Privacy Policy

Policy Purpose

This GDPR privacy policy contains important information on how and why we collect, store, use and share your personal information. It will explain your rights in relation to your personal information and what to do if you have a complaint.

By submitting your data to Empowering Futures, you are accepting this privacy policy and authorise us to collect, store and process your information in the ways explained.

What is GDPR? 

The GDPR sets the rules about how personal data should be processed in the EU. It also provides rights to individuals regarding their personal data. Without privacy laws like the GDPR, people would lose control over the information that businesses and governments have collected about them.

Struggling to understand or read this document? (We know how confusing it can be!)

To help understand GDPR, we have included a link to an ‘easy read’ source, which has been created by ‘change people’. 

This document is designed to be ‘easy to read’ and will help explain what GDPR is and how it helps you. 

Embedding this policy to participants with learning needs

Prior to commencing engagement on the farm, inductions are held for all staff, volunteers and participants to ensure this policy is understood and achievable. We have ensured this policy is accessible to all by providing easy-read information with clear, easy-read, basic instructions and pictures to help educate and deliver the message.

If you still need support with understanding this, please reach out to us on 07443 575 787 or email admin@empoweringfutures.co.uk where we can help by offering a personal session, to help you understand.

https://www.changepeople.org/getattachment/Blog/December-2016/Free-Easy-Read-resources/GDPR_What-you-need-to-know.pdf 

Who we are

Empowering Futures is a registered charity (CIO), social care farm based in South Glocestershire. Care farming is a form of 'Green Care' “nature-based therapy or treatment interventions - specifically designed, structured and facilitated for individuals with a defined need”.

If you have questions about our privacy policy or would like to change how we contact you, you can email admin@empoweringfutures.co.uk or call 077443 575 787

Your personal information

What is personal data?

In this policy we set out how we collect, store and use your personal data. “Personal data” is any information that may be used to identify you, such as your name, telephone number, postal and email addresses, and your bank details if you are supporting us financially.

We collect information about you when you:

• sign up to our email newsletter;
• sign up as a member of Empowering Futures;
• contact us about or book a place at one of our training sessions or events;
• attend our events;
• work with us on our projects
• contact us about campaigns and policies issues
• use our website.

We will only collect, use and otherwise handle your personal data:

• where you have consented to this for specified, explicit and legitimate purposes
• where this is necessary to fulfil legal obligations that apply to us
• where it is necessary for our legitimate interests relating to running our daily operations, as long as, in each case, these interests are in line with applicable law and your legal rights and freedoms.

We collect your information because we need it to help us support you with our services, keep in touch with you, and offer you communications that are relevant to you.

The information we collect is used and stored for the following reasons:

• To contact you about our work, for example through our newsletter and other emails
• To support you with our services, for example by keeping in touch by phone and email
• To monitor and report on the progress of our funded projects
• To assess the quality of our services
• To comply with the law regarding data sharing
• To keep a record of any communications between us and you, for example emails and phone calls.

We process personal data in accordance with the Data Protection Acts of 1984 and 1998, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) of May 2018 and any other applicable legislation (referred to as the ‘data protection legislation’). We adhere to the principles of data protection as set out in the Data Protection Act 1998 and GDPR 2018 and observe the conditions relating to the fair and lawful processing of personal data. Our lawful basis for processing your data is Consent.

Empowering Futures keeps information about you on computer systems and also sometimes on paper. Your data will be hosted on secure Google Workplace servers located in the UK, which will not be transferred out of the European Union. 

We have appropriate security measures in place to prevent personal information from being accidentally lost or used or accessed in an unauthorised way. We limit access to your personal information to those who have a genuine business need to know it. Those processing your information will do so only in an authorised manner and are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

We also have procedures in place to deal with any suspected data security breach. We will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected data security breach where we are legally required to do so.

In accordance with the GDPR, Empowering Futures does not store personal data indefinitely; data is only stored for as long as is necessary to complete the task for which it was originally collected, after which it is safely destroyed.

We will treat your information sensitively and confidentially and will not share your information with anyone unless specifically agreed with you. We will not disclose your personal details to a Third party without your permission unless we are concerned that either you or someone else is at risk. If any inaccurate personal data is shared with another organisation, we will tell them about the inaccuracy so they correct their records.

We will not sell or rent your information to third party organisations, and we will not share your personal information for others to use in their marketing or fundraising.

We may use carefully selected companies to provide services on our behalf. We currently use Google Workspace for Business to send some of our emails and Google Analytics to analyse data from our website. We will only provide those companies with the information they need to deliver the relevant service, and we make sure that your data is treated with the same level of care as if we were handling it directly.

Cookies and our Website

A cookie is a small file which is placed on your computer by a site when you visit it.

Cookies allow websites and applications to store your preferences in order to present content, options or functions that are specific to you. They also enable us to see information like how many people use the website and what pages they tend to visit.

You can refuse cookies on our website, but this may prevent you from using parts of our site, like creating a membership account, logging in and out booking events and posting contributions to our noticeboard.

We embed videos on our site using Youtube, which may set cookies on your computer once you click on the video player. To find out more about Youtube’s cookies please visit their privacy policy. https://myaccount.google.com/yourdata/youtube?pli=1 

Our website is run by Go Daddy, enquiries made the website will be stored on this sytem, only if you make your enquiry via this service. If you would like to contact us direct please email admin@empoweringfutures.co.uk to bypass Go Daddy. Go Daddys privacy policy is as follows; https://www.godaddy.com/en-uk/legal/agreements/privacy-policy 

Google Work Space account which is our only central account that has double authentication measures in place. This email account it monitired 24/7. We use the Google Analytics service which allows us to monitor how our site is used. Google may set several cookies and these are used to collect information about how visitors use our site. We use the information to monitor how many visitors come to our site, from where, what pages they visit, what type of browser, computer or device they used. We use this information to improve our website. The Google Analytics cookies collect information in an anonymous form and cannot personally identify you. You can read more about Google’s Privacy Policy here.

If you wish to restrict or block the cookies which we set, you can do this through your browser settings. The ‘Help’ function in your browser should tell you how.

You may also like to visit www.aboutcookies.org which contains comprehensive information on how to do this on a wide variety of browsers. Please be aware that restricting cookies may impact on the functionality of our website.

The GDPR sets out rights for individuals about the use of their personal information.

You have the right to:

1. Be informed about the collection and use of your data. The GDPR requires that we are transparent about why we are collecting your data and what we are using it for.
2. Access your information at any time. You can request to see any data we hold on you, and we must provide that information within a month of receiving your request.
3. Correct your information. The ‘right to rectification’ means you can have any personal data we hold about you changed if it is inaccurate or incomplete.
4. Have your personal information removed. You can request for us to delete your personal information under the ‘right to be forgotten.’
5. Restrict the processing of your personal information. This means you can request that we do not use the information we hold about you.
6. Ask for a copy of your personal data. This allows individuals to obtain and reuse their personal data for their own purposes across different services.
7. Object to the processing of your personal data. This includes the right to stop your data being used for direct marketing.
8. Object to the use of automated decision-making and profiling. This includes making a decision solely by automated means without any human involvement, and automated processing of personal data to evaluate certain things about an individual.

Where you have provided consent to be contacted or to receive a service, you will be entitled to withdraw that consent at any time.

How to contact us

You can contact us using the details below if you:

• Would like to access your information
• Would like us to change the way we contact you
• Have any queries or concerns as to how your data is processed
• Have any questions about this privacy notice or the information we hold about you

Name of Contact / Data Protection Officer: Maria Needs

Email: admin@empoweringfutures.co.uk

Call: 07443 575 787

How to complain

We hope that we can resolve any query or concern you raise about our use of your information.

If you have a concern about the way Empowering Futures is collecting or using your personal data, the General Data Protection Regulation also gives you right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority. The supervisory authority in the UK is the Information Commissioner who may be contacted at https://ico.org.uk/concerns/ or telephone 0303 123 1113, Monday-Friday 9am-5pm (excluding bank holidays).

Organisation name: Empowering Futures

ICO Reference: ZB327958

Changes to this Policy

We may make changes to this Privacy Policy from time to time. If we make any changes in the way we use your personal information we will make this clear on our website or by contacting you directly.

Date of Policy Creation: 1st February 2019

Last Reviewed: 19/04/2023

Next Review Due: 19/04/2024

Signed off by: Maria Needs