If you are a volunteer, please see our ‘Privacy statement for our employees’ section.

When do we collect your personal data

• When you make a donation to us
• When you sign up to a campaign with us
• When you register for, or attend one of our events, or enter one of our prize draws
• When you contact us by email, telephone, letter or through our website
• When you visit and use our websites and subdomains (See ‘Use of cookies’ section)
• When you interact with us on our social media platforms
• When you make a purchase at one of our charity shops

Why do we collect and use your personal data

• To process your donations, gift aid declarations and purchases.
• To keep you informed about our activities and ways to support us. Please note:
  • We will only send you marketing materials by email, phone or SMT text if you have provided your consent. You can withdraw your consent at any time (See ‘Your rights over your personal data’ section).
  • We will not send you marketing materials by the post if you have asked us to stop (See ‘Your rights over your personal data’ section).
• To deal with your queries, requests and responses to our projects and campaigns.
• To send you a confirmation of your donations, purchases and event registrations, and to deliver products purchased online.
• To personalise our services, for example, we may use personal data you have given us and your interactions with our services to help us predict your interests and to send you marketing materials that we think might be of most interest to you.
• To improve our services, for example, if we are allowed, we may send you a survey to seek your feedback on our services.

In what situations do we collect personal data from other sources

• When you agree to support us through a third-party fundraising site such as Just Giving, Facebook Giving, Everyday Hero and MyTenNights and provide them with your consent to share your personal data with us.
• When we receive significant donations or support we may run a background check using publicly available sources and a third party screening and due diligence service provided by Thomson Reuters. We carry out background checks in accordance with our due diligence policies and procedures in order to protect our charitable interests.
• If we are allowed to send you marketing materials, we may use sources in the public domain to check that your marketing preferences and contact details are accurate and up to date. Examples of such sources include royal mail databases and the fundraising preference system.
• We may undertake research for high value fundraising using publicly available sources such as national and local press, charities commission, companies’ house and from social media sites like Facebook and LinkedIn. We will only use these sources where the data has been deliberately made public.

In what situations do we share personal data with other organisations

• If we receive gift aid from you, we may be required to share your personal data with Her Majesty’s Revenues & Customs (HMRC) to receive the tax rebate.
• With law enforcement agencies if we receive a valid legal instruction.
• If you register for one of our events or challenges, we may be required to share your personal data with event organisers for health and safety purposes.
• If you use a debit or credit card to make a donation or purchase, your personal data will be processed by a payment processing processor that may store some of your personal data outside of the European Union including in the US. We only use payment processing partners such as Blackbaud Merchant services, Stripe and BlueSnap that are certified against appropriate frameworks such as the EU-US Privacy Shield Framework and the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard.
• If we are allowed to send you marketing materials, we may share your personal data with a marketing company (such as a mailing house) to help us prepare and send out marketing materials on our behalf.
• If you have agreed to receive marketing emails or SMS texts from us, we may provide your email address and/or mobile phone number in an encrypted format to social media companies, such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Snapchat or YouTube, or to digital advertising companies that provide services to us by displaying our advertising to you on social media platforms and other websites, as well as identifying audiences with interests similar to yours. If you have opted out from receiving marketing emails or SMS texts from us, this will not prevent our advertisements being shown to you on a randomised basis, through the social media platforms own targeting algorithms, or based on cookie data. To completely stop seeing advertising from us on your social media platforms you will need to review the privacy settings on your social media account.
• If we receive a significant donation or support we may run a background check using a third party screening and due diligence service provided by Thomson Reuters. We carry out background checks in accordance with our due diligence policies and procedures in order to protect our charitable interests.
• We contract a limited amount of third parties to store data on our behalf. This may include your personal data. Types of third parties we use include cloud storage, website hosting and software providers.
• If we are required by law, we may share your personal data with data cleaning companies to ensure that the data we hold about you is accurate and up to date.

We only share personal data with another organisation if we have a legal basis to do so.

In all the above situations, we will ensure that we have a written contract (or valid legal instruction) in place with the organisation that includes data protection clauses to ensure that they do not use personal data for their own marketing purposes, and have security requirements in place to protect your personal data.

What is our legal basis for collecting and using personal data 

Where we have your consent.   For example, we will only send you emails, make telephone calls or send you SMS text messages with your consent. You can withdraw this consent at any time (See ‘Your rights over your personal data’ section).

Where the processing is necessary to enter into or fulfil the terms and conditions of a contract. For example, processing your donation made to us.

Where the processing is required under the law.  For example, disclosing your personal data to a law enforcement agency if we receive a valid legal instruction.

Where the processing is our legitimate interest.  For example, we may send marketing materials to your postal address and social media account if you haven’t told us not to or opted out using another method such as a marketing preference service.  We will only rely on this legal basis if we believe your interests and fundamental rights do not override our legitimate interest. (See ‘Your rights over your personal data’ section).