Privacy Policy
Should you have any questions regarding this policy, please contact us on contact@somersetwildlands.org
Privacy notice and policy
This is the privacy policy of Somerset Wildlands. Last updated October 2024
Somerset Wildlands is registered charity 1191953. This organisation is the data controller and processor of your information under the conditions of the Data Protection Act 2018. The 2018 Act replaces the 1998 Data Protection Act from May 25 2018.
Contact information
Our postal address is:
Polygon Cottage, North Green Street, Bristol, BS8 4NE
Our appointed Data Protection Officer is Alasdair Cameron.
Introduction
At Somerset Wildlands we’re committed to protecting your personal information that you’ve shared with us. We will only ever collect and keep the minimum amount of data we need.
Somerset Wildlands does not maintain an in-house list of members or supporters, but does this through third-party organisations such as Donorbox and Mailchimp; however at times we will need to collect personal data, such as to reply to requests for information or involvement.
The statement below explains how we collect and use the information which you give us.
Our aim is to safeguard your privacy whilst providing the services we need to. Collecting a certain amount of personal information is necessary if we are to satisfy the requirements of our supporters. It’s also a legal requirement for some of the things we do, such as processing donations.
Our commitment to you:
We will collect, process and use the personal data that you share with us in a way that is transparent and honest.
We will only hold and use the personal data that you share with us in the ways you say we can.
You have the right to amend or withdraw your consent about the ways in which we hold and use your personal data at any time.
We will respect your personal data rights as detailed in current data protection legislation.
As a responsible organisation, we will always comply with our responsibilities and obligations as detailed in current data protection legislation.
We will update the data that you have shared with us to ensure it is accurate.
We will do all that we can to protect the personal data that you share with us through reasonable technical and organisational safeguards and measures.
We will make sure we manage your data in line with the rights that you have under the 2018 Data Protection Act, including the right to object or restrict the ways in which we process your data, and your right to request the erasure of your data.
We will always comply with the current UK Information Commissioner’s Office guidance.
All the data that we use is held in accordance with the requirements laid out in current data protection legislation.
Ways in which we use your personal information
In some areas of our website and other communications, we ask you to provide personal information that will enable us to contact you with information you request or that may be of interest to you, such as when you subscribe to our emails or make a donation. We may also collect your details when you email us with an enquiry so we can respond effectively to you.
We keep your personal information only for as long as required for the purposes for which it’s supplied. Where your information is no longer required, we will always make sure it is disposed of in a safe and secure manner.
We will only ever use your data in line with our commitments to you.
Our communications
We will only ever contact you directly using the methods for which you have given your clear consent, such as through our emailing lists.
We want to give you as much control over the ways we communicate with you as possible. If you’d prefer we did things differently – or even stop contacting you entirely – all communications from us will always explain how to opt out of future communications. Our aim is to give you complete control over how we use your personal data that you share with us.
Sharing your data
We will never sell your details to other organisations.
We frequently use approved third party partner agencies to collect and process information on our behalf, such as an online-mailing house to manage our email subscription lists. Third parties with which we share your information are only authorised to use that information to fulfil their contractual obligations to us. They are not permitted to use it for any other purpose. Our key third party partners are Mailchimp, Donorbox, Google, Squarespace, Stripe, Paypal and JustGiving.
Keeping your details up to date
The accuracy of your information is important to us. If you change your home or email address, or if any of the other information we hold is inaccurate or changes in any way, or even if you simply wish to check that the data you have shared with us is up to date, please contact us on contact@somersetwildlands.org
Security
We place great importance on the security of your personal information and will always take appropriate precautions to protect it. This applies both to the physical security of the data that we hold, and the high level of digital security features that we use.
This website and the donations pages are managed by leading third-party providers such as Squarespace and Donorbox which use up-to-date software protection for secure financial transactions. Your personal information, such as your credit card number, name and address, is securely encrypted so that it cannot be read as the information travels over the internet. While on a secure page, such as our donation form, the lock icon on web browsers such as Firefox and Chrome becomes locked to indicate this. We never hold your credit card details on our website or in our own records.
Even with all these precautions, no data transmission over the internet can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. So, while we strive to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee the security of any information which you disclose to us online and you must understand that you do so at your own risk.
Website tracking
Our website is operated by Squarespace. As part of its security measures, every time our website is accessed, it may record the date, time and the IP address used. In some circumstances this may mean that these details are linked to the personal data you have shared. Sometimes the device used to access the website (eg, a mobile phone, tablet, laptop) may provide us with further information, such as the device and operating system. Using this information helps us to improve our site performance, for example by understanding the times of day and days of the week when we see peak traffic, and to assess the popularity of different areas of the site.
Use of cookies
Cookies are small pieces of information sent by a web server to a web browser, which enable the server to collect information from the browser. Like many websites, Somerset Wildlands may use cookies to provide you with a more personalised web service, including monitoring the performance of our web pages, building a profile of the ways in which you use our website and finding people with similar profiles to you, which helps us to provide personalised content on social media sites you visit.
You may avoid the use of cookies by selecting the appropriate settings on your browser (more details of how to change this will depend on which browser you are using (eg, Google Chrome or Microsoft Internet Explorer). Please note that if you do this you may not be able to use the full functionality of our website.
Internet-based transfers and processing
The internet works as a global environment. This means that using it to collect and process personal data often involves the international transmission of data, and on occasions processing of personal data by third parties (including social media companies) outside the UK.
Changes
We may make changes to this policy from time to time. If we change our Privacy Policy we will post the changes on this page, and will hold a record of the changes that we make. When we make significant changes to this policy we will communicate with our supporters to tell them what has changed. Please revisit the policy when you want to confirm how we use your personal information.
This policy was last revised in October 2024.
Access to your personal information
Under the General Data Protection Regulation, you have the right to request and be sent:
confirmation that your data is being processed;
access to your personal data; and
other supplementary information that we hold about you.
You can make a request by emailing contact@somersetwildlands.org or by post using our contact information. We will take steps to confirm your identity before releasing any information to you. We will not charge you for providing the information that you request. We will respond to your request within one calendar month of the request, unless there are exceptional circumstances.
Your rights and acceptance of this policy
By sharing your consent preferences and using our sites, you consent to the collection and use of information by Somerset Wildlands in accordance with our Privacy Policy. If you do not agree to this policy, please do not use our sites.
Any personal information submitted via our websites is treated in accordance with current UK data protection legislation (Data Protection Act 2018). To find out more about your entitlements under current and future data protection legislation, visit the Information Commissioner's website .
Privacy policy for minors
The protection of minors is very important to us, so we won’t actively seek opportunities to collect personal information from under-18s. However, we don’t want to exclude under-18s from opportunities to support our work either (with the exception of donations), so we may sometimes need to store their personal information (for example if they wished to join an appropriate volunteer group).
Minors should always ask a parent or guardian for permission before sending personal information to anyone online.
Information retention
We will hold your personal information on our systems for as long as is appropriate for the activity that you are supporting (for example volunteering or making a donation to support our work). If you ask for your personal information to be deleted we will manage your request in a transparent way, and in line with our data retention policy. We may, however, retain a secure anonymised record for research and analytical purposes.
We regularly review the data we hold to ensure it is held in line with consent of the person who shared it with us.
While we will take all reasonable steps to protect and secure your personal data, we cannot guarantee the confidentiality of any messages transmitted between you and us via email as these are potentially accessible by the public. We will not be liable to you or anyone else for any loss relating to any email message sent by you to us or by us to you.
Like many organisations, we can estimate how many supporters open our emails by counting how many have downloaded the images in them. We also track how many supporters click the links in our emails. By keeping track of which emails our supporters open and click, we can find out what content is popular, and therefore send more of the kind of emails our supporters read. It also means that if a supporter – like you – appears to have stopped opening or clicking emails, we can ask them why. This feedback helps us to improve our emails for the future.
Sensitive information
When using or subscribing to our services, you may choose to provide us with information which is defined as sensitive personal information under the terms of the Data Protection Act 2018. Examples of sensitive information include details of your ethnicity or state of health. As with all the personal information which you provide to us, we shall use and store this information carefully in accordance with this privacy policy. We will always explain why we are collecting this kind of information if we ever ask for it, and we will always ask for your consent to use this data.
This privacy policy is governed by the laws of England, Wales and Northern Ireland.