Privacy policy
We take great care to preserve your privacy and safeguard any personal details you share with us. We aim to be clear when we collect your data and not do anything you would not reasonably expect. This policy explains how we collect and use your personal information and your rights to have your personal data protected. Examples of your personal information would include your name, address and email address.
By understanding more about you and what you want from us, we are able to make sure that the experience you have of helping us is both positive and rewarding. Your personal information can help us to plan more effectively and efficiently so that we are in the best position possible to save lives and improve the quality of life of everyone affected by bowel cancer.
We have now moved to an 'opt-in only' marketing policy. This means that we will only communicate with those that have explicitly stated that they are happy for us to do so via their preferred channel(s) (email, post, phone or text message).
We are totally committed to protecting your information and using it responsibly. Please read our policy carefully to understand how we collect, use and store your information.
The processing of your information is carried out by or on behalf of Bowel Cancer UK.
Bowel Cancer UK is a registered charity in England and Wales (1071038), Scotland (SC040914) and a registered company in England and Wales (3409832).
Contacting us:
Any questions, comments or requests about this privacy policy are welcomed and should be addressed to:
Data Protection
Unit 301
Edinburgh House
170 Kennington Lane
London
SE11 5DP
Or by emailing dataprotection@bowelcanceruk.org.uk
Why we use your information
We will only use your information where we have a legal basis to do so and will always respect your rights.
Where we use your information, it may be because you have consented to us doing so or because we consider we have a legitimate interest to do so. Where we do rely on a legitimate interest to use your information, we will always ensure that this is done in a way so as not to be intrusive or cause distress, and that respects your rights. Other reasons may include using information because we have a legal obligation to do so or because we have to fulfil contractual obligations.
Some examples are shown below:
- You have given us your consent to use the information for a specified purpose, such as sending you health information booklets
- We have a legal obligation to use your information, for example to claim Gift Aid
- You have paid a registration fee for a fundraising event or bought a ticket to an event
- We need to use your information to fulfil a contract with you, but this is unlikely to apply to you if you support us through donations or volunteering
- We are using your information in pursuit of a legitimate interest, for example:
- To ensure we meet our regulatory requirements as a charity
- To manage our financial transactions and prevent fraud
How we use your information to meet your requests and support you
To provide you with information and support if you are a member of the bowel cancer community
Bowel Cancer UK provide a range of support services for the bowel cancer community. Our services may collect personal information from you, including your name, contact details, and details of your situation, such as health information. We do this so that we can provide tailored and appropriate support. Anonymised data may also be used to ensure we are developing services that meet the needs of the bowel cancer community.
To respond to or deal with any requests, complaints or queries you make to us
If you contact us directly, we will use the information you give to us to handle your enquiry or request. This may include responding to your query or feedback, or sending you relevant information, such as health information or fundraising materials. We may also keep a record of conversations we have with you, feedback you provide and any marketing materials we send out to you. This can help us to handle queries more efficiently.
We may contact you again in the future if we feel there is something that is of legitimate interest and that it would be fair and reasonable to do so based on our previous interactions and you have not already opted out.
You can let us know if you want to change this by following the process as shown in the section below called 'To manage your contact preferences'.
To process donations, claim Gift Aid and maintain a record of your past or potential future financial contributions
We will use the payment details you have provided to process the donation. If you have consented to Gift Aid, we will also record and process this information for claiming Gift Aid.
We may collect additional information about you from public sources. For example, we may collect information from:
- Public registers, such as the electoral roll or Companies House
- Articles about you in newspapers or magazines, including the Sunday Times Rich List
- Internet search engine results
- Wikipedia
- Public posts on social media sites such as LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook
- The Charity Commission Website
- Google Maps
- Company websites
- Public blogs
- Public records of other charities or organisations you might be affiliated with
- Websites you manage or websites containing information about you
- Professional registers e.g. Healthcare Professionals, Solicitors, Accountants, Livery Companies Guide
We will use this information to tailor our conversations with you, and invite you to appropriate events, sending you details of opportunities to get involved, which relate to your areas of interest.
We may contact you concerning opportunities to hear how your donations are making a difference and receive invitations to special events.
To make our work more unique to you
We want to improve how we talk to you and the information we provide through our website, services, products and information. To do this we sometimes use profiling and research methods so that we can better understand our supporters, your preferences and needs to provide a better experience for you.
We may, for the purposes of our legitimate interest, use the information we hold about you to conduct profiling of our supporters or potential supporters. This may involve sharing information we hold about with you with third party organisations such as Meta Platforms (including Facebook and Instagram) and Google. We may also work with third party organisations who provide additional insight, this may include providing wealth screening information or general information about you that is publicly available (as mentioned above). These activities will help us tailor our content and communications in a more focused, efficient and cost effective way by better understanding the background of our supporters and making appropriate requests based on what may interest them and their capacity to give time and/or funds.
You can of course opt out of this activity at any time. To do this, email 'dataprotection@bowelcanceruk.org.uk' with the subject line 'Please stop analysis of my data' or write to Data Protection, Bowel Cancer UK, Unit 301 Edinburgh House, 170 Kennington Lane, London SE11 5DP, or by phone on 020 7940 1760.
To provide you with information and support for any fundraising or information events you sign up to
If you have completed a form to register or enquire about an event or activity, we will consider this as a request to send you details about the event or activity.
Where you have asked for details of an event, we will use the information you have provided to communicate with you about the event you are participating in, and about future events, you may be interested in. We rely on your legitimate interest to do this.
In addition, we may receive your contact details from a third party with whom you have registered for raising money for the charity. In this case, we will use the registration details provided by the event organiser to send you information about the event and your fundraising activities. For example, if you choose to raise money for us through an online fundraising portal such as JustGiving and give consent for them to share your information with us, we will receive your data in line with their privacy policy and use it to keep in touch with you about your fundraising.
To provide you with information if you are a current / potential corporate partner
If you are a corporate partner or we believe may have an interest in becoming a corporate partner, we will contact you using information that is publicly available on your website, or information that you have provided to a charity representative in order to contact you about potential ways in which we can work together.
We also rely on legitimate interest to send those identified as corporate partners news and updates. These will only be sent to those who have registered interest in working with the charity and have an interest in receiving these updates. They provide you with information about the work of the charity and potential partnership opportunities. You can unsubscribe at any time via the link in the email.
To provide you with information if you are a healthcare professional
When you join our network of professionals, register for an event or get in touch regarding our services we may use the personal information you provide to contact you in the future about training, events, professional development opportunities and any of our services which we believe may be of interest to you. We rely on your legitimate interest to do this and have completed a balancing exercise to ensure that your privacy rights are protected.
As a healthcare professional, you may also make a donation or volunteer for the charity, please see the other categories for further information about how your information will be processed.
To manage our volunteers
This includes trustees, volunteers on committees and teams and other types of volunteers of the charity.
We use the information you have provided as part of your volunteer application to:
- Process your references and disclosure and barring service (DBS) check, where applicable,
- Contact you about your volunteer role and any Bowel Cancer UK volunteering updates,
- Send you any relevant documents or information relating to your role by email or post whilst you are a volunteer,
- We will hold your contact details and details of your last volunteer role for six years after your last day in order to keep a record of your volunteer experience with us, and to resolve any complaints,
- We give you the opportunity to opt-in to other wider communications, such as the supporter newsletter, which may be of interest to you as a volunteer, and we will only send these to you if you give your consent
We rely on legitimate interest to process your data for the purposes of acting as a volunteer. However, for Trustees we also have a legal obligation to collect certain types of information.
To manage our recruitment
When applying for a role with us by email and / or through a recruitment agency, the personal data you provide as part of the recruitment process will only be held and processed for the purpose of the selection processes and in connection with any subsequent employment unless otherwise indicated. By submitting your personal information, you are consenting to us holding and using it. You will be asked to provide certain information including your name, contact details, employment history and qualifications. This information is mandatory in order for us to consider your application, communicate with you about your application and where successful, follow up with references or meet our statutory and internal monitoring and reporting responsibilities. We may also review social media profiles of applicants, such as LinkedIn, to the extent that it is relevant to your application. Unsuccessful applicant data will be held confidentially for a period of six months before it is deleted.
If you begin employment with us, we will put together a file about your employment. We keep the information in this file secure, and will only use it for matters that apply directly to your employment.
Once you stop working for us, we will keep this file according to our record retention guidelines. You can contact us to find out more about this.
How we use your information to tell you about our work
This section outlines how we use your information based on your interactions with the charity. We have also outlined the legal basis we rely on under the Data Protection Act 2018 and General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) to process your information.
To send you marketing communications by email or text messaging, where you have agreed to receive this
Where you have provided an email address or a mobile phone number and consented to being contacted in this way, we will send you information by those channels. This could for example cover ways to give or raise money for us, to campaign for us, updates on our services and health promotion work or on our research.
By providing your email address, you will automatically receive our monthly newsletter providing updates on all that Bowel Cancer UK does.
To contact you by phone and post
Where it is appropriate and relevant, and you have provided us with a postal address and agreed we can contact you, we will occasionally write to you with information. As above, this information will then be specific to the areas of the charity's work that you have asked to hear about. This could cover ways to give or raise money for us, to campaign for us, updates on our services and health promotion work or on our research.
By providing your postal address and agreeing to contact, you will automatically receive any newsletters we send out providing updates on all the work that Bowel Cancer UK does.
We sometimes contact supporters by phone for marketing purposes but only when we have consent to do so. Depending on the length of time that has elapsed since providing your original consent, we may need to write to ask you to re-consent. When and if we do we will not contact you by phone for marketing purposes if your number is registered with the Telephone Preference Service, unless you have agreed to receive calls from us.
To manage your contact preferences
If at any point you would like to opt-out of receiving communications from us, or would like to change the ways (such as email or post) that we use to contact you, please contact us at dataprotection@bowelcanceruk.org.uk or write to us at Data Protection, Bowel Cancer UK, Unit 301 Edinburgh House, 170 Kennington Lane, London SE11 5DP
We will keep a record of any requests to stop receiving marketing from us to ensure that we do not communicate with you in the future, unless you tell us you want to hear from us again.
What we do if you choose to tell us about your experience of bowel cancer
Where you have provided information about your experience of bowel cancer, including through a survey, focus group, questionnaire, or when we are talking to you by phone or email, we will explain what the information will be used for and whether it will be held anonymously or not. If the information will be held in a way that could be connected to you personally, we will ask your permission to store and use what you tell us.
We will use this information for the purposes explained to you at the time of its collection. For example, to better understand the issues that are important to our supporters which helps shape our communications and activities.
Where you provide more detailed information we may want to use this in our communications including PR and media activity, digital and social media, campaigning, fundraising materials and internal communications, to help us raise awareness of bowel cancer, bowel cancer research and the issues effecting patients. We would never use your story without obtaining your consent first. If a suitable opportunity arises for us to use the information, you have given us we will contact you again to discuss the use of your story if the use is different or a much bigger opportunity than what you originally agreed to.
Where you have given appropriate consent, we will use information to better support you in an activity you are doing for us; or to ensure that we do not send you any communications or ask you to take part in any activity that would not be appropriate.
Information received or shared with other organisations
We will only use your information for the purpose for which it was obtained as set out in this policy. We will not sell or share personal information with any third party organisation for their own purposes.
Your information may be shared with us if you have provided your consent or have submitted information to a third party supplier in order that we can provide the service that you have requested. For example, a fundraising platform or company that arranges challenge events to raise charity funds.
We do not purchase any data from third party suppliers but data from other organisations maybe passed to us if you have given them consent to have your information shared with us or where they are acting on our behalf to provide a service for you.
We work closely with our third party suppliers to ensure that they operate in accordance with the Data Protection Act 2018, the GDPR, and this Privacy Policy.
When you submit your information to a third party, it is important to check their Privacy Policy for details of how they use your data before submitting your personal information.
Transferring your information outside the European Economic Area (EEA)
Sometimes organisations who work on our behalf may manage information outside the EEA. In those circumstances, we will make sure that we have a valid reason for doing so under current Data Protection legislation and that all of your personal data is protected to UK standards.
How long we keep your information
As a rule, we will hold your information for a period of up to seven years from the end of your relationship with the charity in accordance with our data retention policy. In some circumstances, this will be shorter. For example, information related to unsuccessful job applications is destroyed after six months. In some circumstances, this will be longer, for example, pension information of former employees. If you would like to know how long we hold any specific information, and then please contact us and we can provide further details.
Payment card information
If you use your credit or debit card to donate to us, buy something or pay to register your place at an event online or over the phone, we will ensure that this is done securely and in accordance with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard. You can find out more information about PCI DSS here.
This is the international standard for safe card payment processes. Our online payment solutions are carried out using a 'payment gateway', which is a direct connection to a payment service provided by a bank. This means that when you input card data into the payment page, you are communicating directly with the bank and the bank passes your payment to us. This means that your payment card information is handled by the bank and not processed or held by us.
Following the completion of your transaction, we do not store your credit or debit card details. All card details and validation codes are securely destroyed once the payment or donation has been processed. Only staff authorised and trained to process payments will be able to see your card details.
If we receive an email containing any credit or debit card details, it will be immediately deleted, no payment will be taken and you will be notified about this. All purchases or donations should be completed through the donation page or shop on our website (bowelcanceruk.org.uk).
We use either Opayo or PayPal as our payment gateways and you can find out more about them here:
Cookies
Like most websites, we use "cookies", which are small bits of data downloaded on to your device, to enable our website to function properly and to distinguish you from other users of our website.
The cookies we use also help us to improve our website, to make the information provided more relevant to you and to provide you with a good experience when you browse our website.
There is a notification for all website users that states that cookies will be collected if you use the website.
When you visit the website, the following information may be collected automatically:
- Technical information, including the IP address used to connect your device to the internet, browser type and version, time zone setting, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and the type of device that you are using;
- Information about your visit, including the route into and through our website, length of visit and pages you viewed;
We will use this information:
- To administer our website and for internal operations, including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, research, statistical and survey purposes;
- To improve our website to ensure that content is presented in the most effective manner for you and your computer;
- As part of our efforts to keep our website safe and secure;
- To make suggestions and recommendations to you and other users of our website about goods or services that may interest you or them;
- In order to gain a better understanding of our supporters and beneficiaries to enable us to improve our services or the effectiveness of our fundraising
Other cookies may collect information and share this with third party services, for example, Facebook, to monitor the use of our website and to tailor adverts when you use their services.
All personal data that you provide us with using forms on our website will be stored securely in line with our Data Protection Policy and will only be stored in accordance with this policy. Further information is provided at the point at which you provide us with this information.
Please see our Cookies Policy for further information related to specific data collected when you use our website.
Links to third party websites
This Privacy Policy applies solely to the personal information collected by us and does not apply to third party websites.
We are not responsible for the privacy policies of third party websites. We advise users to read the privacy policies of other websites before registering any personal information.
Your rights
Under the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR), you have the following rights:
- The right to be informed – the right to receive the information contained in this policy and our data collection forms about how we process your personal data
- The right of access – the right to know that we are processing your personal data and, in most circumstances, to have a copy of the personal data of yours that we hold. You can also ask other details such as what purpose we process your data for and how long we hold it. This can be provided free by contacting the address shown below. The information will be made available within one month of receipt of your request
- The right to rectification – you have the right to request that we correct inaccurate data or complete incomplete data that we hold on you. You can make this request either by phone to 0207 940 1760 or by email or contacting the address shown below. These changes will be made within one month of receipt of your request
- The right to erasure, unless your data is being processed in line with a legal requirement – known as the right to be forgotten. In certain circumstances, you may request that we erase your personal data held by us. You can make this request either by phone to 020 7940 1760 or by email or contacting the address shown below. These changes will be made within one month of receipt of your request
- The right to restrict processing, except for processing relating to a legal requirement – you have the right to restrict the way we process your personal data in certain circumstances, e.g. if: you contest the accuracy of the data, if our processing is unlawful, to pursue legal claims, where we are relying on legitimate interests to process data. This will not affect our ability to store the data but it means that we cannot use it. You can make this request either by phone to 0207 940 1760 or by email or contacting the address shown below. These changes will be made within one month of receipt of your request
- The right to object – you have the right to object to us processing your data for (i) direct marketing purposes (ii) scientific or historical research or statistical purposes or (iii) based on our legitimate interests or on the performance of a task in the public interest. You can make this request either by phone to 020 7940 1760 or by email or contacting the address shown below. These changes will be made within one month of receipt of your request
Where relevant, please send a description of the information you want to see by:
- email to dataprotection@bowelcanceruk.org.uk
- post to Supporter Services, Bowel Cancer UK, Unit 301, Edinburgh House, 170 Kennington Lane, London SE11 5DP
Where the request relates to the right of access, we do not accept these requests by email so we can ensure that we only provide personal information to the right person and we will require proof of identity before processing.
In certain circumstances (e.g. where required or permitted by law) we might not be able to provide you with access to some of your personal information, but where appropriate we will notify you of the reasons for this.
If you have any questions about how we handle your information or want to find out more about your rights as outlined above, please do not hesitate to contact us or for further information see the Information Commissioner’s guidance here.
Right to Withdraw Consent at any time
By giving us your personal information, you consent to us collecting and using that information in the ways that we describe in this privacy policy and / or that you have specifically consented to. Where we need your consent, we will always ensure that you are as fully informed as possible at the time on what we do with your information, with which it may be shared and how long we will keep it. This is in line with the requirements of the current Data Protection Act and other relevant legislation. You can update this by following the process outlined in the section above called 'To manage your contact preferences'.
Where you have for example:
- Attended a study day / health promotion event
- Ordered services publications through Bowel Cancer Awareness Month (BCAM)
- Taken part in a fundraising event
- Donated to a fundraising appeal
We will use a legal basis for processing called Legitimate Interests. This is where we assume that given that you have taken part in an event or donated to an appeal, you would want to hear about the same or similar events and appeals in the future unless you have already opted out of hearing from us. Using this basis alone will only allow us to contact you about this type of event or appeal.
You can tell us that you do not want to receive any such communications by following the process outlined in the section above called 'To manage your contact preferences'.
Complaints
If you have any complaints about how we handle your personal data, please contact us so we can resolve the issue, where possible. Read more about how to make a complaint here. You also have the right to lodge a complaint about any use of your information with the Information Commissioners Office, the UK data protection regulator. Where you have a complaint about the way in which we have used your personal information in our fundraising, you can also complain to the Fundraising Regulator.
How we keep your information secure
We take such measures as are appropriate to ensure the confidentiality, integrity and availability of systems, which are regularly independently tested and reviewed.
We hold your personal information in accordance with the security provisions of the UK Data Protection legislation. We use industry standard Secure Server Software (SSL) for your transactions with us. It encrypts all of your personal information, including credit card number, name, and address, so that it cannot be read as the information travels over the Internet.
If you have any questions about security please contact us on 020 7940 1760.
Changes to the privacy policy
We may update this policy to reflect changes in how we use your information. You may wish to check this policy each time you provide us with your information. Where appropriate, we will provide you with notice of any significant changes in the way we treat personal information by sending a notice to the primary email address you have provided to us or by placing a prominent notice on our website.
Please check back frequently to see any updates or changes to our privacy policy.