The Ledward Centre Privacy and Cookies Policy

We want everyone who supports us, works with us, or who comes to us for support, to feel confident and comfortable with how any personal information you share with us will be looked after or used. This Privacy Policy sets out how we collect, use and store your personal information (this means any information that identifies or could identify you).

The Ledward Centre Privacy Policy may change so please remember to check back from time to time, this is version was created on 4 September 2020.

We are committed to treating you and any information you share with us with respect and care.

The Ledward Centre Privacy Policy

We are a “data controller” for the purposes of the Data Protection Act 1998 and (from 25 May 2018) the EU General Data Protection Regulation 2016/679 (“Data Protection Law”).  This means that we are responsible for, and control the processing of, your personal information.

1. What information do we collect from website visits?

We do not use cookies and do not store any personal data of website visitors, so that no conclusions can be drawn about the individual visitors. However, the following anonymous data is collected:

  • Referrer (previously visited website)
  • Requested page
  • Browser type and browser version
  • Operating system used
  • Device type used
  • Time of access
  • IP address in anonymised form (used only to determine the location of access)

1a. For what purpose is website visit data collected?

Data is collected exclusively for statistical evaluation and technical optimisation of the website.

1b. Will website visit data be passed on to third parties?

No data will be passed on to third parties.

2. Personal data we collect

We collect the personal data that you may volunteer as part of receiving our services. Personal information we collect may include:

  • your name
  • email address and phone number
  • age

We will also collect and hold information about any contact you have with us as a service user of The Ledward Centre

3. Sensitive Personal Information or Special Category Data

Sensitive Personal Information can include information about a person’s health, race, ethnic origin, political opinions, sex life, sexual orientation or religious beliefs.

We may collect Sensitive Personal Information from you if you use our services and we will treat that information with extra care and confidentiality and always in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

We use your personal sensitive information:

  • for the purposes of dealing with your enquiry, signposting you to get support, quality monitoring or evaluating the services we provide
  • we will not pass on your details to anyone else without your express permission except in exceptional circumstances such as anyone reporting serious self-harm or posing a threat to others or children contacting us and sharing serious issues such as physical abuse or exploitation.

4. What we will do with your data

When we ask you to provide your personal information, we will let you know why we are asking, and how we will use your data, by directing you towards this notice.

We may from time to time pass on your personal information to another organisation for the purpose of requesting them to provide you with their support.

We will not pass on your personal information without asking your express permission. 

We will never use your information for marketing reasons.

5. Lawful basis for using your information

In most cases, we will only use your personal information where we have your consent. We would also need your consent to share any of your data with third parties in order to arrange for them to deliver their services to you.

However, there are other lawful reasons that allow us to process your personal information and one of those is called ‘legitimate interests’. This means that that The Ledward Centre’s legitimate interest in processing your information is to help us to achieve our vision of ensuring that LGBTQ+ people with any issues get the support they need.

Whenever we process your Personal Information under the ‘legitimate interest’ lawful basis we make sure that we take into account your rights and interests and will not process your personal information if we feel that there is an imbalance.

If you use our services, we may be storing data about you which is classed as ‘special category data’ and we may have information about both your health and how you identify your gender. In order to provide you with a service we may need this information, but we will not share this unless with your express consent.

Some examples of where we have a legitimate interest to process your Personal information are where we offer you services at your request, use your personal information for data analytics, improving our services, or for complying with guidance from the Charity Commission.

6. Sharing your information

We may disclose information about you to any of our volunteers or partner organisations in so far as reasonably necessary for the purposes as set out in this privacy policy. In addition, we may disclose information about you:

  • to the extent that we are required to do so by law
  • in connection with any legal proceedings or prospective legal proceedings
  • in order to establish, exercise or defend our legal rights (including providing information to others for the purposes of fraud prevention and reducing credit risk)

Except as provided in this privacy policy, we will not share your information with third parties unless with your express consent.

7. Security of your personal data

We will take reasonable technical and organisational precautions to prevent the loss, misuse or alteration of your personal information. Your data will be stored securely in locked paper files or electronically in password protected files and data bases.

We will store all the personal information you provide on our secure password- and firewall- protected servers. Of course, data transmission over the internet is inherently insecure, and we cannot guarantee the security of data sent over the internet.

8. How long will we keep your data?

If you are a service user, we keep your data for 2 years after you have finished working with us and then we shred and delete.

9. Your rights

If you wish to exercise any of these rights or make a complaint, you can do so by contacting our Data Processor in writing at The Ledward Centre ADDRESS, PHONE & EMAIL T.B.C. You can also make a complaint to the data protection supervisory authority, the Information Commissioner’s Office, https://ico.org.uk/.

10. Access to your personal information

You have the right to request access to a copy of the personal information that we hold about you, along with information on what personal information we use, why we use it, who we share it with and how long we keep it for. You can make a request for access free of charge.  Please make all requests for access in writing and provide us with evidence of your identity.

Right to object

You can object to our processing of your personal information where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground.  Please contact us as noted above, providing details of your objection.

Consent

If you have given us your consent to use personal information you can withdraw your consent at any time.

Rectification

You can ask us to change or complete any inaccurate or incomplete personal information held about you.

Erasure

You can ask us to delete your personal information where it is no longer necessary for us to use it, you have withdrawn consent, or where we have no lawful basis for keeping it.

Portability

You can ask us to provide you or a third party with some of the personal information that we hold about you in a structured, commonly used, electronic form, so it can be easily transferred.

Restriction

You can ask us to restrict the personal information we use about you where you have asked for it to be erased or where you have objected to our use of it.

We understand that your personal information and privacy are important to you. We make every effort to ensure that the information you share with us is recorded accurately, retained securely and used only according to your wishes. We protect your personal information and adhere to all current data protection act legislation with respect to protecting privacy. We do not give out, sell or trade your personal data with any third parties. The information you provide will be used primarily to deliver services to you.

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