Privacy Notice

Charity Link Privacy Policy

Our Privacy Principles

We will look after any personal information that you share with us.

This is central to our values as an organisation. We want everyone who supports us, or who comes to us for support, to feel confident about how any personal information shared will be looked after or used.

You can be confident that:

  • We only use personal information in the ways we need to and that is expected of us.
  • We will keep you up to date with our work as well as our fundraising activities.
  • But, we only use your personal information to do this if you have previously told us that’s OK.
  • We will make it easy for you to tell us how you want us to communicate with you, including how to opt out from future communications – and we promise your request will be respected straight away.
  • We will never release your information to organisations outside Charity Link for their marketing purposes.
  • We will be especially careful and sensitive when engaging with vulnerable people or those we have reason to believe might be vulnerable
  • We take all reasonable care to safeguard your personal information through security policies and secure business processes.
  • We will always provide easy ways for you to contact us. Our Data Protection Officer is happy to answer any queries you have, at any time.

 

Charity Link Privacy Policy

We know that your privacy is very important to you.
We promise that it is even more important to us.

  1. How we collect personal information about you

We may collect personal information from you when you interact with Charity Link. There are many occasions when this could happen, for example: if you enquire about our activities, ask us to help with your needs, register with us, make a donation to us, purchase something, apply for a job or volunteering opportunity, if you chose to provide some optional feedback or otherwise provide us with personal information. And, this may be when you phone us, go on to our website, or contact us through the post, or in person.

  1. What information do we collect?

The personal information we collect might include your contact details such as name, date of birth, email address, postal address, telephone number and credit/debit card details (if you are making a purchase or donation), as well as information you provide in any correspondence between us.

If you are applying to us for help we may also collect personal information about your other family members such as your partner or children.  We may also collect health information to assist us in finding funding for you.

We also gather general information about the use of our websites, such as which pages users visit most often and which services, events or facilities are of most interest. We may also track which pages users visit when they click on links in Charity Link emails. We may use this information to personalise the way our websites are presented when users visit them, to make improvements to our websites and to ensure we provide the best service for users. Wherever possible we use aggregated or anonymous information which does not identify individual visitors to our websites.

  1. Cookies

‘Cookie‘ is a name for a small file, usually of letters and numbers, which is download onto your device, like your computer, mobile phone or tablet when you visit a website.

They let websites recognise your device so that the sites can work, or work better, and also gather information about how you use the site. A cookie, by itself, can’t be used to identify you.

How do we use cookies?

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users of our website. This helps us to provide you with a good experience when you come to our website and also allows us to improve our site.

The cookies we use

We use the categorisation set out by the International Chamber of Commerce in their UK Cookie Guide.

We use all four categories of cookies:

  • Strictly necessary cookies are essential for you to move around our website and to use its features, like our shopping basket and your account.
  • Performance cookies collect anonymous information about how you use our site, like which pages are visited most. No information that identifies you is kept.
  • Functionality cookies remember choices you make to improve your experience, like your text size or location. They may also be used to provide services you have asked for such as watching a video or commenting on a blog. They are anonymous.
  • Targeting or advertising cookies collect information about your browsing habits in order to make advertising relevant to you and your interests.

 

No cookies, please

You can opt out of all our cookies (except the strictly necessary ones). Find out how to control and delete cookies in your browser.

But, if you choose to refuse all cookies you may not be able to use our website properly.

If you have any questions about how we use cookies, please contact us.

 

  1. How do we use personal information?

We may use your personal information to:

  • Provide you with the advice and support you’ve asked us for;
  • Provide or administer activities relating to all our services: updating you with important administrative messages, to help us identify you when you contact us, and help us to properly maintain our records;
  • Approach other charities for assistance on your behalf if you have applied to us for help. We may need to disclose your information to those charities but will only do so if you give us your consent.
  • Improve your experience with us. We may use your information to enhance the service that our staff provide, to fulfil your orders and gift aid declarations, to improve our information and communications, or to personalise the website to better suit your needs;
  • Provide you with information about our plans. This may be letting you know about new or enhanced services that we hope will be useful and interesting to you, and may include fundraising updates; of course, we will only do this either with your consent, where we need to fulfil a contract or service with you, or where we believe you will expect to be updated and contacted by us. You can of course ask us at any time  to change how we contact you, simply contact myinformationupdate@charity-link.org
  • Analyse the personal information we collect about you so that we can better understand our supporters, their preferences and needs and important trends.  This may mean looking at all the interactions you have with us so we can aim to offer you the right information or offers at the right time; including financial interactions so we can ensure we ask you for an appropriate level of support. It may also mean using external sources of information about you, the area where you live, or people like you, so we can better inform how we talk to you about our work. We believe this enables us to offer you more appropriate offers and communications, but you can opt out of this activity at any time. To do this please email myinformationupdate@charity-link.org with the subject line ‘Please stop analysis of my data’.
  • We may need to disclose your information if required to do so by law (for example, to comply with applicable laws, regulations and codes of practice or in response to a valid request from a competent authority); or, in order to enforce our conditions of sale and other agreements;

 

To do some of this, Charity Link may also share your information with our trusted partners and suppliers, but this is always carried out under our instruction, and is never for their marketing approaches.  We ensure that they store the data securely and delete it when it is no longer needed.

A special note about the Sensitive Information we hold   

If you contact us at Charity Link by telephone, email or post, or in other more general communications with us such as blogs or general emails, you may choose to provide details of a sensitive nature.

We only use it for the purposes of dealing with your application or enquiry, or for the purposes of training, quality monitoring or evaluating the services we provide.  We will not pass on your details to anyone else without your express permission except in exceptional circumstances such as the reporting of need to safeguard a child or vulnerable adult.

If you provide us with any Sensitive Personal Data by telephone, email or by other means, we will treat that information with extra care and always in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

Your personal information and details of the enquiries received are stored on a secure database or in paper files for no longer than is necessary for the purposes of its use. We carry out periodic deletion of data whose retention period has expired and/or when the need to continue holding such data is no longer necessary.

  1. Your choices

We’d like to keep all our valued supporters up to date with our progress. So, to update you on what we’re doing and ask whether you’d be able to support us, where we are able to, we’d like to keep in touch with you (by post, phone, email, text and other electronic means) about our progress and how you can continue to help us in this important mission.

Please be reassured that respect lies at the heart of everything our committed staff and volunteers do: we respect any information that you share with us and you can change your mind and remove or add your consent at any time, by simply contacting us on myinformationupdate@charity-link.org

In cases where we may need to transfer and process your personal information outside the EEA, we will comply fully with our legal obligations as a data controller and take all steps necessary to ensure that your personal information is treated securely and in accordance with legislation.

  1. Who sees your personal information?

The personal information we collect about you will be used by our staff (and volunteers) in Charity Link so that they can help you; also, by a few selected organisations that work with us or on our behalf to deliver our services; and possibly to legal and regulatory authorities if required to by law.

We will never sell or share your personal information with organisations so that they can contact you for any marketing activities. Nor do we sell any information about your web browsing activity.

  1. Your Information Security

We take the security of your personal information extremely seriously.

We’ve implemented appropriate physical, technical and organisational measures to protect the personal information we have under our control, both on and off-line, from improper access, use, alteration, destruction and loss.

And, we only keep it as long as is reasonable and necessary, which may be to fulfil statutory obligations (for example, the collection of Gift Aid).

Here are some of the ways we protect your personal information:

  • If you provide personal information to us online that information is encrypted for protection on transmission to us. Encryption is the process through which sensitive information is scrambled before it is transmitted so that it remains private even if it is intercepted. However, unless your internet browser supports this you will not be able to take advantage of this level of security
  • Offline, your personal information is kept securely in our databases and offices, or, where relevant, by our partner companies.
  • Our website may contain links to other sites. While we try to link only to sites that share our high standards and respect for privacy, we are not responsible for the content or the privacy practices employed by other sites. Please be aware that advertisers or Web sites that have links on our site may collect personally identifiable information about you. This privacy statement does not cover the information practices of those websites or advertisers.
  • Any debit or credit card details which we receive on our website are passed securely to our payment processing partner, according to the Payment Card Industry Security Standards.
  1. Your communication with our teams at Charity Link

Your communications with our teams (including by telephone or email) may be monitored and/or recorded for training, quality control and compliance purposes to ensure that we continuously improve our customer service standards.

  1. How to update or access your personal information

You may ask us at any time to update your details, correct or remove information you think is inaccurate by:

Writing: Charity Link, 20A Millstone Lane, Leicester LE1 5JN

Email: myinformationupdate@charity-link.org

Tel: 0116 222 2200

You also have a right to know what personal information Charity Link holds about you.

To request a copy of your personal information we hold, contact us by:

Writing: Charity Link, 20A Millstone Lane, Leicester LE1 5JN

Tel: 0116 222 2200

Email: dataprotection@charity-link.org

  1. Changes to our Privacy Policy

Our Privacy Policy is reviewed regularly to ensure that it reflects how we use your information. Any changes will be notified to you by updating this policy so please check this Policy to see if any changes have been made that are important to you. Where appropriate, changes will be notified to you by email.

This Privacy Policy (version 1.0) was last updated on 12/03/2018

  1. Who we are

Here at Charity Link, we are committed to protecting your personal information and to reassure you that that you have control over the information we store about you and what types of information you would like to receive from us.

For further information about our privacy practices, please contact our Data Protection Officer by: