BlindAid Privacy Policy

 

BlindAid is a registered charity No. 262119 and a company limited by guarantee No. 986407.

Our registered office is Lantern House, 102 Bermondsey Street, SE1 3UB

BlindAid takes your privacy seriously and we promise to keep your details secure.
This policy explains how we use your personal information and the reasons for keeping it as well as your rights under the new General Data Protection Regulation.

How do we obtain information from you?

We obtain information about you, for instance when you use our website, when you contact us about our services or if you make a donation.

How is your information used?

We may use your information, with your explicit consent, to:

  • Process and administer your request for attendance at events or to receive newsletters;

Send you communications which you have requested and that may be of interest to you.

  • This could include information about events, visual impairment, or to seek your views or comments on the services we provide;
  • Or to notify you of changes to our services;

Where you have told us you prefer to be contacted by telephone or post, we will do so on the basis of pursuing our legitimate interests in providing you with a service or information.

Where it is necessary for the performance of a contract, we will use your information to:

  • Process a job or volunteer application;
  • if you are an employee or volunteer, to administer payroll, expenses and pension payments

We review our retention periods for personal information on a regular basis. We are legally required to hold some types of information to fulfil our statutory obligations.

Our retention criteria where there is no statutory specification include the following:

  • Job application forms and interview notes for unsuccessful candidates – six months
  • Personnel files and training records – six years after employment ceases

If you are a beneficiary of our services we will hold your personal information on our systems for as long as you continue to use our services, or as long as our business relationship continues.

When you have told us you no longer wish to receive our services, your information will be held on an archive file to ensure that you don’t receive further regular communications from BlindAid.

Who has access to your information?

 We will not sell or rent your information to third parties.

With your permission we may pass your information to our third party service providers and other associated organisations for the express purposes of completing tasks and providing services to you on our behalf when and if , for example:

  • Our IT providers, Focus IT
  • Our payroll administration service, Brayne, Williams & Barnard ltd
  • Our pension administration service, Royal London
  • Our website infrastructure providers, Namesco and Granite 5

However, when we use third party service providers, we disclose only the personal information that is necessary to deliver the service and we have agreements in place that require them to keep your information secure and not to use it for their own direct marketing purposes.

Your choices

You have a choice about whether or not you wish to receive information from us. If you wish to receive newsletters and other communications from us by email about our services and events, we will be relying on you giving us consent about how and why we contact you.

You can withdraw this consent at any time by calling 0207 403 6184.

Or by emailing enquiries@blindaid.org.uk

or contacting:

Data Protection Lead
BlindAid

Lantern House,

102 Bermondsey street,

SE1 3UB

We will not contact you for marketing purposes by email or text message unless you have given your prior consent.

We may contact you for marketing purposes by post or telephone in order to pursue our legitimate interests unless you have indicated that you do not wish to be contacted in this way.

You can change your personal preferences at any time by contacting us at enquiries@blindaid.org.uk or by calling on 0207 403 6184

Your rights

  • The accuracy of your information is important to us.
    You can update or correct your personal data by contacting us as above.
  • You have the right to access the information we hold about you by making a ‘Subject Access Request’.
  • In certain circumstances; you have the right to ask us for the data we hold about you to be erased.
  • In certain circumstances, you have the right to ask us to restrict the processing of your personal data.
  • You have the right to object to the processing of your data in certain circumstances.
  • You have the right to data portability, which allows you to obtain and reuse your personal data for your own purposes across different services.If you want to know more about your rights under the General Data Protection Regulations, or if you are unhappy with the way we have handled your information, you can visit the Information Commissioners Office website at www.ico.org.uk or contact their helpline on 0303 123 1113.

Our security precautions

When you give us personal information, we take steps to ensure that it’s treated securely. All information you give to us is stored on secure servers and encrypted PCs, laptops, tablets and mobile phones are used when processing data.

Non-sensitive details (your email address etc.) are transmitted normally over the Internet, and unfortunately this can never be guaranteed to be 100% secure. As a result, while we strive to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee its security during transmission. Once we receive your information, we make every effort to ensure its security on our systems.

Use of ‘cookies’

Like many other websites, the BlindAid website uses cookies. ‘Cookies’ are small pieces of information sent by a website to your computer and stored on your hard drive to allow that website to recognise you when you visit. They collect statistical data about your browsing actions and patterns and do not identify you as an individual. This helps us to improve our website and deliver a better, more personalised service. You don’t have to consent to website cookies if you don’t wish to do so.

Links to other websites

Our website may contain links to other websites run by other organisations. This privacy policy applies only to our website‚ so we encourage you to read the privacy statements on the other websites you visit.

Transferring your information outside the of European Economic Area (EEA)

As part of the services offered to you through this website, the information which you provide to us is retained on servers located in the UK only.

Review of this policy

We keep this policy under regular review. This Policy was last updated in March 2018.

If you have any questions regarding this policy or how we use your personal information, please email enquiries@blindaid.org.uk or contact:

Data Protection Lead
BlindAid

Lantern House,

102 Bermondsey street,

SE1 3UB

Tel: 020 7403 6184