At Childlife we respect the privacy of our supporters, volunteers and visitors to our websites. This Policy is concerned with how we collect information, what we do with it and what controls we have in place to keep your personal data safe.
This policy explains how we handle your personal information in connection with our websites, social media pages, and all our printed and electronic communications.
In this Policy references to Childlife or to ‘we’ or ‘us’ are to Childlife which is a registered charity in England and Wales 1080536. A non-profit making company limited by guarantee. Registered in England No. 3696656 at Westmead House, Farnborough, GU14 7LP. Our ICO registration number is Z6804351.
What information do we collect?
Supporters, new and prospective donors
We collect various personal information such as name, postal address, telephone number, email address, social media account name, date of birth (where appropriate), information about your communication preferences and financial information connected to donations including gift aid. If you volunteer to assist us with PR or case studies, we may take your photograph or a video.
We may also enhance supporter records with information, from the public domain and third-party companies. This may include lifestyle information, utility provider and life insurance provider. It is unusual for us to specifically record sensitive data about supporters and donors, the exception being if we record details of any access needs or dietary needs if you are attending an event.
Website visitors
When you visit our website or sign up for our newsletter we will record details of your IP addresses, a rough geographical location and details of the device you are using.
Candidates for employment
We will collect name and contact details, details of educational, employment and volunteering experiences and reference sites. If contact with children is involved a DBS search may be required. For full details please request a copy of our Employee Privacy Notice.
Volunteering
If you register to become a volunteer we will capture the same amount of information as listed above under supporters. We will use your information to process your application for administration purposes and to keep you updated with how you can get involved and to ensure that you are receiving the right information
Where and when we collect your information?
We collect your personal information in several ways.
Supporters, new and prospective donors
- Directly from you, for example when you provide it to us during a new donor acquisition campaign, or when you communicate with us via email, telephone or social media.
- From publicly available sources.
- We purchase compliant consumer data for use in our telephone marketing campaigns to recruit new donors. Only information that the data subject themselves has provided is used.
- Data collected on a telephone, face to face or online video survey or via a competition site.
- Other individuals may supply your details to us; for an example, an employer providing names of employees in connection with a sponsored event.
Website visitors
- When you visit our website.
- When you engage with us on social media.
How and why we use your personal information?
We only collect your personal information if we have a specific reason or purpose for doing so.
Supporters, new and prospective donors
Personal information collected and processed by us may be used, for the following purposes:
- To manage our relationship with our supporters including processing of donations.
- To promote the organisation in newspapers, social media, and internet in general.
- To keep your information up to date using external databases such as the Post Office’s National Change of Address database. To develop our systems and relationships with you.
Website visitors, fundraising and marketing
- To update you on our activities and your relationship with Childlife where you have consented to receive such communications from us.
- To analyse and improve the services offered on our websites thus providing you with the most user-friendly navigation experience we can for your computer or other internet device we use cookies. For more information, see the “Cookies and how they benefit you” section below, or visit our cookies policy on our website.
- To process your personal information for the purposes of customer analysis, assessment, profiling and direct marketing. We do this an individual or aggregated basis (where we anonymise your data and group it all together). We do this to help us with our activities and to provide you with the most relevant information.
Fundraising and marketing
Fundraising is what allows Childlife and our partners to support so many good causes.
If you sign up to our newsletter, or are a new donor, when we first collect personal information from you, you will be given the option to opt-in to receive specific marketing communications from us by post, Email, telephone or SMS.
Where you agree, we may send you information about our campaigning, donation activity, services, products, fundraising and other activities. For existing donors if you have not opted out of phone or post we will rely upon our legitimate interests to contact you; we will always ensure that your privacy rights are given due consideration and any potential harm is identified before processing data in this way.
If at any time you want to alter your preferences, remove your consent or request that we stop communicating with you, simply click unsubscribe on any newsletter mailing or let us know by calling us on 01252 628072 or sending an email to info@childlife.org.uk.
Telephone calls
We will not make marketing calls to you if you are registered with the Telephone Preference Service (TPS) unless you have given us consent that you are happy to receive calls from us.
You may still receive other types of telephone calls from us as long as they are not marketing calls such as checking your direct debit mandate for example. We do outsource some of our telemarketing activities, but we will only ever use carefully selected organisations which operate in a sympathetic manner to the Charity.
If one of our Data Processors or Partners call you, the telephone call will be recorded and, or monitored for the purpose of quality control and for staff training. Calls direct from Childlife are not recorded.
Our lawful bases for processing
To process your personal data we must have a lawful reason. These are outlined below.
Legal obligations
We are legally obliged to process and store your data for the following reasons:
- Processing of financial and tax records.
- The collection of Gift Aid and transferring of Gift Aid information to HM Revenue & Customs
- Maintenance of a do not contact list.
- Safeguarding of vulnerable persons.
Consent and Legitimate Interest
We rely upon your permission, or consent, or the legitimate lawful interests of Childlife to process your personal information for these reasons:
- Bank details in connection with direct debits.
- Sending of newsletters, marketing and fundraising.
- Administration. Management of our relationship and archiving, for example, contacting you if we require further information to process your joining form.
- Transferring your personal data to organisations we work with to help achieve our charitable objectives (see below section on information sharing for a list of our data processors.
- Keeping our ICT infrastructure safe using proportionate monitoring measures, for example, scanning emails and web traffic for harmful viruses or content.
Please note, we work with several third-party companies and agencies; to understand how they process your data in connection with processing your donation to, or relationship with Childlife, you should check their Privacy Policies carefully.
With Whom do we share information?
We will never sell to, or rent your personal information with other organisations.
Except for allowing Data Processors access some of your information to assist us with the processing activities listed below, we will only ever disclose personal information with your consent, when obliged to so under our contractual obligations with you, by law, for purposes of national security, taxation, safeguarding and criminal investigations.
Your data made be shared with our Data Processors, Partners or Third Parties who will assist us with the following activities.
- Processing your direct debit and card payments.
- Keeping you updated on our services and activities, via email, post, telephone and SMS, including the processing, transmission, mailing or delivering communications or orders.
- Answering customers’ questions about products or services, and providing customer analysis.
- Appointment of external auditors/advisors.
- Professional advisors or the police or social services, for example if we need to protect and defend the rights, property or personal safety of Childlife or in the unlikely event that we receive a complaint about any content you have posted or transmitted to from our website or one of our social media accounts.
- Being acquired or merged with another legal entity.
- We may disclose aggregate statistics about our site visitors, supporters, customers and sales to describe our services and operations to prospective partners, advertisers and other reputable third parties and for other lawful purposes, but these statistics will never contain any personal information.
- Running an event in partnership with other named organisations.
Below are details of the companies we currently use to help us manage your data, and for whom we remain fully responsible. These companies may change from time to time.
Companies we use to process direct debits on our behalf:
- Gather Campaigns Ltd
- Aurora Telecom
- Formunauts GmbH
- LPS Ltd
- Evergiving
- Connexone
- Altru Fundraising Lts
- Ethicall Ltd
- Access Group
- Ideal Host
Companies we use to send updates on our activities:
- Precision/KPM
- Message Bird
- Charity Digital
Companies we use to process one off donations:
- WorldPay
- Stripe
- iZettle
Companies we use to process continuous card payments:
- Stripe
- RaiseNow
- Gather Campaigns Ltd
- Altru Fundraising Ltd
- IXL Fundraising Ltd
Our Financial Support Services:
- DSK Partnership LLP
Storing your information
Information which you submit to us is processed in the UK and European Economic Area (EEA).
Whether your personal data is processed and stored by Childlife or a third-party organisation on our behalf, we remain responsible for keeping it safe and secure
We only keep information for as long as is necessary to achieve our stated purposes, or where we are obliged to do so in accordance with other legislation or relevant regulations.
Our retention policy is as follows:
Processing Activity |
Retention period |
| Financial information | 7 years from transaction |
| Supporters | 2 years after last donation or relationship ends |
| Volunteer records | 6 years after relationship ends |
| Newsletter / Mailing subscribers / Prospects | Ongoing whilst consent is valid, and then 2 years after period of inactivity |
| Images and Photos | Ongoing, each use we use we check with the charity who supplied the image and delete if no longer can use. |
| Call recordings | 3 months from call |
| Information required to defend or take legal actions and for legal purposes. | Information will be retained for as long as the matter is live and then a further 10 years after the matter is concluded. |
In order to allow us to perform statistical analysis and use information purely for research purposes we shall fully or partly anonymise the data in which case the information may be retained indefinitely.
Children
We never knowingly process the personal details of persons under the age of 18, and this would include online donations or orders for goods or services.
Your rights / Lodging a complaint
Your rights
The Data Protection Act 2018 and GDPR affords you certain rights and these are listed below for your convenience:-
- You have the right to access a copy of the personal information we hold about you by making a Data Subject Access Request (DSAR), you can do this by phone, in writing or by email using our contact details below. We will just have to verify your identity before we can proceed.
- You have the right of rectification to amend or update your personal information and ensure we maintain accurate and up to date records and or data about you.
- You have the right to erasure, also known as ‘the right to be forgotten’.
The broad principle underpinning this right is to enable an individual to request the deletion or removal of personal data where there is no compelling reason for its continued processing by Childlife. - You have the right to ask us to restrict the processing of your personal data.
Processing of your personal information may be restricted in the event it is no longer essential to support the use of services provided to you and is no longer needed for any contractual, legal or financial reasons. In those cases, Childlife is permitted to store the personal data, but not further process it. - You have the right to data portability which allows individuals to obtain and or reuse their personal data for their own purposes across different services. It allows you to move, copy or transfer personal data easily from one IT environment to another in a safe and secure way, without hindrance to usability.
- You have the right to object to the processing of your personal information based on consent, our legitimate interests or the performance of a task in the public interest or exercise of official authority including profiling activity, direct marketing including profiling activity; and processing for purposes of scientific and or historical research and statistics.
- You have right to be made aware of any automated decision-making, that made without any human involvement, and/or profiling of your personal information by Childlife.
- You have an absolute right to ask us to stop sending you direct mail or marketing emails.
For some processing you will have given us permission to process your information, and in these cases you can withdraw your consent at any time however, we may still
Childlife may retain just enough information about you to ensure that any right to objection, erasure or restriction is respected in the future.
Complaints
In the unlikely event that you are unhappy with how we have processed your data or handled your enquiry, you can lodge a formal complaint with us using details below. If you are still not happy you can also contact the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) whose details are at the end of this policy.
If you are not known to us, before we can handle any enquiry from you, we need to confirm your identity. To activate any of your rights above please contact us at:-
The CEO, Childlife, Westmead House, Westmead, Farnborough, GU14 7LP
Or call Childlife on 01252 628072
If you require a full copy of our Data Protection Policy, please contact us, to request one.
Other websites
Our website contains hyperlinks to other websites. This Privacy Policy only applies to this website so when you link to other websites you should read their own privacy policies carefully.
Please let us know if a link is not working, you can use the ‘contact us‘ link which can be found on our website.
When purchasing goods or services from any of the companies to which any Childlife sites links, you are forming a contract with the company(s) concerned (agreeing to their terms and conditions), not Childlife.
Using our social media pages
While this statement covers our privacy practices and how we will use any information collected from our websites and social media pages, it doesn’t cover how providers of social media websites will use your information.
You should read the social media site’s privacy policies before adding any content to our social media pages. Make use of the social media site privacy settings and reporting mechanisms to control the way that your information is handled.
Posting content on our websites and social media pages
Remember that the internet provides instant worldwide access. You should assume that any information that you provide will be available worldwide instantly.
Our social media pages are not moderated so if you post comments about other people it’s not only your privacy that is at stake. Protect your friends’ privacy and reputations. Be careful about uploading any content that may show you or your friends in compromising situations and be aware that other users may abuse the content you have provided. If you want to have a post removed, please contact the Childlife office on 01252 628072 or email info@childlife.org.uk for this request to be reviewed.
Please don’t provide information about yourself or other people unless you’re sure you and they are happy to have it made public. In particular, don’t provide any information about others without their consent where that information might identify them, such as:
- Names
- Tagged photos
- Location
- Distinguishing marks
Under no circumstances make public other peoples’ home address, email addresses or contact numbers.
Security
We have proportionate security measures in place to protect against the loss, misuse and alteration of personal information under our control. Whilst we can’t ensure or guarantee that loss, misuse or alteration of information won’t occur, we’ll use standard industry methods to prevent this.
Unfortunately, the transmission of information across the internet isn’t completely secure and whilst we do our best to try to protect the security of your information we can’t ensure or guarantee that loss, misuse or alteration of information won’t occur whilst you or we are transferring this information.
Complaints to the ICO
Finally, if you are unhappy with how we have processed your information, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Office of the Information Commissioner, contact details below.
Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire, SK9 5AF
Helpline: 0303 123 1113 (local rate) or +44 1625 545 745
Website: https://ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/contact-us-public/
Webchat service: https://ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/contact-us-public/public-advice/
Changes to this policy
This privacy policy may change from time to time, for example, if the law around data protection or information governance changes or for operational purposes. We advise you to visit this page regularly to keep up to date with any changes. If you have a relationship with us and we make substantive changes to this Policy, we will communicate those changes to you directly.
Last updated – August 2024. V6