This policy sets out how we obtain, use and protect any personal information you provide to us, whether online, via phone, text, email, in letters or in other correspondence.
Last updated: 1st August 2019
Police Care UK is committed to safeguarding your personal information. Whenever you provide such information, we are legally obliged to use your information in line with all laws concerning the protection of personal information, including the Data Protection Act 2018 (incorporating the General Data Protection Regulations (EU 2016/279)) and the Privacy & Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003.
Any information provided as part of research we undertake with a University will be used in accordance with their policies and standards for the use of personal data in academic research.
This page will explain:
Police Care UK websites and emails contain hyperlinks to websites owned and operated by third parties. These third party websites have their own privacy policies, including policies on their use of cookies, and we urge you to review them. They will govern the use of personal information you submit, or which is collected by cookies whilst visiting these websites. We cannot accept any responsibility or liability for the privacy practices of such third party websites and your use of such websites is at your own risk.
The Policy may change from time to time. For example, we have recently updated it to reflect new legal requirements of the EU General Data Protection Regulation (also known as the 'GDPR'). We also review the policy in line with changes to the Code of Fundraising Practice, changes to the DMA Code, changes to best-practice guidance issued by the Information Commissioner's Office, and as part of our annual policy review programme.
Please visit this website section periodically in order to keep up to date with the changes in our Policy.
Police Care UK is a National organisation, and is registered in England and Wales, and in Scotland. We are:
We are also:
Our registered address is:
Nova Scotia House
70 Goldsworth Road
Woking
Surrey
GU21 6LQ
This list is not exhaustive but does represent the list of circumstances under which we believe you will be providing information to us.
Depending on your interaction with Police Care UK, we might collect the following types of information about you:
Under data protection law, certain categories of personal information are recognised as sensitive, including health information, employment history, race, religious beliefs.
We do not usually collect “sensitive personal data” about our supporters, e.g. health status, unless there is a clear reason for doing so – such as participation in a marathon or similar fundraising event or where we need this to ensure that we provide appropriate facilities or support to enable you to participate in the event.
If you are simply browsing our website as an anonymous visitor, Police Care UK may still collect certain information from you, such as your IP addresses (an IP address is a number that can uniquely identify a specific computer or another network device on the internet).
Police Care UK will sometimes collect sensitive personal data in connection with our welfare services (for example medical history relating to your injury), volunteering, or applying for a job with us. In these cases we will obtain your consent to process this data, or alternatively ensure that we have a valid legal basis for doing so, such as when it is in the substantial public interest.
Clear notices will be provided in these circumstances so that it is clear what information we need and why we need it.
We are committed to protecting the privacy of the young people that engage with us through our welfare, communications, and fundraising programmes. This may happen on particular areas on our website, at events, at schools, as part of a cadet programme, or by applying for welfare assistance.
We recognise that children need particular protection when collecting and processing their personal information because they may be less aware of the risks involved.
Under our welfare programmes, we have a legitimate interest to process personal information relating to a child as it forms part of our commitment to supporting the families of those who suffer harm as a result of their policing role.
Where processing a child’s personal information is related to communications or fundraising activities, we will only do so:
(where the child is under 13 years old) with the consent of an adult with parental responsibilities
(where the child is over 13 years old) with their informed consent
If a person is under 18, we will always notify them that they need to obtain consent from a parent or guardian before providing any personal information. When we collect information person aged under 18 we make it very clear as to the reasons for collecting this information and how it will be used.
As part of our recruitment of staff, volunteers, and supporters, we are sometimes given information about other people (such as next of kin or referees). This information is used for the purposes it is provided for only, and is never used for marketing or fundraising purposes. Once this information is no longer needed (example, the fundraising event is complete or the reference has been validated), this information is destroyed and removed from our systems.
It is our policy to ask whether permission has been sought, but we rely on the declaration of the person supplying it for the purposes of processing personal information relating to others.
Most personal data we process is given to us directly by our beneficiaries, supporters, customers, volunteers or research participants in the course of their interactions with us.
Information may also be supplied about you from your employer, or connected agents, for the purposes of verification of eligibility as a registered beneficiary.
We may also receive your personal information when you donate to Police Care UK through third-party services such as Justgiving, Virgin Money Giving, or Charities Aid Foundation (CAF).
We occasionally use external lead-generation organisations to provide us with the contact details of people who’ve expressed an interest in our work, and agreed to receive communications from us, or have been identified as potentially interested in our work. In addition, we sometimes conduct research using third party sources, as set out in the “Analysing your information” section below.
In some situations, we may update our supporters’, customers’ and volunteers’ personal information using information from public registers or other agencies. For example, we might do this to check we have a valid and deliverable postal address for you, or to check if you are on Telephone Preference Service (TPS), Mailing Preference Service (MPS) or Fundraising Preference Service (FPS).
In simple terms, your personal data may be used to help us effectively deliver our charitable services or to help us raise funds for those charitable services. If you are engaging in research we are undertaking with a university, your personal data may be used for scientific or historical research purposes, statistical purposes or archiving purposes in the public interest.
We have summarised below the different reasons why we do this (these are often referred to as ‘purposes’). How we use your data for these purposes will depend on the nature of our relationship with you.
If you post or send offensive, inappropriate or objectionable content to or anywhere on Police Care UK platforms or channels, or otherwise engage in any disruptive behaviour on any Police Care UK service, we may use your personal information to stop such behaviour.
Where Police Dependants’ Trust reasonably believes that you are or may be in breach of any of the laws of England and Wales (or the law of Scotland if you live there) (e.g. because content you have posted may be defamatory), we may use your personal information to inform relevant third parties such as your employer, internet provider or law enforcement agencies about the content and your behaviour.
If you donate to us, or buy something from us, and pay by card, we’ll process your debit or credit card details. We will also pass your card details securely to our payment-processing partner as part of the payment process. We do this in accordance with the Payment Card Industry Security Standard and don’t store the details on our website or databases.
If you have kindly added Gift Aid to your donation to Police Care UK we must record the fact that you are a UK taxpayer and we have to maintain a record of the amount of Gift Aid we have claimed.
When you purchase an item through us, we will collect certain information from you including your name, address, phone number, email address and payment details, so that we can process and send you your item or contact you if we have any queries regarding your purchase.
Where you purchase something from our online shop you will be asked to create an account which you can use to purchase additional products or support us in the future.
It’s important for us to know why you choose to support Police Care UK, as this helps us to give you the information that is most relevant for you. We’ll analyse your data in order to better understand your preferences, to improve our services, and to tailor our marketing communications to you. The information we’ll use to do this might include things like your interests, preferences, and level of potential donations so that we can see who may be interested in supporting us or who may be able and willing to give more.
If you are engaging in research activities that Police Care UK are undertaking with a university, then your personal information will be protected and kept separately from the data being used in analysis in accordance with the Research Ethics standards of that university.
In some instances, we may add publicly available information to our analysis. This might include information that is contained in public registers like Companies House and the Financial Conduct Authority, press and web articles in print and/or digital publications, or from social media platforms like LinkedIn.
Police Care UK may review publicly accessible information about an individual to help us gain a better understanding about our supporters or potential supporters. Police Care UK may use organisations such as Prospecting for Gold as a source of this research based information.
Police Care UK uses the Mosaic postcode-based segmentation tool from Experian Ltd to understand the demographic make-up of geographical areas of the UK. This allows us to get a better understanding of the types of people who live in different parts of the country.
In addition to cookies on our websites (covered by our cookies policy), Police Care UK also carries out click-through email tracking, which allows us to analyse when an email has been interacted with (e.g. opened or when links within it are clicked). This helps us to better understand the impact of our communications and success of our campaigns.
We will only use your information within Police Care UK for the purposes for which it was obtained. Police Care UK will not, under any circumstances, share or sell your personal data with any third party for marketing purposes and you will not receive offers from other companies or organisations as a result of giving your details to us.
We will comply with legal requests where disclosure is required or permitted by law (for example to government bodies for tax purposes or law enforcement agencies for the prevention and detection of crime), subject to such bodies providing us with a relevant request in writing.
We may need to share your information with “data processors” such as our service providers, associated organisations and agents, or suppliers, who help us to prepare and send the materials relating to our projects and fundraising activities such as our:
In these situations, the relationship between Police Care UK and the third-party data processor will be governed by a contract and strict security requirements will be in place to protect your personal information. They will only act under our instruction, will not be allowed to use your data for their own purposes, will undergo rigorous vetting to ensure that they keep your data secure, and will be supervised to ensure your personal data is destroyed when no longer needed.
For the purposes of our welfare activities, where Police Care UK has agreed to fund work, adaptations, or the procurement of goods and services in line with our charitable activities, Police Care UK may share your personal information, including potentially sensitive information. This will be limited to personal information that is relevant only to the welfare activity in question, and will be agreed with you in advance.
We are required under law to make sure that we have a valid ground for processing your data. The law sets out six different grounds for when personal data can be processed (plus additional ones where sensitive data is used). Police Care UK will only process your personal information if any of the following apply:
