This statement explains how we collect and use your personal information.

Unique Ways is registered as a ‘data controller’ with the Information Commissioners Office under Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (General Data Protection Regulation), (GDPR).

We collect and process your information in order to provide various services to you. As we are a local charity offering support to parent carers of disabled children throughout Calderdale, our services are optional.  This means therefore that we will require explicit consent from you. Personal Information may be collected on paper or online forms, by phone, email or by a member of Unique Ways staff team.

Why do we collect information about you?

We need to collect and use information about you, in order to:

  • Offer and promote our range of services available to you, our fundraising appeals and opportunities to support us.
  • contact you by post, email, SMS or telephone regarding your requirements;
  • understand your needs to provide the services that you request;
  • update your record;
  • help us build up a picture of how we are performing at delivering services to you;
  • allow us to undertake statutory responsibilities of our charity efficiently and effectively;
  • allows us to shape the services we deliver in the future;
  • allows us to compile monitoring information for our funders;
  • and make sure we meet our statutory obligations including those related to diversity and equalities.

 

We may not be able to provide you with support or enable you to access our services unless we have enough information, or your permission to use that information.

How we use your information

We will use the information you provide in a manner that complies with the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and associated legislation.  We will endeavour to keep your information accurate and up-to-date and not keep it longer than is necessary.  Information will be kept in line with our retention policy.  In some instances, the law sets the length of time information has to be kept.

We will only use your information in the way that we said we would i.e. the following purposes:

  • to provide the service you requested, and to monitor and improve Unique Ways performance in responding to your request;
  • to ensure that we meet our legal obligations;
  • where necessary for law enforcement functions;
  • to meet the funding requirements of our Partners (this information is quantitative only);
  • where necessary to protect individuals from harm or injury (Safeguarding);
  • to allow the statistical analysis of data so we can plan the provision of services; and
  • to create anonymised data to be used and published to help improve services.  This anonymised data will not contain any personal information which means that individuals cannot be identified.

Information sharing with other Organisations

We may need to pass your information to other people and organisations that provide a service on our behalf. These providers are obliged to keep your details securely and use them only to provide the service to you or in accordance with our instructions. This sharing will always be done with your explicit consent and will be explained to you at the point of requesting our services.

We may also obtain information from certain external organisations or provide information to them in order conduct data matching exercises to:

  • verify the accuracy of the information we hold;
  • assist with service delivery by assessing eligibility for services;
  • enable the anonymisation of data for the use and publication of data-sets and statistical analysis of data to improve services; or
  • comply with Unique Ways legal obligations.

 

We may share information with third parties where we are required by law to do so or where otherwise permitted by the   European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), for example, where the disclosure is necessary to enable the safeguarding of children, young people or adults.

Where we need to share sensitive or confidential information such as children’s data, financial data or health information with third parties, we will do so only with your prior explicit consent, or where we are required by law to do so, or where otherwise permitted by the   European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

We may share your information including sensitive or confidential information where it is necessary to prevent risk of harm to an individual.

We will endeavour to ensure where possible that appropriate steps have been taken by the recipient to protect personal information that is shared.

Telephone calls

We will always inform you if we record or monitor any telephone calls you make to us.  This will be used to increase your security, for our record keeping of the transaction and for our staff training purposes.

Emails

Please note that unless encrypted, email messages sent via the internet may not be secure and could be intercepted and read by someone else.  Please bear this in mind when deciding whether to include personal or sensitive information in any email messages you intend to send.  If you email us we may keep a record of your contact and your email address and the email for our record-keeping of the transaction.

Using our website

Unique Ways website does not store or capture personal information, but merely logs a number called your IP address which is automatically recognised by the system.

We will record on our database your personal information if you:

  • contact us for any type of support that requires personal information i.e. a training course
  • contact us and leave your details for us to respond to you.

 

Use of Cookies

What are cookies?

Cookies are information files stored on your computer, tablet or smartphone that help websites remember who you are and information about your visit. Cookies can help to display the information on a website in a way that matches your interests. Most websites use cookies.

What cookies are used on this website?

The cookies used on this website can be grouped into the following categories:

Essential – Some of the cookies on our website are essential for us to be able to provide you with a service you have requested. An example of this would be a cookie used to enable you to log into your account on the website or which allows communication between your browser and the website.

Google Analytics – these cookies are used to collect information about how visitors use our site. We use the information to compile reports and to help us improve the site. The cookies collect information in an anonymous form, including the number of visitors to the site, where visitors have come to the site from and the pages they visited.

Social Sharing – We use cookies to allow you to share content directly on the social networking/sharing sites like Facebook, Twitter or Google+. Examples would be if you wanted to “like” or “tweet” about a business or product advertised on our website.

How can I reject or opt out of receiving cookies?

If you want to reject cookies we use from this website, you will need to delete the cookies from your browser. Most browsers also allow you to prevent all or some cookies being stored on your machine in the future. For more information on how to delete or disable cookies from your browser please use the “help” function within your browser or alternatively visit www.allaboutcookies.org.

Please be aware that disabling cookies may impact the functionality of this website.

How we protect your information

Our aim is not to be intrusive, and we won’t ask irrelevant or unnecessary questions.  The information you provide will be subject to rigorous measures and procedures to make sure it cannot be seen, accessed or disclosed to anyone who shouldn’t see it.

We have an Information Governance Framework that includes a Data Protection and Privacy Statement and Information Governance and Security policies.  These define our commitments and responsibilities to your privacy and cover a range of information and technology security areas.

We will not keep your information longer than it is needed or where the law states how long this should be kept.  We will dispose of paper records or delete any electronic personal information in a secure and confidential way.

Rights for individuals under GDPR

From May 2018 the European General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) will come into effect. The Regulations will give increased rights for individuals. The rights and how to exercise these are detailed below.

  • The right to be informed. The way that your personal data is collected, handled and processed and the purpose for its processing should be detailed in the Privacy Statement associated with the method of the collection, whether this is via electronic means or paper. The Privacy Statement is a full explanation for you of exactly why we need your personal data, where it will be stored, who it will be shared with, the purpose of collecting it, the Data Protection Officer contact, your rights to object and how long the data will be kept for. Each Privacy Statement is different depending upon the data being collected.

 

  • The right of access.This is your right to request sight of the information that we hold about you.  It is called a Subject Access Request (SAR) and is processed under Chapter 3, Article 15 of the  European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and will be dealt with by the Chief Executive Officer free of charge for the first request. Please ensure that any request, is in writing to: – The Chief Executive Officer, Unique Ways, Hanson Lane Enterprise Centre, Hanson Lane, Halifax, HX1 5PG

 

  • The right to rectification.  This means that you have the right to request that we correct any incorrect or inaccurate information held on our systems, such as wrong addresses, incorrect spellings etc. Corrections must be carried out within a month of us being informed, including asking third parties to also amend their systems accordingly. Please contact as above.

 

  • The right to be forgotten.This means that as long as the purpose for processing the data is not a statutory one, or in other words doesn’t have a legal basis, then you can request that your information is withdrawn by withdrawing your consent for processing. As long as the data is not required for a legal or safeguarding purpose, you have the right for your entry to be deleted from our systems i.e.  for systems that do not have a legal basis such as mailing lists, then you have the right to be forgotten and erased from the system.

 

  • The right to restrict processing.This right applies where an individual may feel that we are acting upon incorrect or inaccurate information. They will have the right under the new law to request that we restrict processing while we look into the situation. This must be done and a decision made within a month. During this time no action or further processing can take place. Once a written decision is made and any inaccuracies documented and amended the processing can be re-commenced.

 

  • The right to data portability.The right to data portability is new. It only applies to personal data an individual has provided to a controller and where the processing is based on the individual’s consent or for the performance of a contract; and when processing is carried out by automated means.

 

  • The right to object.This right is the same right that exists currently in that you can complain to the Chief Executive Officer of Unique Ways if you feel that your data rights have been incorrectly handled or breached. Complaints about data protection should be made in writing to the CEO as previously stated within this statement.

 

  • The right not to be subject to automated decision-making including profiling. If Unique Ways intends to use your data for profiling purposes or for automatic decision making you must provide explicit consent or us to process your data in this way. You can withdraw your consent at any time. In addition, you can request that a “human” make the decision and that the “automated” part is not utilised.

 

You have the right to request that Unique Ways stop processing your personal data in relation to any of our services where that processing is likely to cause substantial and unwarranted damage or distress.  However, this may cause delays in us being able to help you or, prevent us delivering a service to you.  Where possible we will seek to comply with your request, however there may be circumstances where this is not possible – for example if we are required to hold or process information to comply with a legal requirement.

We try to ensure that any information we hold about you is correct.  There may be situations where you find the information we hold is no longer accurate and you have the right to have this corrected.

Changes to this privacy statement

We will continually review and update this privacy statement to reflect changes in our services and feedback from service users, as well as to comply with any changes in the law.

 

Privacy Statement drafted:             April 2018

Ratified by Board of Trustees:       May 2018

1st Review scheduled for:               May 2019

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