Last updated: 20 July 2026
Anxiety United is a free information and support website operated by Billy Cross.
You do not need to create an account, register, subscribe or provide personal information to read our guides or use our resources.
We do not sell personal information and we do not currently operate paid memberships, advertising profiles or email marketing lists.
Some limited information may still be collected when you visit the website, use the contact form or choose to accept optional analytics cookies. This privacy policy explains what that information is, why we use it and the choices available to you.
Who is responsible for your information?
For UK data-protection purposes, the person responsible for deciding how personal information is used is:
Anxiety United
Operated by Billy Cross
Email: privacy@anxietyunited.com
You can also contact us through the website contact page.
Information we do not routinely collect
Anxiety United does not currently:
- Require user accounts or registrations
- Process payments
- Ask visitors to create public profiles
- Operate discussion forums or public comments
- Sell or rent personal information
- Use personal information for targeted advertising
- Send marketing emails unless a separate optional service is introduced in the future
If any of these features are introduced, this policy will be updated before they are used.
Information collected when you visit the website
Like most websites, our hosting service may automatically record limited technical information when a page or file is requested.
This may include:
- Your internet protocol address
- The date and time of the request
- The page or file requested
- Your browser and device type
- Your operating system
- Referring website information
- Technical errors and security events
This information is generally contained within server logs.
We use it where necessary to operate the website, investigate faults, prevent abuse, protect the website from attacks and maintain security.
Our lawful basis is our legitimate interest in operating a reliable and secure website.
Server information is retained only for as long as reasonably necessary for website security, diagnostics and hosting administration. The precise period may be determined by our hosting provider and may be extended where information is needed to investigate a security incident.
Google Analytics
We may use Google Analytics 4 to understand how people use Anxiety United.
This helps us learn:
- Which guides and resources are used most often
- How visitors move through the website
- Which device and browser types are commonly used
- Whether pages are working properly
- Which subjects may need expanding or improving
- General visitor numbers and usage patterns
Google Analytics may collect information including page views, session activity, device and browser information, approximate geographical location and interactions with website features.
We do not intentionally send your name, email address, contact-form message or detailed health information to Google Analytics.
Google Analytics is optional.
Analytics cookies and related technologies will only be activated after you have given consent through the website’s cookie controls. Refusing analytics cookies will not prevent you from accessing any Anxiety United content or resources.
You can withdraw your consent or change your preferences at any time through the cookie settings available on the website.
Our lawful basis for processing analytics information under UK data-protection law is consent.
We intend to configure Google Analytics user-level and event-level retention for no longer than 14 months. Aggregated statistical reports that no longer identify individual visitors may be retained for longer so that we can compare general website performance over time.
Google acts as a data processor when providing Google Analytics. Information may be processed on systems located outside the United Kingdom. Where this occurs, Google is responsible for applying the contractual and legal safeguards required for international transfers.
Further information about Google’s handling of data is available through Google’s privacy information:
Cookies and similar technologies
Cookies are small files or pieces of information stored on or accessed from your device.
Anxiety United may use two general categories.
Strictly necessary cookies
These support essential website functions such as security, remembering cookie preferences and delivering pages correctly.
Where a cookie is genuinely necessary to provide the website or remember the privacy choice you made, it may be used without optional consent.
Optional analytics cookies
These help us understand general website use through services such as Google Analytics.
They will not be activated unless you choose to accept them.
The cookie banner should provide equally clear options to accept or reject optional cookies. Continuing to browse the website will not by itself be treated as consent.
You may also remove or block cookies through your browser settings. Blocking strictly necessary cookies may affect limited website functions, such as remembering your cookie choice.
Information submitted through the contact form
If you contact Anxiety United, we may collect:
- Your name
- Your email address
- The subject of your enquiry
- The message you choose to send
- The date and time of submission
- Limited technical or anti-spam information connected with the submission
We use this information to read, manage and reply to your enquiry.
Our lawful basis for ordinary contact information is our legitimate interest in responding to people who contact the website and managing website correspondence.
Submitting the contact form does not add you to a marketing list.
We will not use your details to send promotional emails unless a separate optional mailing service is introduced and you actively choose to join it.
Health and other sensitive information
Anxiety United discusses mental health, so visitors may be tempted to include detailed health information within a contact message.
Information about physical or mental health is treated as special category personal data under UK data-protection law and requires additional protection.
Please do not send:
- Medical records or test results
- Photographs of prescriptions or medical documents
- Detailed medication histories
- Information that is not necessary for your general enquiry
- Information about another person without their permission
The contact form is not a medical consultation, therapy service or crisis service.
Where you voluntarily include health information, the contact form will ask for your explicit consent for Anxiety United to use that information solely to understand and respond to your message.
You may withdraw that consent, although this will not affect processing that lawfully occurred before it was withdrawn.
We will not use health information submitted through the contact form for advertising, profiling, medical diagnosis or automated decision-making.
Messages containing health information will be deleted as soon as the enquiry has been resolved and will normally be kept for no longer than three months unless there is an important legal, safeguarding or security reason to retain them for longer.
Contact-form retention
Ordinary contact messages may normally be kept for up to 12 months after the last meaningful communication.
This allows us to respond to follow-up questions, keep reasonable records of correspondence and deal with complaints or website issues.
Messages may be deleted sooner where they are no longer needed.
Some information may be retained for longer where reasonably necessary to establish, exercise or defend legal claims, investigate misuse or meet a legal obligation.
Do not use the contact form during a crisis
The contact form and email inbox are not continuously monitored.
Do not send urgent medical information, suicide plans, reports of an overdose or requests for immediate crisis intervention through the website.
If somebody is in immediate danger, call 999 or go to A&E.
For urgent mental health support in England, call 111 and select the mental health option.
Our Get Help Now page provides further crisis and support contacts.
Spam and website-security services
The contact form or website may use security and anti-spam tools to identify automated submissions, malicious activity and attempts to damage the website.
These services may process limited technical information such as an internet protocol address, browser information and submission patterns.
Our lawful basis is our legitimate interest in protecting the website, its visitors and our communication systems from spam, fraud and abuse.
The privacy policy will be updated with more specific information if a particular third-party anti-spam service is introduced.
Audio, video and embedded content
Some Anxiety United pages may contain audio players, videos or content supplied through another website.
Locally hosted audio files can normally be played without sending information to an unrelated media platform.
Content embedded from a third party, such as YouTube, may allow that provider to receive technical and usage information or set cookies.
Where consent is legally required, the embedded service should remain blocked until you accept the relevant cookie category.
External providers operate under their own privacy policies.
Who we may share information with
We may share limited information only where reasonably necessary with organisations that help us operate the website, including:
- Our website-hosting provider
- Our email provider
- Website maintenance and security providers
- Contact-form or anti-spam services
- Google Analytics, where analytics consent has been given
- Professional advisers where legal or regulatory advice is required
- Police, emergency services, regulators or other authorities where disclosure is legally required or necessary to address an immediate serious risk
Service providers processing information on our behalf are expected to use it only for the agreed service and protect it appropriately.
We do not sell personal information to advertisers, data brokers or other businesses.
International processing
Some technology providers may store or process information outside the United Kingdom.
When personal information is transferred internationally, we will take reasonable steps to use providers that apply appropriate safeguards recognised under UK data-protection law.
These may include adequacy regulations, contractual safeguards or another lawful transfer mechanism.
How we protect information
We take reasonable technical and organisational measures to protect personal information.
These may include:
- Encrypted website connections
- Restricted administrator access
- Software and security updates
- Secure passwords and account controls
- Spam and abuse prevention
- Limiting information to what is reasonably necessary
- Deleting information when it is no longer required
No website, email system or internet transmission can be guaranteed completely secure.
Do not send information through the contact form that is unnecessary or that you would not be comfortable submitting electronically.
Children and young people
Most Anxiety United content can be read without providing any personal information.
Children and young people should avoid sending detailed health information through the contact form.
If you are under 13 and need to contact Anxiety United, ask a parent, guardian or another trusted adult to help where possible.
Young people needing confidential mental health support should use an appropriate professional or recognised support service rather than relying on the website contact form.
Your data-protection rights
Depending on the circumstances, you may have the right to:
- Be informed about how your information is used
- Ask for access to personal information held about you
- Ask for inaccurate information to be corrected
- Ask for information to be deleted
- Ask us to restrict how information is used
- Object to processing based on legitimate interests
- Receive certain information in a portable format
- Withdraw consent where consent is the lawful basis
- Complain about how your information has been handled
These rights are not absolute and may not apply in every circumstance.
To make a request, contact:
We may need to ask for reasonable information to confirm your identity before disclosing or deleting personal information.
Complaints
Please contact Anxiety United first if you have a concern about how your information has been handled. We will try to understand and resolve the issue.
You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office, the UK regulator for data protection.
Information Commissioner’s Office
Helpline: 0303 123 1113
Website: Make a complaint to the ICO
External links
Anxiety United links to NHS services, charities, professional organisations and other external websites.
We are not responsible for the privacy practices, security or content of websites operated by other organisations.
Read the privacy information provided by the external website before submitting personal information to it.
Changes to this policy
This policy may be updated when the website, its technology or the law changes.
The latest version will always be published on this page with its most recent update date.
Significant changes affecting how personal information is used will be made clear where reasonably possible.