Trust at Apolitical

All of Apolitical’s 500,000+ members trust that their data is securely handled so they are empowered to engage and learn with peers. We take that responsibility seriously.

With members from more than 170 countries working across all sectors of government – including AI, nuclear and defence – we understand that public servants must be careful where they discuss their work online. We also understand that trust is earned, and that it is critical for Apolitical to achieve its mission of making governments smarter. This page provides an overview of how we approach trust and compliance at Apolitical and the measures we have in place to protect the privacy and security of our members and partners.

You can also find further information about the controls we have in place in Apolitical’s Trust Centre.

Security

Apolitical has stringent security controls and measures in place to meet government security standards. We are certified ISO 27001 compliant, meaning that an independent auditor has assessed our information security management systems against global industry security standards. Apolitical is also CyberEssentials Plus certified – a certification created by the UK Government to ensure small businesses have appropriate security controls in place.

Encryption

Apolitical encrypts all data in transit to TLS 1.2 and at rest to AES-128 standards at minimum to help ensure that data is inaccessible to unauthorised parties.

Data Classification

Taking inspiration from government partners, Apolitical implements a data classification policy, which requires all documents to be classified based on the sensitivity of its contents.

Employee Security

Apolitical conducts comprehensive background checks on all staff and contractors with access to our systems and data, aligned to BPSS standards at minimum.

Apolitical has a comprehensive security awareness programme, including onboarding privacy and security training, annual training for all staff, and social engineering simulations.

Third party processors

Apolitical uses a number of third party services to deliver our platform. We conduct regular, complete due diligence on these providers to ensure that the security requirements we adhere to flow down to them.

All providers which handle personal or sensitive data, or are a critical part of our infrastructure, must hold ISO 27001 or SOC 2 Type 2 certification.

Apolitical ensures that any third parties only handle the data that is required for them to fulfil their purposes, and are Data Processors (rather than Data Controllers).

Privacy

Apolitical’s privacy programme is carefully constructed and implemented in line with globally recognised standards and frameworks, including the GDPP. Privacy is built into the foundations of the Apolitical platform, as well as into all new products and services.

GDPR

Apolitical is GDPR compliant and conducts regular audits and reviews to ensure that our data processing is in line with legislation. You can find out more about how we process data, including our legal bases for processing data, how we ensure individuals can exercise their data privacy rights, and for what purposes we process data in our Privacy Policy

Privacy by Design

Apolitical does not sell your data

We do not sell your personal information to third parties for advertising or marketing purposes. We may share information with our partners in order to report on progress or facilitate a contract to deliver personal development opportunities. We may also collate aggregated and anonymised data as part of our insights offering.

Transparency

We believe that in order to make informed choices about using the Apolitical platform, it is critical that we are transparent about how we collect, use, store and share data. As such, we are open and honest about what data we collect and why. You can find further information about this in our Privacy Policy.

Artificial Intelligence

At Apolitical, we are deliberative and intentional about how we use, implement and improve the Apolitical platform and our content using AI.

AI Principles

Use of AI at Apolitical is underpinned by our AI Principles of Transparency, Used for Good, Fairness, Safety and Security, and Accountability. You can find further information about what this means for here.

AI and Personal Data

In general, Apolitical avoids processing personal information in AI systems. From time to time, we may process personal data in AI systems, but only upon thorough review from Apolitical’s Data Protection Officer, and where it is deemed to be compliant with GDPR and other relevant regulations. You can find out more about AI and Personal data our Privacy Policy.

Apolitical's AI Charter

Apolitical has developed an AI Charter, which sets out our AI commitments, and provides answers to a number of FAQs on our approach to and use of AI

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