ScoutBase privacy notice

Last updated: 14 October 2026.

ScoutBase is a dashboard that Scout Groups use alongside Online Scout Manager (OSM), the Scouts membership system and Scouts RAM. It brings together what the Group's leaders and trustees need to know: trustee papers, volunteer learning, premises safety, risk assessments, waiting lists and moving up. This notice explains what ScoutBase holds about you, why, where it's kept and what you can ask for.

ScoutBase is an independent tool for Scout Groups. It isn't made or endorsed by The Scout Association.

Who's responsible for your information

Your Scout Group is in charge of its own information. If you're a volunteer, a young person, or a parent or carer, your Group decides what goes into ScoutBase and why, just as it does with OSM. In data protection terms, your Group is the "controller".

ScoutBase looks after that information for the Group. ScoutBase is run by Ben Colley, a volunteer at 1st Beetley Scout Group. He keeps it secure and only uses it to run ScoutBase for the Group, under a written agreement with each Group. In data protection terms, he's the "processor".

For a few things, ScoutBase is in charge itself: your sign-in account, security records, and any emails you send to ScoutBase. For these, Ben Colley is the controller.

Contact: privacy@scoutbase.co.uk.

What ScoutBase holds

If you're a young person, or a parent or carer

ScoutBase only shows what a Group needs to plan sections and waiting lists. It reads this from your Group's OSM:

• First name and the first letter of your last name (for example "Alex C.")
• An estimated date of birth, worked out from your age in OSM (ScoutBase never sees your actual date of birth)
• Which section you're in or waiting for, and when you're likely to move up
• For the waiting list, your place and any short note your Group adds (for example "Brother or sister already in Beavers")

If your Group chooses, ScoutBase also counts the accident forms and incident logs in your Group's OSM. It reads the list of forms only to count them, and keeps just the numbers: never names, what happened or any other detail.

ScoutBase doesn't read or keep addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, medical information, photos, or parents' and carers' details. It only ever reads from OSM and never changes anything there. It checks OSM once a night, as well as whenever someone at your Group presses "Sync now".

If you're a volunteer

• Your name, Scouts membership number, email address, roles and teams, as exported from the Scouts membership system by your Group
• Your learning: which modules are done, due or overdue, and when they expire
• Whether your DBS (or PVG or Access NI) check is in date, and when it expires. ScoutBase never holds what a check found.
• If you're a trustee, your yearly declaration of interests
• Things you're named on, such as owning a duty, a risk or a policy review
• If you have a ScoutBase account: your email address, your name, your role in the Group and when you last signed in

Everyone who signs in

• Your email address and the name on your account
• Security records: when you signed in, and a log of important changes (for example "invited a trustee", "synced with OSM"). The log never contains young people's names.
• Your internet address (IP address) and browser type, kept for a short time by our hosting providers to keep the service secure

Why ScoutBase uses it

Your Group uses ScoutBase to:

• keep volunteers' learning and checks up to date, as Scouts' rules (POR) require
• plan sections, the waiting list and moving up
• run the Group as a charity: trustee meetings, policies, risks, premises and kit

The Group's lawful basis is usually its legitimate interests in running Scouting safely and well, and its legal obligations as a charity and for safeguarding. Ask your Group for details.

ScoutBase uses sign-in and security records to keep accounts and data secure (its legitimate interests).

ScoutBase never sells information, never uses it for advertising, and never uses it to train AI.

Who can see it

• Inside your Group, people see only what their role allows. Trustee board papers show totals, not names. Only the people your Group chooses can see volunteers' contact details and learning, or young people's names. Section leaders only see their own section.
• Volunteers' email addresses, membership numbers, learning and check details, and young people's details are encrypted in ScoutBase's database.
• Ben Colley can reach the data only to run and fix ScoutBase, and only when needed.
• Other Groups using ScoutBase can't see your Group's information.

Where it's kept, and who helps run ScoutBase

Where information leaves the UK, it's protected by the safeguards UK law requires, such as the UK's approved data transfer agreements.

How long it's kept

• Young people: a young person who leaves the Group in OSM drops out of ScoutBase at the next OSM sync.
• Volunteers: a volunteer's details are replaced each time the Group imports a fresh report from the Scouts membership system. Someone removed from the Group's ScoutBase loses access straight away.
• Invitations: an invitation that isn't used expires after 30 days.
• The security log: kept for 6 years, in line with charity record-keeping, then deleted. If someone's account is deleted, the log keeps their actions but replaces their name with "Former member".
• If a Group stops using ScoutBase: all its information is deleted within 30 days, and any backups within 7 days after that.

Your rights

You can ask to see the information held about you, to have it corrected or deleted, to limit how it's used, or to object to it being used.

• For information your Group put in ScoutBase, ask your Group first (usually your Group Lead Volunteer). ScoutBase will help the Group answer.
• For your ScoutBase account and security records, email privacy@scoutbase.co.uk.

We'll reply within one month.

If you're unhappy with how your information is handled, you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ico.org.uk, 0303 123 1113). Please talk to your Group or to us first, so we can try to put it right.

Cookies

ScoutBase only uses cookies it needs to work:

• to keep you signed in
• to remember which Group you're looking at
• during the few minutes you're connecting OSM
• to remember whether you chose light or dark mode

There are no advertising or tracking cookies, so there's no cookie banner.

Changes

If this notice changes in a way that matters, we'll say so on the sign-in page and tell Group Lead Volunteers.