Forms privacy

Silktide finds the forms on your website and lists the information each one asks for, so you can check that every form collects data lawfully. Forms are the main way websites gather personal data, and each one needs a clear purpose and proper handling.

Why this matters

Every form that asks for a name, email address, or anything else that identifies a person collects , and privacy laws such as the attach obligations to that: you must tell people what you will do with their data, collect no more than you need, keep it secure, and honour requests to access or delete it.

Forms accumulate quietly - contact forms, newsletter signups, event registrations, surveys - and each one added by a different team may feed a different system. Without an inventory, nobody knows what the website actually collects, which makes compliance impossible to demonstrate.

How to fix it

This check gathers your forms for you to review; Silktide cannot judge whether a form's data handling is lawful.

For each form, check what it collects and whether you actually need all of it. Remove fields you don't use.
Make sure the form, or a privacy notice linked from it, explains what happens to the data: why it is collected, where it goes, and how long you keep it.
Check where submissions end up, especially forms that submit to third-party services, and confirm you can delete a person's data if they ask.
When a form is fine, the finding so it isn't raised again.

How Silktide tests this

Find every form on each page, skipping the hidden forms that known tracking and translation scripts add for their own use.
List the visible fields in each form, with the label and type of each, so you can see what it asks for. Hidden fields are not included.
Record where the form submits to, including whether that is another website.
Group identical forms - a search box appearing on every page is reported once - and skip any elements you have excluded from testing.

Troubleshooting

The check lists all forms, because Silktide cannot reliably tell which ones collect personal data. Forms that collect nothing personal, such as search boxes, can simply be approved.

The same form is reported on many pages

Forms in headers, footers, and sidebars appear on every page. They are grouped by their visible fields, so one review covers every copy.