue delay if a breach is likely to result in a high risk to you.
Data Retention
We will only retain your personal data for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements. Following that period, we’ll make sure it’s deleted or anonymised.
To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal requirements. For example by law we have to keep basic information about customers for 6 years for tax and other purposes after they cease being customers. Depending on the use of ISMS.online some personal data may still be held because it is part of an initiative you contributed to that is still in existence and your organisation wants an audit trail.
In some circumstances you can ask us to delete your data and request erasure as one of your legal rights, as set out below.
Your legal rights
You have legal rights for your personal data and in summary these are:
- Request access to your personal data
- Request correction of your personal data
- Request erasure of your personal data
- Object to processing of your personal data
- Request restriction of processing your personal data
- Request transfer of your personal data
- Right to withdraw consent
We have policies and practices in place for each of these requests so if you wish to exercise any of them please contact us and we will process that accordingly. We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your personal data (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is a security measure to ensure that personal data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it. We may also contact you to ask you for further information in relation to your request to speed up our response. We will respond to all valid requests within one month. If we need to confirm your identity or need further information, the month starts when we receive it. We may extend this by up to two further months if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests. In this case, we will tell you within the first month and keep you updated.
You will not normally have to pay a fee for exercising your legal rights if the request is straightforward and valid. If a request is manifestly unfounded or excessive, we may charge a reasonable fee or refuse to act on it. If we refuse, we will follow ICO guidance and tell you why without undue delay and at the latest within one month, together with your right to complain to us or to the ICO and to seek a judicial remedy.
Explanation about your Legal Rights
You have the right to:
- Request access to your personal data (commonly known as a “data subject access request”). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.
- Request correction of the personal data that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate data we hold about you corrected, though we may need to verify the accuracy of the new data you provide to us.
- Request erasure of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal data where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal data where you have successfully exercised your right to object to processing (see below), where we may have processed your information unlawfully or where we are required to erase your personal data to comply with local law. Note, however, that we may not always be able to comply with your request of erasure for specific legal reasons which will be notified to you, if applicable, at the time of your request.
- Object to processing of your personal data where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground as you feel it impacts on your fundamental rights and freedoms. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal data for direct marketing purposes, and we will always stop if you do. In some cases, we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process your information which override your rights and freedoms.
- Request restriction of processing of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your personal data in the following scenarios: (a) if you want us to establish the data’s accuracy; (b) where our use of the data is unlawful but you do not want us to erase it; (c) where you need us to hold the data even if we no longer require it as you need it to establish, exercise or defend legal claims; or (d) you have objected to our use of your data but we need to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to use it.
- Request the transfer of your personal data to you or to a third party. We will provide to you, or a third party you have chosen, your personal data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format. Note that this right only applies to automated information which you initially provided consent for us to use or where we used the information to perform a contract with you.
- Withdraw consent at any time where we are relying on consent to process your personal data. However, this will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before you withdraw your consent. If you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide certain products or services to you. We will advise you if this is the case at the time you withdraw your consent.
You can contact us at any time through support@isms.online or engage our Data Protection Lead by directly contacting them at dataprotection@isms.online.
Cookie Notice
A cookie is a small text file that is placed on your computer or device when you visit our website or use ISMS.online itself. We, and some of our third-party service providers, like Google, may use a few different types of cookies. Some are persistent cookies (cookies that remain on your hard drive for an extended period of time) and some are session cookies (cookies that expire when you close your browser).
We also use other tracking technologies like web beacons (sometimes called “tracking beacons” or “clear gifs”) and local storage. These are tiny graphics files that contain a unique identifier that enable us to recognise when someone has visited our websites or opened an email that we have sent them.
Cookies help us deliver the services well and enable us to optimise our approach to meet your needs to ensure that you have a great experience.
One simple way to prevent the use of cookies is to activate the facility which is available in most web browsers that enables the user to deny or accept cookies. However, you should know that certain essential cookies may be necessary in order to provide you with certain features of ISMS.online so if you deactivate them your service will not work as intended.
Cookie consent on the ISMS.online website can be managed through a third party service called Usercentrics. This allows you control over which cookies you would like to accept. Usercentrics GmbH, Sendlinger Str. 7, 80331 Munich, Germany, receives your consent data and processes it as our processor. Consent data means the following data: Date and time of the visit or consent / refusal, device information. The processing of the data is carried out for the purpose of compliance with legal obligations and the associated documentation of consents. The consent data is stored locally in the European Union, for 1 year. For more information about the collected data and contact options, please visit https://usercentrics.com/privacy-policy/.
Below is a list of cookies that we use on our ISMS.online platform and services. The types of cookies we use are always changing. Check back regularly to make sure you stay up to date. If you think we’ve missed a cookie, please let us know. We are not responsible for the privacy policies and practices of any third party links or services not in our control.
ISMS.online secure cloud platform:
Essential cookies
These cookies are required to provide the basic functionality of the service. Without these it would not be possible for a user to login.
| Cookie | Description |
|---|---|
| _session_id | Identifies the visitor’s session to the service. |
| user_credentials | Identifies the logged in user to the service. |
| user_mfa_credentials | Identifies that the user has logged in using 2FA. |
| destroy_mfa_session_on_logout | Whether the `user_mfa_credentials` cookie needs deleting when logging out. |
| subdomain_to_redirect | Redirect the user to their own sub-domain if they try and access the site at the main domain. |
| idp | Redirect to single sign on login if single sign on user |
| accessedWithHash | Maintains hash values on the requested url when redirected |
| clear_archive_items_info_panel_read | Indicate if the user has read the information panel relating to archiving Track items. |
| certification_date_prompt_skipped | Identifies that the current user has chosen to add a Planned Certification Date either later, or not at all. |
Live chat and FAQs
For the chat and FAQs to function within ISMS.online the following cookies should be present.
| Cookie | Description |
|---|---|
| w_fr fw_flu fw_vi fw_sq first_session | We use Freshchat to power the Live Chat and FAQ functions within ISMS.online. These cookies count website visitors, track visitor events, and measures website performance and stability. |
Google Analytics
| Cookie | Description |
|---|---|
| _ga _ga _gid _gid | We use Google Analytics to collect information about how the service is being used. There are two versions of each of these cookies (hence the duplication). |
Preferences cookies
These cookies are set during normal use of the service but are not essential for the service to operate. They help enhance the user experience by remembering the settings applied by the user so the user does not have to repeat them.
| Cookie | Description |
|---|---|
| _x15 | An obfuscated form of the user’s email address. This is only set if the user chooses to remember their email address when logging in. |
| homepage_favourites_sort_order | The order the user wants their favourites to appear on the homepage. |
| clusters_sort_order | The order the user wants to display their Clusters in. |
| cluster_<id>_sort_cols | The columns being sorted when viewing todos within a Cluster. |
| cluster_<id>_direction | The sort order to apply to the column being sorted viewing todos within a Cluster. |
| cluster_<id>_filters | The filter options applied when viewing todos within a Cluster. |
| cal | The display settings for pages showing To-dos. |
| user_<id>_project_<id>_critical_path_setting | Whether to display the critical path in the GANTT chart. |
| projectStructureViewAdditionalInfo<id> | Whether to display additional information in the Project outline view. |
| <user id>_<export form id> | Defines which Activity properties the User chooses to export. |
| arm_page_user_ | The location of the user in the ARM content. |
| <arm name>_certification_registration_success_viewed | Set to not show the success animation again, if ARM has been completed |
ISMS.online Marketplace:
Essential cookies
These cookies are required to provide the basic functionality of Marketplace.
| Cookie | Description |
|---|---|
| _marketplace_session | Identifies the visitor’s session to the service |
Integrations
The following applies when a customer chooses to use our optional integration with Google Drive.
- In order to use the integration with Google Drive, a user must first consent to allow ISMS.online to access their files within it.
- ISMS.online uses this access to provide the user with the Google Drive file picker and to create a link to the selected file(s).
- ISMS.online never accesses, or performs actions on, the file itself or on any other data held in Google by that user.
Third party cookies
Google Analytics
Visit https://www.google.com/analytics/ to find out more about Google Analytics and https://policies.google.com/technologies/cookies for information about how Google uses cookies.
Hubspot cookies
Visit https://knowledge.hubspot.com/reports/what-cookies-does-hubspot-set-in-a-visitor-s-browser for information about how Hubspot uses cookies.
Freshchat cookies
Visit https://support.freshchat.com/support/solutions/articles/50000002310-freshdesk-messaging-cookies for information about how Freshchat uses cookies.
LinkedIn cookies
Visit https://www.linkedin.com/legal/l/cookie-table for information about how LinkedIn uses cookies.
Userflow cookies
Visit https://www.userflow.com/policies to find out more about how Userflow use cookies
This version was last updated on 20th October 2026 as version 3.20. Previous version here.
