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Privacy Policy

 

Countryside Alliance and The Countryside Alliance Foundation promises to respect any personal data you share with us, or that we get from other organisations and keep it safe.

We aim to be clear when we collect and process your data and not do anything you wouldn't reasonably expect.

By signing up for our membership you are accepting and consenting to the practices described in this policy.

Developing a better understanding of our supporters through their personal data allows us to make better decisions, fundraise more efficiently and, ultimately, helps us to continue to protect you and the countryside.

We have made improvements to this policy to make it more understandable to supporters. For the purpose of the UK General Data Protection Regulation, the data controller is:

  • Countryside Alliance, China Works, Black Prince Road, London SE1 7SJ

  • The Countryside Alliance Foundation, China Works, Black Prince Road, London SE1 7SJ

We collect information in the following ways:

Where we collect information about you from

Sometimes you may give us your information to sign up for our membership, make a donation, purchase our products or communicate with us. Your information may also be shared with us by independent event organisers, for example a county show or the London Marathon.

These independent third parties will only do so when you have indicated that you wish to support the Countryside Alliance and The Countryside Alliance Foundation and with your explicit consent. You should check their Privacy Policy before you provide your information to understand fully how they will process and share your data as, although we do our best to ensure that we only accept authorised information, we do not accept any responsibility or liability for the terms of these third-party policies. In any event we will notify you (within one month of receipt or as soon as we next communicate with you or disclose such information if earlier) when we receive information about you from these independent third parties, including the identity of such third party and the purposes for which we intend to use that information.

Sometimes we may combine information you provide to us with information available from external sources to gain a better understanding of our supporters to improve our fundraising methods, products and services.

The information we get from other organisations may depend on your privacy settings or the responses you give to such organisations, so you should regularly check them. This information comes from the following sources:

  • Third party organisations:
    You may have provided permission for a company or other organisation to share your data with third parties, including ourselves. This could be when you buy a product or service, register for an online competition or sign up with a comparison site.
  • Social Media:
    Depending on your settings or the privacy policies for social media and messaging services like Facebook, WhatsApp or Twitter, you might give us permission to access information from those accounts or services.
  • Information available publicly:
    This may include information found in places such as Companies House and information that has been published in articles / newspapers.

When you use our websites or web applications:

Like most websites and web applications, we use “cookies” to help us make our technology - and the way you use it - better. Cookies mean that a website or web application will remember you. They are small text files that sites and applications transfer to your computer (or phone or tablet). They make interacting with a website faster and easier - for example by automatically filling your name and address in text fields. There are more details in our Cookie Policy.

In addition, the type of device you're using to access our website or web applications and the settings on that device may provide us with information about your device, including what type of device it is, what specific device you have, what operating system you're using, what your device settings are, and why a crash has happened. Your device manufacturer or operating system provider will have more details about what information your device makes available to us.

What personal data we collect and how we use it:

The type and quantity of information we collect and how we use it depends on why you are providing it.

Membership, Donations, Events, E-lobbies and Purchases

If you purchase a Countryside Alliance or The Countryside Alliance Foundation membership, make a donation, sign up for an E-lobby, sign up for an event or buy something from our shop, we will usually collect:

  • Your name
  • Your contact details
  • Your date of birth
  • Any telephone number used to contact us

If you have contacted us via the internet, we will also collect:

  • The Uniform Resource Locators (URL)
  • Internet Protocol (IP) address used to connect your computer to the Internet
  • Clickstream to, through and from our site, and other information about your visit
  • Your browser type and version and login information

Where it is appropriate we may also ask for:

  • Information relating to your countryside information
  • The reason for your donation (not compulsory)

Countryside Alliance Awards:

The Countryside Alliance collects, stores and processes individuals' data in order to consider nominations and award accolades from time to time. We will usually collect:

  • Your name
  • Your contact details
  • Nominee's name / business name and contact details

We will only use your personal information when the law allows us to. Most commonly we will use your personal information where we need to perform the contract we have entered into with you, where we need to comply with a legal obligation or where it is necessary for our legitimate interests or those of a third party (and your interests and rights do not override those interests) including the following:

  • Providing you with the services, products or information you asked for
  • Administering your donation or supporting your fundraising, including processing gift aid
  • Promoting the rural way of life
  • Keeping a record of your relationship with us
  • Ensuring we know how you prefer to be contacted
  • Understanding how we can improve our services, products or information
  • Sharing your information with a partner in relation to an event
  • Automated decision-making profiling
  • If you enter your details onto one of our online forms, and you don't 'send' or 'submit' the form, we may contact you to see if we can help with any problems you may be experiencing with the form or our websites

In addition, we may disclose your personal information to third parties in the event that we sell or buy any business or assets (in which case we will disclose your personal information to the prospective seller or buyer) or if we are under a duty to disclose or share your personal information in order to comply with any legal obligation or enforce or protect any contractual or other rights, property or safety of our members or others. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organisations for the purposes of fraud protection and credit risk reduction.

If we intend to use your personal information for any other purpose other than as listed above, we will notify you of such new purpose prior to such activity commencing unless we are unable to do so by law or it would require a disproportionate effort.

We do not anticipate that your personal information will be transferred except in relation to certain third-party business partners and sub-contractors who provide data processing, data storage, technical, payment and delivery services, advertising networks, analytics providers, search engine providers, credit reference agencies and other back office support services.

We outsource our E-lobby services to Oscar Research Ltd, Suite 10, The White House, 42-44 The Terrace, Torquay, Devon, TQ1 1DE. Company Registration No: 03901028.

We outsource our prize draw and lottery services to CFP Lottery & Raffles Limited (“CFP”) of Suite 1, Beechwood, Grove Park, White Waltham, Berkshire, SL6 3LW.

You agree that we have the right to share your personal information which such third parties for such purposes.

Building profiles of supporters and targeting communications

We use automated decision-making profiling and screening techniques to ensure communications are relevant and timely, and to provide an improved experience for our supporters. Profiling also allows us to target our resources effectively, which donors consistently tell us is a key priority for them. We do this because it allows us to understand the background of the people who support us and helps us to make appropriate requests to supporters who may be able and willing to give more than they already do. Importantly, it enables us to raise more funds, sooner, and more cost-effectively, than we otherwise would.

When building a profile, we may analyse geographic, demographic and other information relating to you to better understand your interests and preferences in order to contact you with the most relevant communications. In doing this, we may use additional information from third party sources when it is available. Such information is compiled using publicly available data about you, for example addresses, listed Directorships or typical earnings in a given area.

We hope that you will consider these techniques to be a reasonable use of resource, but you do have the right to request that we do not process your information in this manner if you prefer.

Direct Marketing

Our marketing communications include information about our latest news, campaigns and event/competitions and we intend to contact you to let you know about the progress we are making and to ask for donations or other support. Occasionally, we may include information from partner organisations or organisations who support us in these communications. We make it easy for you to tell us how you want us to communicate, in a way that suits you.

If you are an existing member, we will only contact you by electronic means (e-mail or SMS) with information about similar goods and services. If you are a new member, and where we permit selected third parties to use your data, we (or they) will contact you by electronic means only if you have explicitly consented to this. If you are happy for us to use your data in this way, and to pass your details on to third parties for marketing purposes, please tick the relevant box situated on the form on which we collect your data (the registration form).

We may wish to contact you directly via Whatsapp. To ensure sufficient data protection, we use Whatsapp Business services which directly require your consent to use Whatsapp to contact you. Only where you consent will Whatsapp process your data for the purposes of these communications.

You have the right to ask us not to process your personal information for such marketing purposes. You can exercise your right to prevent such processing by checking certain 'opt out' boxes on the forms we use to collect your data. Our forms have clear marketing preference questions and we include information on how to 'opt out' when we send you marketing. If you don't want to hear from us, that's fine. Just let us know by 'opting out' when you provide your data or contact us on digital@countryside-alliance.org.

Except where mentioned, we do not sell or share personal details to third parties for the purposes of marketing. But, if we run an event in partnership with another named organisation your details may need to be shared.

How we keep your data safe

We ensure that there are appropriate technical controls in place to protect your personal details. For example, our online forms are always encrypted and our network is protected and routinely monitored.

We undertake regular reviews of who has access to information that we hold to ensure that your information is only accessible by appropriately trained staff, volunteers and contractors.

We use external companies to collect or process personal data on our behalf. We do comprehensive checks on these companies before we work with them, and put a contract in place that sets out our expectations and requirements, especially regarding how they manage the personal data they have collected or have access to.

Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. Although we will do our best to protect your personal data, we cannot guarantee the security of your data transmitted to our site; any transmission is at your own risk. Once we have received your information, we will use strict procedures and security features to try to prevent unauthorised access.

Some of our third-party suppliers and service providers run their operations outside the UK. Although they may not be subject to same data protection laws as companies based in the UK, we will take steps to make sure they provide an adequate level of protection in accordance with UK data protection law. By submitting your personal information to us you agree to this transfer, storing or processing at a location outside the UK.

We may need to disclose your details if required to the police, regulatory bodies or legal advisors.

We will only ever share your data in other circumstances if we have your explicit and informed consent.

Keeping your information up-to-date and how long we retain your data

Where possible we use publicly available sources to keep your records up to date; for example, the Post Office's National Change of Address database and information provided to us by other organisations as described above. We really appreciate it if you let us know if your contact details change.

We will only retain your personal information for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements. In order to comply with law and to ensure we have the necessary information required in order to resolve future issues that might arise, we retain all personal data for a period of up to ten years from collection. To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal requirements.

In some circumstances we may anonymise your personal information so that it can no longer be associated with you, in which case we may use such information without further notice to you.

Your right to know what we know about you, make changes or ask us to stop using your data

You have a right to ask us whether and how we are processing your personal information, to request access to your processed personal data, to obtain information in relation to the purpose of such processing, the type of information processed, the sources and recipients of your information, how long we store your information, whether we use automated decision making software, to correct inaccurate and complete incomplete information, to stop or restrict the scope of processing some or all of your personal data and to stop all automated decision-making processing.

You also have the right to ask us to erase your personal information and if it is not necessary for the purpose you provided it to us for (e.g. processing your donation or registering you for an event), or you have withdrawn your consent for such processing and such processing is not for a task in the public interest or for public health, or necessary to pursue our or a third party's legitimate business interests, or required by law or litigation, we will do so without delay. We will also take reasonable steps to make any other third parties to whom your information has been shared aware of your erasure request.

You have a right to ask for a copy of the information we hold about you which we will do free of charge. You may request a copy in an electronic format so that you can easily store it for your personal use and transmit it electronically to a third party. If there are any discrepancies in the information we provide, please let us know and we will correct it.

By law, you can ask us what information we hold about you, and you can ask us to correct it if it is inaccurate. You can also ask us to give you a copy of the information and to stop using your information for a period of time if you believe we are not doing so lawfully. To submit a request by email, post or telephone, please use the contact information provided above.

Our address is China Works, Black Prince Road, London SE1 7SJ. You can contact us by post at the above address, by email at digital@countryside-alliance.org  or by telephone on 020 7840 9200.

We have appointed a data privacy manager to oversee compliance with this privacy notice. If you have any questions or concerns about this privacy notice or how we handle your personal information, please contact the data privacy manager on 020 7840 9200 or digital@countryside-alliance.org

You have the right to make a formal complaint with the Information Commissioners Office (ICO), the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues. If you have a complaint about our use of your information, you can contact the Information Commissioner's Office via their website at https://ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint/ or write to them at:

Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

Any changes we make to our privacy policy in the future will be posted on this page and, where appropriate, notified to you by e-mail. Please check back frequently to see any updates or changes to our privacy policy.