Privacy Policy
General
We are committed to ensuring the best standards of practice in all our activities. Members, beneficiaries and those who visit our website may be assured that we give the highest priority to protecting their privacy and treating all information about them confidentially. All personal information is collected, held and used in strict compliance with the Data Protection Act 2018, The Privacy and Electronic Communications (Amendment) Regulations 2018 and the General Data Protection Regulation 2016 (GDPR).
Cookies
We use cookies on this website to collect certain information. We may collect information about your computer and your visits to this website such as your IP address, geographical location, browser type, referral source, length of visit and number of page views. We only use this information in the administration of this website, to improve the website’s usability and for statistical analysis.
Cookies are text files stored on your computer, and therefore cannot be used to infect your computer with a virus or allow malicious code to run on your computer. Cookies are not deemed dangerous, however there maybe concerns over privacy.
Cookies cannot access any other information on your computer, so the privacy concerns relate to tracking of your sites you browse. For most web browsers the default is to accept all cookies. Most modern browsers allow you to manage cookies saved on your computer. For example you may wish to accept all cookies or reject all cookies.
To learn more about cookies and how to manage them, visit AboutCookies.org.uk.
Information we collect
We do not collect any personal information from visitors to our website other than that knowingly and voluntarily given. Anonymous information is collected, such as the number of visitors to the website in a given period, but it is purely statistical and cannot be used to identify an individual user. We draw a distinction between personal data and sensitive data. The latter is only stored when we have received your express authority to do this and we are unable to process any requests for benefits which would require us to store sensitive data unless you sign the necessary consent form.
What we use the information for
The information collected may be used to contact you with further details of membership, our current or future activities. It may also be used for research purposes. We do not generally continue to contact members, beneficiaries or those who contact us for longer than necessary to deal with their enquiry, but we may do so in certain circumstances. You may ask us at any time not to contact you further.
Disclosure to third parties
In order to deal with your enquiry or request for help, we need to discuss it within the charity. We try not to send details of requests outside our office. We do, however, have to ensure that our staff and committees have access to this information to enable them to consider your enquiry or request properly. We do not exchange information with any other organization or individual, unless we have a legal obligation to do so. This means that we will not contact your employer, trade union or any other organization without your express authority. Sometimes, however, a representative of your employer or trade union is our local representative and we may need to discuss your request with them. If you believe there may be a problem in this respect, we shall be happy to tell you who the relevant representatives are and to discuss any areas of concern you may have. We endeavour to treat family members separately and not to pass information from one family member to another, but members and beneficiaries must bear in mind that this is simply not practicable in all cases.
Data security and integrity
We take all reasonable measures to ensure that the information we hold is accurate and we take appropriate measures to safeguard it from unauthorized access or improper use. Our electronic database is stored in a secure, password protected, location; only users authorized by us have access to this data. Electronic data is held indefinitely, while paper records are retained securely, and generally destroyed after a period not exceeding six years. The main exceptions to this are your application to join, the forms you give us agreeing to the storing of personal information and any records required to be stored for longer to meet statutory requirements.
Your right to view the information we hold on you
You have the right to see the information we hold on you and to ask us to correct it where appropriate. You may request details of personal information which we hold about you under the Data Protection Act (UK) 2018. If you would like a copy of the information held on you, please contact us. In certain circumstances there may be a charge for this service.
Children
Our website is not targeted at children and in any event personal information will not normally be collected from anyone under eighteen years of age unless they are a SECAmb Benevolent Fund beneficiary.
