Privacy Policy at 03 July 2023
1.0 Overview
Dementia Carers Count (DCC) is the common name for the Royal Surgical Aid Society, a charity registered in England and Scotland. Our contact details are at the end of this document. We promise to respect and protect the personal information (or data) you or your family have provided us with, or that we get from other organisations, and to keep it safe. We will manage this data effectively and securely so that we can deliver better services to and for you, including our fundraising activities.
We ensure that we use your information in accordance with all applicable laws concerning the protection of personal data. This policy will outline what kinds of data we collect, why we collect it, how we will use, share, and store it, what your rights are, and how you can contact us to manage, edit or delete this information. You can request a printed (or large print) copy of this privacy policy by contacting us by any of the methods given at the end of this document.
When you register with us, we may ask for your permission (consent) to store and use your personal data for particular purposes as outlined below. We hold your information so that we can keep you informed and signpost you to events, activities and information that may help to support you in your caring role.
We do not store credit card details, nor do we share financial details with any third parties.
This policy does not generally apply to personal data about our trustees, employees, contractors and volunteers.
2.0 How and when we collect information about you
2.1 When you directly give us information
We may collect and store information about you when you interact with us. For example, this could be when you:
- join as a member
- participate in our programmes
- support our work through a donation or any of our campaigns
- fundraise on our behalf
- register for or attend an event
- tell us your story
- campaign with us
- phone or email for help and advice
- direct message us on our social media channels
- sign up to receive our newsletter, annual review and/or any other communications
- buy or subscribe to receive information related to our courses, products and services
- register to our online platforms
- submit an enquiry online through our website, by email, by phone or by post
- give us feedback
- make a complaint
- use our app
- apply for a job
- apply to volunteer
- enter into a contract with us
2.2 When you indirectly give us information
When you interact with us on social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn we may also obtain some personal data about you. The information we receive will depend on the privacy preferences you have set on each platform and the privacy policies of each platform. To change your settings on these platforms, please refer to their privacy policies.
We may obtain information about your visit to our site, for example the pages you visit and how you navigate the site, by using cookies. Please visit our cookies policy for information on this.
2.3 What information we might collect
When you engage with us by phone, mail, in person or online, we may collect information about you (referred to in this Privacy Policy as ‘personal data’). This may include your name, address, email address, telephone number, date of birth, social media handle, job title and details of your education and career, why you are interested in DCC, and other information relating to you personally which you may choose to provide to us.
Data protection law recognises that certain types of personal data are more sensitive. This is known as ‘sensitive’ or ‘special category’ personal data and covers information revealing racial or ethnic origin, religious or philosophical beliefs and political opinions, trade union membership, genetic or biometric data, information concerning health or data concerning a person’s sex life or sexual orientation.
Sensitive information will only be collected where necessary. Clear notices will be provided at the time we collect this information, stating what information we are asking for and why.
With your explicit consent, we may also collect sensitive personal data if you choose to tell us about your caring experiences for use in a case study.
We do not actively collect the personal data of children. If you are under the age of 18, you must get your parent/guardian’s permission before you provide any personal data to us.
3.0 The purpose and basis for processing data
We may process your personal data for any of the following purposes, or any other purpose for which we have informed you by way of a separate notice. If we intend to process personal data we already hold about you for new further purposes, we will inform you in advance and give you the opportunity to object.
You always have the right to object to the use of your personal data for the purpose of direct marketing, and you may withdraw any consent given.
Whenever we process your personal data on the basis of our (or another’s) legitimate interests, this will be subject to an assessment to ensure those interests are not outweighed by your own interests, rights and freedoms.
| Purpose | Lawful basis |
3.1 General Operations | ||
| To process donations and payments. | Our legitimate interest in maintaining the ability of DCC to continue its mission with adequate funding; Our legal obligation to maintain accurate financial records. |
| Processing Gift Aid claims | Our legal obligation |
| Processing enquiries and complaints. | Our legitimate interest in ensuring continuity of communications by dealing with your enquiry or complaint and responding to you in due course. |
| Processing technical information about your use of our website to ensure that content on our website is presented in the most effective manner. | Your consent |
| Carrying out research and analysis, either in house or via a third party, of the services we provide so that we can improve these in future. | Our legitimate interest in ensuring the efficient use of resources to run the organisation, towards its charitable aims. |
| If you or the organisation you work for acts as a supplier to us, we may retain contact and relationship information to allow us to contact you about your products and services | Our legitimate interest in maintaining supplier relationships. |
| For the prevention and detection of crime, and in order to assist the police and other competent authorities with investigations (including criminal investigations). | As required or authorised by law, including under exemptions from certain aspects of data protection law. |
3.2 Our Services | ||
| Corresponding with you about our charitable services, including sharing details of courses/events and of our welfare services, that you have requested from us. | Our legitimate interest in forwarding DCC’s charitable aims, in particular to provide charitable services to you or to make you aware of the services available to others, where you have requested such information. |
| Corresponding with you about our commercial services if you have requested more information, pricing, or have a commercial relationship with us. | Our legitimate interest in selling and delivering commercial services, and maintaining the customer relationship. |
| Making referrals to charity, public sector or corporate partners where we have a relationship that we believe could help your financial or personal circumstances. | Your consent |
| Meeting dietary and allergy requirements when you attend one of our events or functions. | Your consent |
| Identifying you in reporting between DCC and partner organisations that introduce you to us | Where we have not asked for your consent, this will be based on DCC and the partner organisation’s legitimate interests in measuring the effectiveness of the partnership and providing any requested services or information to you. |
| Where we owe you a duty of care, such as when visiting our premises or attending one of our events or functions, and we must make use of medical information we hold in order to protect you from harm. | Your vital interests |
| To comply with our safeguarding duties | Our legal obligation |
| To communicate with other organisations on your behalf | Your consent |
3.3 Marketing and Communications | ||
| Sending marketing communications in relation to our courses, services, events, appeals and resources by, electronic mail, through our database management systems, by post, by SMS, in respect of which we operate an ‘opt-in’ communications policy. | Your consent |
| Informing you about our commercial services if you work at a company or public sector organisation that we believe may be interested in or benefit from those services. | Our legitimate interest in promoting commercial services that help fund our charitable services, in line with our charitable aims. |
| Using your name, likeness or an attributed quote in our newsletter, on our website or in marketing materials or as a case study to demonstrate the impact of our work. | Your consent |
| To ensure communications are relevant and timely, and to provide an improved experience for our service users and supporters, using profiling and analytical techniques; targeting resources effectively by understanding who, how and why people support us and thereby make appropriate requests to our supporters. When building a profile, we may analyse your giving history, geographic, demographic and other information relating to you in order to better understand your interests and preferences, and 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. You have an unqualified right to object to such profiling or any processing for the purpose of direct marketing. | Our legitimate interest in promoting and forwarding the charitable aims of DCC |
| To inform you of media opportunities, potentially, and of opportunities to write or feature in newsletter and other DCC content, and to send you these newsletters and other similar updates from time to time. | Your consent |
| Asking you for further support by email or telephone if you have done so in the past. | Your consent. |
| Asking you for further support by post, if you have done so in the past. | Our legitimate interest in maintaining the ability of DCC to continue its mission with adequate funding. |
3.4 Candidates and Volunteers & Employees | ||
| Assessing your suitability for a job vacancy (by receiving and reviewing your CV, application form or correspondence)
Managing our relationship with, planning/implementing work carried out by employees. | Our legitimate interest in ensuring the most suitable candidates are recruited to join our workforce and to manage employees. We may also process your personal data in line with our legal obligations under employment, taxation, equality or other law. |
| Processing your application to volunteer with us | Our legitimate interest in building and maintaining a volunteer base |
| Staying in contact with you about future job vacancies, using details you provide in your CV or correspondence with us. | Your consent. |
3.5 When your personal data may be shared with others
We will only use your information for the purposes for which it was obtained. We will not, under any circumstances, sell or share your personal data with any third party for their own purposes, and you will not receive marketing from any other companies, charities or other organisations as a result of giving your details to us.
For the purposes referred to in this policy, and relying on the bases for processing as set out above, we will share your personal data with certain third parties, including:
- Our volunteers (including visitors), agents and contractors where there is a legitimate reason for their receiving the information;
- Our bank, to whom payment details are provided in order to process donations and payments;
- Our website operator, who may store details such as name and email address (for example in respect of our e-newsletter mailing list);
- Internal and external auditors;
- Our professional advisers and/or insurers where it is necessary for us to obtain their advice or assistance;
- Professionals who assist us in putting together, printing and delivering our newsletter (and other materials) and website content, and our IT support and data storage provider(s);
- When carrying out research and analysis in order to improve our services.
- Third party suppliers: We may need to share your information with data hosting providers or service providers who help us to manage our business, deliver our services, projects, or fundraising activities and appeals. These providers will only act under our instruction and, where appropriate, are subject to pre-contract scrutiny and contractual obligations containing strict data protection clauses.
- Where legally required: We will comply with requests where disclosure is required by law, for example, we may disclose your personal data to the government for tax investigation purposes, or to law enforcement agencies for the prevention and detection of crime. We may also share your information with the emergency services if we reasonably think there is a risk of serious harm or abuse to you or someone else.
4.0 Google Analytics
This is a service we use from Google that collects information about how people use our website. We use this to make sure we are providing the best service we can to our web visitors.
Using cookies Google Analytics stores information about:
- Which pages you visit
- How long you stay on the page
- How you came to the site
- Which things you click on
Although we collect this information, we do not collect any personal identifiers. For example, we do not know your name or where you live and the information we collect cannot be used to identify you. This information is used by DCC for analytical purposes.
5.0 Retention of your data
We will only retain your personal data for as long as it is necessary to achieve the purpose or purposes for which it was originally collected, or any further purposes you have been notified about since then.
6.0 International transfers
An international transfer occurs when we send your personal data outside the United Kingdom. As a matter of course, we do not transfer your personal data outside the European Economic Area (EEA), which has been recognised by UK law as having equivalent legal protections for your personal data.
7.0 Your rights
You have the following rights:
- To be informed what personal data we hold about you and/or to obtain access to it (i.e. by receiving a copy of it in a relevant form);
- To require us not to send you direct marketing communications;
- To require us to correct the personal data we hold about you if it is inaccurate;
- To require us (in certain circumstances) to erase your personal data;
- To request that we restrict our data processing activities (and, where our processing is based on your consent, you may withdraw that consent, without affecting the lawfulness of our processing based on consent before its withdrawal);
- To receive from us the personal data we hold about you which you have provided to us, in a reasonable format specified by you; and
- To object, on grounds relating to your particular situation, to any of our particular processing activities where you feel this has a disproportionate impact on your rights.
Please note that the above rights are not absolute and we may be entitled to refuse requests where exceptions apply: for example, if we have reason to believe the personal data we hold is accurate or we can show our processing is necessary for a lawful purpose set out in this document.
You can find out more about your rights under data protection legislation at the Information Commissioner’ Office website.
8.0 Questions and concerns
If you have queries or requests, such as unsubscribing or changing your details, or have any questions/concerns about how we process your personal data or you wish to exercise any of the rights set out above, please contact
- By email: [email protected]
- By telephone: +44 (0) 203 5400 700 (charged at local rates)
- By post: Dementia Carers Count, 7-14 Great Dover Street, London, SE1 4YR