Privacy notice
CMS Support UK is an independent self-help service. It is not the Child Maintenance Service, DWP, HMCTS or a law firm.
What we collect
If you create an account, the service uses your email address for account access and a public username for community features. If you choose to publish a community case, reply, outcome, bookmark, report or CMS Evidence Project experience, the information you enter is stored so those features can operate.
Public and private information
Community posts and replies are public. CMS Evidence Project submissions are private by default unless you actively choose the option allowing an anonymised version of your story to be published. Public experiences are shown without your email address, account ID or username.
Do not publish names, addresses, dates of birth, phone numbers, email addresses, CMS reference numbers, court case numbers, school or nursery names, medical information, staff names, or information that could identify a child or another person.
My CMS uses private account storage for structured case details such as stage, issue and important dates. Free-text private notes remain browser-only. Private case chronology entries are stored for the signed-in user and are protected by owner-only database access controls. Document uploads are not currently offered.
CMS Evidence Project
The Evidence Project collects structured accounts from people dealing with CMS so recurring issues can be identified and measured. A submission can include the issue type, case stage, approximate duration, your account of what happened, impact, action taken and outcome.
Where you consent, submissions may be used in anonymised statistics, research and evidence seeking improvements to the child maintenance system. If you separately choose public-story consent, your submitted story and related non-identifying details may appear in the Community Experiences section of CMS Support UK. Community testimony is not treated as verified legal evidence and is kept separate from authoritative legislation, official guidance and tribunal material.
Do not include names, CMS reference numbers, children's details, addresses, staff names or other identifying information in an Evidence Project submission. Because free-text experiences can contain sensitive family, financial or health information if a user chooses to enter it, users should only provide information necessary to explain the CMS issue.
Website analytics
We use Vercel Web Analytics to understand how the service is used and improve it. This can include aggregated information such as page views, visitor counts, device or browser category, country-level location and interactions with features such as My CMS, the Mandatory Reconsideration builder, the shared-care calculator and printable timelines. We do not intentionally send CMS reference numbers, names, case notes, testimony text or other case content to analytics.
Why information is used and lawful bases
Account and private workspace information is used to provide the service you ask us to provide. Community information is used to publish the content you choose to share and operate community features. We rely on performance of the service requested by the user where processing is necessary to provide account, workspace and community functionality.
Evidence Project research use and optional public-story publication are controlled by the choices shown when a submission is made. We also have legitimate interests in keeping the service secure, preventing abuse, understanding aggregate usage, improving reliability and maintaining useful community features. We aim to collect only the information needed for each feature.
Service providers
The site uses third-party infrastructure providers, including Vercel for website hosting and analytics and Supabase for account and database functionality. Their role is to provide technical infrastructure for the service.
Retention and deletion
Account-owned information is kept while your account remains active so the features you use continue to work. You can delete your own community case threads and you can permanently delete your CMS Support UK account from the account screen. Account deletion removes the authentication account and account-owned stored data, including the private My CMS workspace, chronology, community cases, replies, case outcomes, bookmarks, reports and CMS Evidence Project submissions linked to that account. Browser-only My CMS notes on the device used for deletion are also cleared. Account deletion cannot be undone.
Browser-only information remains on the device until it is cleared by you, removed by the relevant feature, or cleared during account deletion where that feature supports it. Aggregated analytics and technical service data are retained according to the configuration and retention practices of the infrastructure providers used by the service. We do not treat CMS Support UK as permanent document storage.
Your choices and rights
UK data protection law may give you rights concerning personal information held about you, including rights of access, correction, deletion, restriction and objection in applicable circumstances. Account deletion is available from the account controls. For privacy questions, withdrawal requests or data-rights requests that cannot be completed through account controls, contact support@cmssupport.uk.
Children's information
This service is intended for adults dealing with child maintenance matters, not for use by children. Adults must not publish identifying information about children. The service does not intentionally offer accounts or community participation to children.
Sensitive documents
Do not upload or send court orders, medical records, financial statements or other sensitive documents to CMS Support UK unless a feature explicitly says that secure document storage is available. Document uploads are not currently offered.
Changes
This notice will be updated as features and data processing change. Last reviewed: 29 August 2026.