Introduction

Carers Trust Tyne & Wear is committed to protecting your privacy and security and ensuring you remain informed and in control of your information. This policy explains when we use your personal information: how we use it, keep it secure and in what circumstances we may share it with other organisations.

 

About us

Carers Trust Tyne & Wear (Charity Number: 1059917) is an independent charity providing services to carers of all ages. We are also a company limited by guarantee (registration number 3245594). A number of our services are funded under agreement with Gateshead Council and Newcastle/Gateshead Clinical Commissioning Group, with a care service regulated by the Care Quality Commission. We are based at The Old School, Smailes Lane, Rowlands Gill, NE39 2DB. For the purposes of data protection law, Carers Trust Tyne & Wear will be the controller and processor of personal information. Privacy Policy May 2018 V1.

 

Keeping you in control

We want to ensure you remain in control of your personal information. Part of this is making sure you understand your legal rights, which are as follows:

  • the right to confirmation as to whether or not we have your personal data and, if we do, to obtain a copy of the personal information we hold (this is known as subject access request);
  • the right to have your data erased (though this will not apply where it is necessary for us to continue to use the data for a lawful reason);
  • the right to have inaccurate data rectified;
  • the right to object to your data being used for marketing or profiling; and
  • where technically feasible, you have the right to personal data you have provided to us which we process automatically on the basis of your consent or the performance of a contract. This information will be provided in a common electronic format.

Please keep in mind that there are exceptions to the rights above and, though we will always try to respond to your satisfaction, there may be situations where we are unable to do so. If you would like further information on your rights or wish to exercise them, please write to our Data Protection Officer, Carers Trust Tyne & Wear, The Old School, Smailes Lane, Rowlands Gill, NE39 2DB or email [email protected].

 

When do we collect information about you?

We collect information about you when you self-refer or are referred to us by another organisation. When you contact us for information, advice or support relating to your caring role you are engaging with us in an agreement for the provision of those agreed services (known as a ‘contract’ for lawful processing).

 

What information do we collect about you?

The personal information we may collect will include your name, address, age, contact details, and details of your caring role. For monitoring purposes, we will ask you for your religious beliefs and ethnic background. This information will only be held with your explicit consent. It will not restrict your access to a service if you choose not to provide this detail. For some of our services, we will collect or store information relating to your health. This information will only be held with your explicit consent and we will take extra care to ensure your privacy rights are protected. Privacy Policy May 2018 V1. If you provide information about another person (the person you care for or an emergency contact) we will need to confirm that they are aware of this. We will ask you for their contact details so that we can write to them and inform them of the information we hold and their rights under data protection law. If you volunteer with us, then we will collect extra information about you (for example: references, criminal records check, professional certificates, details of emergency contacts, medical conditions). This information will be retained for legal reasons, to protect us (including in the event of an insurance or legal claim) and for safeguarding purposes. If you are a donor, or pay for services we will collect financial information (direct debit / standing order details), and whether your donations are gift-aided. We may collect information from social media where you have given us permission to do so, or if you post on one of our social media pages.

 

How will we use the information about you?

We collect information about you and your caring role, in order to:

  • carry out our obligations arising from any agreement entered into by you and us, for the provision of information, advice and support to you in relation to your caring role; · seek your views or comments on the services we provide;
  • notify you of changes to our services;
  • send you communications which you have requested;
  • inform our future service development to ensure that these are fully accessible.

We occasionally carry out analysis of data we hold about carers, donors and volunteers, to better understand the value of our work and identify patterns and trends. This helps inform how we work and make Carers Trust Tyne & Wear a stronger and more effective organisation and provide better services.

 

How long will we hold your information?

We will hold your personal information on our systems for as long as you are registered for our services. We may aggregate and anonymise personal data so that it can no longer be linked to any particular person. This information can be used for a variety of purposes, such as reporting to funders and identifying trends to help inform our actions and improve our services.

 

How do we store your information?

Carers Trust Tyne & Wear are based in the UK and we store our data within the European Union. Some organisations which provide services to us may transfer personal data outside of the EEA, but we’ll only allow them to do if your data is adequately protected. For example, some of our systems use Microsoft products. As a US company, it may be that using their products result in personal data being transferred to or accessible from the US. However, we will allow this as we are certain personal data will still be adequately protected (as Microsoft is certified under the USA’s Privacy Shield scheme). If you use our services while you are outside the EU, your information may not be governed by legislation to the same standard and we are not able to guarantee the security of your information.

 

How do we protect your information?

We employ a variety of physical and technical measures to keep your data safe and to prevent unauthorised access to, or use or disclosure of your personal information. Electronic data and databases are stored on secure computer systems and we control who has access to information (using both physical and electronic means). Our staff receive data protection training and we have a set of detailed data protection procedures which personnel are required to follow when handling personal data.

 

Security

All electronic forms that request data will use the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol to encrypt the data between your browser and our servers. Of course, we cannot guarantee the security of your home computer or the internet, and any online communications (e.g. information provided by email or our website) are at the user’s own risk.

 

When will we share information about you?

We will never sell your personal data, and will only ever share it with organisations we work with where necessary and if its privacy and security are guaranteed. If you request that we refer you to a third-party organisation we will only undertake this with your permission. Under our agreement with Gateshead Council and Newcastle /Gateshead Clinical Commissioning Group and Care Quality Commission, we are required to share personal information (name, address, age, address, ethnic background, religious beliefs) for carers accessing our services. How these organisations protect your information is available on their websites:

www.gateshead.gov.uk

www.newcastlegatesheadccg.nhs.uk

www.cqc.org.uk

We may share personal data with subcontractors or suppliers who provide us with services. However, these activities will be carried out under a contract which imposes strict requirements on our supplier to keep your information confidential and secure. Occasionally, where we partner with other organisations, we may also share information with them (for example, if you register to attend an event being jointly organised by us and another charity). We’ll only share information when necessary and we’ll make sure to notify you first.

 

Disclosure

Carers Trust Tyne & Wear has a legal duty to disclose some information including:

  • Safeguarding concerns will be reported to Children’s Services / Adult Social Care.
  • Drug trafficking, money laundering, acts of terrorism or treason will be disclosed to the police.
  • In addition, colleagues believing an illegal act has taken place will be reported to the appropriate authorities. Carers Trust Tyne & Wear will always inform you of any disclosure.

 

Marketing

Carers Trust Tyne & Wear does not undertake unsolicited marketing and will not sell, rent or otherwise share your information to third parties for marketing purposes. We do send out information about our services and updates relating to carers, legislation changes, initiatives, activities and requests, newsletters or other targeted communication. Should you no longer wish to receive this information at any point simply let us know and we will ensure you are removed from our mailing list:

Email: [email protected]; The Old School, Smailes Lane, Rowlands Gill, NE39 2DB; Telephone: 01207 549780 (9am – 4.30pm, weekdays). If you have opted-in to communications from us, we may contact you with information about our partners, or third-party products and services, but these communications will always come from Carers Trust Tyne & Wear. When you receive a communication, we may collect information about how you respond to, or interact with that communication, and this may affect how we communicate with you in future.

 

Newsletters

We send newsletters to all carers, (unless you specifically ask us not to). You can choose to unsubscribe from general communications. However, please be aware that these newsletters may include advertisements, competitions and fundraising information.

 

Fundraising

As a charity, we rely on donations and support from others to continue our work. From time to time, we will contact carers, volunteers, members and supporters with fundraising material and communications. This might be about an appeal or to suggest ways you can raise funds (e.g. a sponsored event or activity, or even buying a product if the Carers Trust Tyne & Wear will receive some of the proceeds). As with other marketing communications, we will only contact you specifically about fundraising if you’ve ‘opted in’ to receiving marketing from us (and you can, of course, unsubscribe at any time).

If you decide to donate to us, then we will keep records of when and how much you donate.

 

Profiling

Carers Trust Tyne & Wear does not analyse your personal information for profiling purposes.

 

Cookies

A cookie is a small data file which is downloaded from a website to your computer to make the site easier to use.  For example, it may store details that you submit to the site, such as your personal settings or your location, so you don’t have to provide the information again.

Using cookies does not allow us to identify users personally.  We will only store information which you specifically give us permission to use.

Our website uses a small number of cookies to let us know how people interact with our website, and how we can improve our services to our users.  The information we gather in this way is completely anonymous, and visitors to our website cannot be identified.

We use some tools on our pages from social networks, including Twitter and Facebook.  Any information used via these tools is not shown to us, and we don’t store any information from them.  Please refer to each site’s own privacy policies for more information about this.

 

Links to other sites

Our website contains hyperlinks to many other websites. We are not responsible for the content or functionality of any of those external websites (but please let us know if a link is not working by using the ‘Contact us’ link at the top of the page). If an external website requests personal information from you (e.g. in connection with an order for goods or services), the information you provide will not be covered by the Carers Trust Tyne & Wear Privacy Policy. We suggest you read the privacy policy of any website before providing any personal information. When purchasing goods or services from any of the businesses that our site links to, you will be entering into a contract with them (agreeing to their terms and conditions) and not with Carers Trust Tyne & Wear.

 

Questions?

Any questions you have in relation to this policy or how we use your personal data should be sent to [email protected] or addressed to The Data Protection Officer, The Old School, Smailes Lane, Rowlands Gill, NE39 2DB, Telephone: 01207 549780 (9am – 4.30pm, weekdays). We will never sell your personal data, and will only ever share it with organisations we work with where necessary and if its privacy and security are guaranteed.

 

Complaints

You can complain to Carers Trust Tyne & Wear directly by contacting the data protection officer using the details set out above. If wish to make a complaint (including a complaint about fundraising activity) which does not directly relate to your data protection and privacy rights, you can do so in accordance with our charity’s complaint policy. If you are not happy with our response, or you believe that your data protection or privacy rights have been infringed, you can complain to the UK Information Commissioner’s Office which regulates and enforces data protection law in the UK. Details of how to do this can be found at www.ico.org.uk.

 

Changes to this Privacy Policy

We’ll amend this Privacy Policy from time to time to ensure it remains up-to-date and accurately reflects how and why we use your personal data. The current version of our Privacy Policy will always be posted on our website.

Your data may also be available to our website provider to enable us and them to deliver their service to us, carry out analysis and research on demographics, interests and behavior of our users and supporters to help us gain a better understanding of them to enable us to improve our services. This may include connecting data we receive from you on the website to data available from other sources. Your personally identifiable data will only be used where it is necessary for the analysis required, and where your interests for privacy are not deemed to outweigh their legitimate interests in developing new services for us. In the case of this activity the following will apply:

  1. Your data will be made available to our website provider
  2. The data that may be available to them include any of the data we collect as described in this privacy policy.
  3. Our website provider will not transfer your data to any other third party, or transfer your data outside of the EEA.
  4. They will store your data for a maximum of 7 years.
  5. This processing does not affect your rights as detailed in this privacy policy.