Merciful Hearts is a charity registered in England and Wales under charity number 1189937 (‘we’, ‘our’ or ‘us’). We are the controller of personal data obtained via our website, meaning we are the organisation legally responsible for deciding how and for what purposes it is used.
We take your privacy very seriously. Please read this privacy policy carefully as it contains important information on who we are and how and why we collect, store, use and share any information relating to you (your personal data) in connection with your use of our website. It also explains your rights in relation to your personal data and how to contact us or a relevant regulator in the event you have a complaint.
We collect, use and are responsible for certain personal data about you. When we do so we are subject to the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR). We are also subject to the EU General Data Protection Regulation (EU GDPR) in relation to goods and services we offer to individuals in the European Economic Area (EEA).
This privacy policy is divided into the following sections:
What this policy applies to
What this policy applies to
This privacy policy relates to your use of our website only.
Throughout our website we may link to other websites owned and operated by certain trusted third parties to make additional products and services available to you. Those third party websites may also gather information about you in accordance with their own separate privacy policies. For privacy information relating to those third party websites, please consult their privacy policies as appropriate.
Personal data we collect about you
The personal data we collect about you depends on the particular activities carried out through our website. We will collect and use the following personal data about you:
You must provide this personal data to use our website and the services on it unless we tell you that you have a choice.
Sometimes you can choose if you want to give us your personal data and let us use it. Where that is the case we will tell you and give you the choice before you give the personal data to us. We will also tell you whether declining to share that personal data will have any effect on your use of our website or any services on it.
We collect and use this personal data for the purposes described in the section ‘How and why we use your personal data’ below.
How your personal data is collected
We collect personal data from you:
How and why we use your personal data
Under data protection law, we can only use your personal data if we have a proper reason, eg:
A legitimate interest is when we have a organisational or commercial reason to use your personal data, so long as this is not overridden by your own rights and interests. We will carry out an assessment when relying on legitimate interests, to balance our interests against your own. You can obtain details of this assessment by contacting us (see ‘How to contact us’ below).
The table below explains what we use your personal data for and why.
For our legitimate interests, ie to be as efficient as we can so we can deliver the best service to you
To perform our contract with you or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract
Depending on the circumstances:
—your consent as gathered by the separate cookies tool on our website—see ‘Cookies’ below
—where we are not required to obtain your consent and do not do so, for our legitimate interests, ie to be as efficient as we can so we can deliver the best service to you
If you have provided such consent you may withdraw it at any time by updating your cookie setting preferences (this will not affect the lawfulness of our use of your personal data in reliance on that consent before it was withdrawn)
Depending on the circumstances:
—your consent as gathered by the separate cookies tool on our website—see ‘Cookies’ below
—where we are not required to obtain your consent and do not do so, for our legitimate interests, ie to be as efficient as we can so we can deliver the best service to you at the best price
If you have provided such consent you may withdraw it at any time by emailing us at [email protected] (this will not affect the lawfulness of our use of your personal data in reliance on that consent before it was withdrawn)
For our legitimate interests, ie to be as efficient as we can so we can deliver the best service to you
To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations
For our legitimate interests, ie to minimise fraud that could be damaging for you and/or us
Depending on the circumstances:
—to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations
—in other cases, for our legitimate interests, ie to protect our orgnaisational interests and rights
Depending on the circumstances:
To comply with our legal and regulatory obligations
We may also use your personal data to ensure the security of systems and data to a standard that goes beyond our legal obligations, and in those cases our reasons are for our legitimate interests, ie to protect systems and data and to prevent and detect criminal activity that could be damaging for you and/or us
Depending on the circumstances:
—to perform our contract with you or to take steps at your request before entering into a contract
—to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations
—where neither of the above apply, for our legitimate interests, eg making sure that we can keep in touch with our users and donors about existing orders and new products
For our legitimate interests, ie to promote our charity to existing and former users/donors
See ‘Marketing’ below for further information
Depending on the circumstances:
—to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations
—in other cases, for our legitimate interests, ie to protect, realise or grow the value in our organsiation and assets
How and why we use your personal data—sharing
See ‘Who we share your personal data with’ for further information on the steps we will take to protect your personal data where we need to share it with others.
Marketing
We will use your personal data to send you updates (by email, text message, telephone or post) about our products and services, including exclusive offers, promotions or new products and services.
We have a legitimate interest in using your personal data for marketing purposes (see above ‘How and why we use your personal data’). This means we do not need your consent to send you marketing information. If we change our marketing approach in the future so that consent is needed, we will ask for this separately and clearly.
You have the right to opt out of receiving marketing communications at any time by:
We may ask you to confirm or update your marketing preferences if you ask us to provide further products and services in the future, or if there are changes in the law, regulation, or the structure of our organisation.
We will always treat your personal data with the utmost respect and never share it with other organisations for marketing purposes.
For more information on your right to object at any time to your personal data being used for marketing purposes, see ‘Your rights’ below.
Who we share your personal data with
We routinely share personal data with:
We only allow those organisations to handle your personal data if we are satisfied they take appropriate measures to protect your personal data.
We or the third parties mentioned above occasionally also share personal data with:
Who we share your personal data with—further information
If you would like more information about who we share our data with and why, please contact us (see ‘How to contact us’ below).
How long your personal data will be kept
We will not keep your personal data for longer than we need it for the purpose for which it is used.
Different retention periods apply for different types of personal data. Further details on this are available by contacting us on the contact details in this policy.
If you stop using your account we will delete or anonymise your account data after seven years where you have made payments.
Following the end of the of the relevant retention period, we will delete or anonymise your personal data.
Transferring your personal data out of the UK and EEA
The EEA, UK and other countries outside the EEA and the UK have differing data protection laws, some of which may provide lower levels of protection of privacy.
It is sometimes necessary for us to transfer your personal data to countries outside the UK and EEA. In those cases we will comply with applicable UK and EEA laws designed to ensure the privacy of your personal data.
Under data protection laws, we can only transfer your personal data to a country outside the UK/EEA where:
Where we transfer your personal data outside the UK we do so on the basis of an adequacy regulation or (where this is not available) legally-approved standard data protection clauses recognised or issued further to Article 46(2) of the UK GDPR. In the event we cannot or choose not to continue to rely on either of those mechanisms at any time we will not transfer your personal data outside the UK unless we can do so on the basis of an alternative mechanism or exception provided by UK data protection law and reflected in an update to this policy.
Any changes to the destinations to which we send personal data or in the transfer mechanisms we rely on to transfer personal data internationally will be notified to you in accordance with the section on ‘Changes to this privacy policy’ below.
Cookies
A cookie is a small text file which is placed onto your device (eg computer, smartphone or other electronic device) when you use our website. We use cookies on our website. These help us recognise you and your device and store some information about your preferences or past actions.
For further information on cookies, our use of ‘cookies’, when we will request your consent before placing them and how to disable them, please see our Cookie Policy.
Your rights
You generally have the following rights, which you can usually exercise free of charge:
The right to be provided with a copy of your personal data
A more detailed explanation of this right under UK law is available here
The right to require us to correct any mistakes in your personal data
A more detailed explanation of this right under UK law is available here
The right to receive the personal data you provided to us, in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format and/or transmit that data to a third party—in certain situations
A more detailed explanation of this right under UK law is available here
The right not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing (including profiling) that produces legal effects concerning you or similarly significantly affects you
We do not make any such decisions based on data collected by our website
A more detailed explanation of this right under UK law is available here
The right to require us to delete your personal data—in certain situations
A more detailed explanation of this right under UK law is available here
The right to require us to restrict use of your personal data in certain circumstances, eg if you contest the accuracy of the data
A more detailed explanation of this right under UK law is available here
The right to object:
—at any time to your personal data being used for direct marketing (including profiling)
—in certain other situations to our continued use of your personal data, eg where we use your personal data for our legitimate interests unless there are compelling legitimate grounds for the processing to continue or the processing is required for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims
A more detailed explanation of this right under UK law is available here
If you have provided us with a consent to use your personal data you have a right to withdraw that consent easily at any time
You may withdraw consents by contacting us using the contact details in this policy.
Withdrawing a consent will not affect the lawfulness of our use of your personal data in reliance on that consent before it was withdrawn
For further information on each of those rights, including the circumstances in which they do and do not apply, please contact us (see ‘How to contact us’ below). You may also find it helpful to refer to the guidance from the UK’s Information Commissioner on your rights under the UK GDPR.
If you would like to exercise any of those rights, please email us—see below: ‘How to contact us’. When contacting us please:
Keeping your personal data secure
We have appropriate security measures to prevent personal data from being accidentally lost, or used or accessed unlawfully. We limit access to your personal data to those who have a genuine need to access it.
We also have procedures in place to deal with any suspected data security breach. We will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected data security breach where we are legally required to do so.
If you want detailed information from Get Safe Online on how to protect your personal data and other information and your computers and devices against fraud, identity theft, viruses and many other online problems, please visit www.getsafeonline.org. Get Safe Online is supported by HM Government and leading businesses.
How to complain
Please contact us if you have any queries or concerns about our use of your personal data (see below ‘How to contact us’). We hope we will be able to resolve any issues you may have.
You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner in the UK
The UK’s Information Commissioner may be contacted using the details at https://ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint or by telephone: 0303 123 1113.
Changes to this privacy policy
We may change this privacy policy from time to time—when we make significant changes we will take steps to inform you, for example by including a prominent link to a description of those changes on our website for a reasonable period or by other means, such as email.
How to contact us
Individuals in the UK
You can contact us by email if you have any questions about this privacy policy or the information we hold about you, to exercise a right under data protection law or to make a complaint.
Our contact details [email protected]
