Data Protection Privacy Statement

The National Council of Young Men’s Christian Associations (YMCA England & Wales – UK registered charity number 212810 and company number 73749) is committed to protecting your privacy. At all times, we aim to respect any personal information you share with us or that we receive from other organisations and keep it safe. This Privacy Notice (“Notice”) sets out our data processing practices and your rights and options regarding the ways in which your personal information is collected (including through our website – https://www.ymca.org.uk) and used.

 

This Notice contains important information about your personal rights to privacy. Please read it carefully to understand how we use your personal information. The provision of your personal information to us is voluntary. You may, for example, provide personal information by virtue of becoming a Roomsponsor, donating to us, campaigning with us, or by using our website to find your nearest YMCA shop. In some circumstances, your use of our services or your interaction with us may be impaired without the provision of your personal information; for example, we would be unable to provide feedback on the impact of your campaigning activity or the benefit to young people that your donations have achieved.

 

  1. Who we are
  2. How do we collect personal information about you?
  3. What personal information do we use?
  4. How and why will we use your personal information?
  5. Lawful bases
  6. Supporter research
  7. Communications for marketing/fundraising
  8. Donations
  9. Children’s personal information
  10. How long do we keep your personal information?
  11. Will we share your personal information?
  12. Security/storage of and access to your personal information
  13. International Data Transfers
  14. Exercising your Rights
  15. Changes to this Notice
  16. Links and third parties
  17. How to contact us

 

  1. Who we are

YMCA England & Wales is a federated organisation and works with and for independent local YMCAs across England and Wales, and each YMCA affiliates to the National Council of Young Men’s Christian Associations, known as YMCA England & Wales. For the purposes of this Notice, the terms “YMCA”, “we”, “our” and “us” shall refer to YMCA England & Wales.

Delivering the services we do is something we cannot do without the help of people who share our passion for working with young people to enable them to truly belong, contribute and thrive. Supporting the work of YMCA such as being employed by us, supporting us in a variety of ways including raising funds, running campaigns and involving as wide a range of people as we can in our activities is hugely important to us.

In order to carry out that work, YMCA may need to use your personal information. Where we do so, we are the controller of your personal information and therefore have certain obligations under data privacy law relating to how we use your personal information. One of those obligations is to let you know how and why we use your personal information, and your related rights and options. This is the purpose of this Notice.

  1. How do we collect personal information about you?

We collect personal information about you in the following ways:

When you give it to us directly

For example, personal information that you submit through our website by making a donation or applying to work as a volunteer, or personal information that you give to us when you communicate with us by email, phone or letter.

When we obtain it indirectly from a third party

Your personal information may be shared with us by third parties with whom we work including, for example, fundraising platforms such as Just Giving or Virgin Money Giving; or organisations running events which help us raise funds such as the Great North Run or London Marathon. We will only receive your personal information from these third parties if you have consented to us doing so at the time of making your donation. We will always respect the communications preferences that you have specified.

When your personal information is available publicly

Your personal information may be available to us from external publicly available sources. For example, depending on your privacy settings for social media services, we may access information from those accounts or services (for example when you choose to interact with us through platforms such as Facebook, Instagram or Twitter).

When you visit our website

When you visit our website, we automatically collect the following types of personal information:

  • Technical information, including the internet protocol (IP) address used to connect your device to the internet, browser type and version, time zone setting, browser plug-in types and versions and operating systems and platforms.
  • Information about your visit to the websites, including the uniform resource locator (URL) clickstream to, through and from the website (including date and time), services you viewed or searched for, page response times, download errors, length of visits to certain pages, referral sources, page interaction information (such as scrolling and clicks) and methods used to browse away from the page.

YMCA  also uses cookies (small text files) to monitor browsing preferences in order to make a user’s experience more efficient and to provide us with the basic visitor statistics for analysis. For more information about cookies used on this website, visit our Cookie Policy page.

In general, we may combine your personal information from these different sources for the purposes set out in this Notice.

  1. What personal information do we use?

Personal information is, in effect,  any information that can be used to identify you. It can include, but is not limited to, any of the types of information listed below.

We may collect, store and otherwise process the following kinds of personal information:

  • name
  • address
  • email address
  • telephone number
  • contact preferences
  • social media identity
  • bank account or credit card details where required (see section 8. Donations)
  • in relation to fundraising, employer details for processing a payroll gift and taxpayer status for claiming Gift Aid
  • information about your computer/mobile device and your visits to and use of this website, including, for example, your IP address and geographical location
  • National Insurance number
  • marital status
  • date of birth, age, and/or gender.
  • personal descriptions and photographs
  • details of your qualifications / experience
  • immigration / emigration information
  • information about our services / work which you use / which we consider may be of interest to you; and / or
  • any other personal information which we obtain under section 1 of this Notice

We do not use cookies to collect this type of information. We may also collect and process information about your interactions with us, including details about our contacts with you through email, SMS, post, on the phone or in person. This might include the date, time, and method of contact, details about donations you make to us, events or activities that you register for or attend or any request for support. We may also collect and record other relevant information you share with us about yourself, such as your interests or your affiliations with other charities, including local YMCAs, community or campaign groups.

Do we process special categories of personal information?

The UK General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”) recognises that there are sensitive categories of personal information which require more protection, such as health information, information about your racial or ethnic origin, or information about your religious or similar beliefs. In certain situations, YMCA may need to collect and/or use these special categories of personal information (for example, we may need to know your health information when you agree for your YMCA story to be published on our website; or we may need to know other health information to make reasonable adjustments for).

We will only use such special categories of your personal information where there is a clear need and valid reason to do so and where the GDPR (or other applicable data privacy law in the UK) allows us to do so. Before we collect any special categories of your personal information, we will make it clear what information we are collecting and the purpose we are collecting it for.

  1. How and why will we use your personal information?

We may use your personal information for the following purposes:

  • to provide you with services, products or information you have requested;
  • to provide services to our beneficiaries;
  • to provide further information about our work, services, activities or products (where necessary, only where you have provided your consent to receive such information);
  • to process your donations;
  • to answer your questions / request and communicate with you in general;
  • to manage relationships with our supporters and beneficiaries;
  • to further our charitable aims in general, including for fundraising activities;
  • to analyse and improve our work, services, activities, products or information (including our website), or for our internal records;
  • to report on the impact and effectiveness of our work;
  • to run / administer our website, keep it safe and secure and ensure that content is presented in the most effective manner for you and for your device;
  • to direct you to YMCA branches, nurseries, shops and gyms;
  • to register and administer your participation in events;
  • to process your application for a job or volunteer role with us;
  • to administer your employment / other working relationship with us (for example, to pay your salary);
  • for pension administration purposes if you have a pension associated with current or past employment with us;
  • for training and/or quality control;
  • to audit / administer our accounts;
  • to satisfy legal obligations which are binding on us, for example in relation to regulatory, government and/or law enforcement bodies with whom we may work (for example requirements relating to the payment of tax or anti-money laundering);
  • for the prevention of fraud or misuse of services; and/or
  • for the establishment, defence and/or enforcement of legal claims.
  • to refer you to partnering Will-writing schemes and/or partnering solicitors, upon request of the supporter, to write their Will free of charge.
  • to invite you to appropriate events and activities, and send appropriate materials, if you have told are you are or are thinking about leaving a gift in your Will to YMCA England & Wales.

  1. Lawful Bases

The GDPR requires us to rely on one or more lawful bases to use your personal information. We consider the grounds listed below to be relevant:

  • Where you have provided your consent for us to use your personal information in a certain way (for example, we will ask for your consent to use your personal information to send you supporter newsletters and fundraising appeals by email, and we may sometimes ask for your explicit consent to collect special categories of your personal information).
  • Where necessary so that we can comply with a legal obligation to which we are subject (for example, where we are obliged to share your personal information with regulatory bodies which govern our work and services).
  • Where necessary for the performance of a contract to which you are a party or to take steps at your request prior to entering into a contract (for example, if you apply to work for / volunteer with us).
  • Where it is in your / someone else’s vital interests(for example, in case of medical emergency suffered by somebody on our premises).
  • Where there is a legitimate interest in us doing so.

The GDPR allows us to collect and process your personal information if it is reasonably necessary to achieve our or others’ legitimate interests (as long as that processing is fair, balanced and does not unduly impact your rights).

In broad terms, our “legitimate interests” means the interests of running YMCA as a charitable entity and pursuing our aims and ideals; for example providing information about current humanitarian crises, processing donations, administering events and taking applications for volunteers.

When we process your personal information to achieve such legitimate interests, we consider and balance any potential impact on you (both positive and negative), and your rights under data protection laws. We will not use your personal information for activities where our interests are overridden by the impact on you, for example where use would be excessively intrusive (unless, for instance, we are otherwise required or permitted to by law).

  1. Supporter research

We may also analyse your personal information to create a record of your interests and preferences. This includes the use of profiling and screening techniques to ensure communications are relevant and timely, and to provide an improved experience for our staff and supporters. Profiling also allows us to target our resources effectively, which supporters consistently tell us is a key priority for them. We do this because it allows us to understand the background of the people who support us and helps us to make appropriate requests to supporters who may be able and willing to give more than they already do. Importantly, it enables us to raise monies for the work YMCA undertakes with young people and their communities.

When building a profile of donors and supporters, we may analyse geographic, demographic and other information relating to you in order to better understand your interests and preferences 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, such as Companies House, the Land Registry website or information that is published in articles and newspapers. We also undertake this to help us identify potential donors and supporters.

In some situations, we may update our supporters, clients and volunteers’ personal information using external organisations, for example, to check we have a valid and deliverable postal address, or to check if you are registered with the Telephone Preference Service (TPS) or Fundraising Preference Service (FPS).

You can opt-out of your data being used in any of the above-mentioned ways at any time by contacting us at supporterservices@ymca.org.uk or calling 020 7186 9518.

  1. Communications for marketing/fundraising

We may use your contact details to provide you with information about our work, events, services, and/or products that we consider may be of interest to you (for example, about fundraising appeals to which you previously contributed, or volunteering opportunities similar to those you have helped with previously). Where we do this via email or SMS, we will not do so without your prior consent (unless allowed to do so via applicable law).

Where you have provided us with your consent previously but do not wish to be contacted by us about our projects and/or services in the future, please let us know by email at supporterservices@ymca.org.uk. You can opt-out of receiving emails from YMCA at any time by clicking the “unsubscribe” link at the bottom of our emails.

  1. Donations

When you use our secure online donation function you will be directed to a specialist payment services provider who will receive your financial information to process the transaction. We will provide your personal information to the payment services provider only to the extent necessary for the purpose of processing your donation. We do not store credit/debit card details for any donations made online.

  1. Children’s personal information

When we process children’s personal information, where required by law we will not do so without their consent or, where required, the consent of a parent/ guardian. We will always have in place appropriate safeguards to ensure that children’s personal information is handled with due care.

  1. How long do we keep your personal information?

We remove personal data from our systems in line with our data retention policy. The length of time each category of data will be retained will vary on how long we need to process it, the reason it is collected, and in line with any statutory requirements.

After this point, the data will either be deleted or rendered anonymous. In certain specific situations, for example, where a supporter has kindly pledged a legacy to us in their Will, we will maintain their details up to the time when we need to carry out the legacy administration and communicate effectively with their family.

Where we believe data might be relevant to a future safeguarding enquiry we reserve the right to retain data securely for up to 50 years to comply with our insurance and safeguarding guidance.

  1. Will we share your personal information?

We do not share, sell or rent your personal information to third parties for marketing purposes. However, sometimes we may need to disclose your personal information to selected third parties with whom we work in order to achieve the purposes set out in this Notice.

Those parties include, but are not limited to:

  • YMCA branches, shops, gyms and nurseries, where the service, product or information you have requested requires it;
  • healthcare professionals and organisations involved in the provision of care, facilities and/or supplies;
  • suppliers and sub-contractors for the performance of any contract we enter into with them, for example, IT service providers such as website hosts or cloud storage providers;
  • parties administering our benefit payments, reward programmes and pension contributions;
  • insurers;
  • financial companies that collect and process donations on our behalf;
  • professional service providers such as accountants and lawyers;
  • parties assisting us with research to monitor the impact/effectiveness of our work and services;
  • external fundraising entities / platforms; and/or
  • organisations that help us run YMCA events or events where YMCA is present / which raise funds for YMCA.
  • solicitors / partnering Will-writing schemes for administrative purposes upon request of the supporter.

In particular, we reserve the right to disclose your personal information to third parties:

  • in the event that we sell or buy any business or assets, in which case we will disclose your personal information to the (prospective) seller or buyer of such business or assets;
  • if substantially all of our assets are acquired by a third party, personal information held by us may be one of the transferred assets;
  • if we are under any legal or regulatory duty to do so; and/or
  • to protect the rights, property or safety of YMCA, its personnel, users, visitors or others.

Where required, we enter into a written contractual agreement that will ensure that those organisations can only use the data provided for the specific purposes we direct them to do, and that they have in place strict security requirements in order to protect your personal information and comply with GDPR.

  1. Security/storage of and access to your personal information

YMCA is committed to keeping your personal information safe and secure and we have appropriate and proportionate security policies and organisational and technical measures in place to help protect your personal information.

Your personal information is only accessible by appropriately trained staff, volunteers and contractors, and stored on secure servers with features enacted to prevent unauthorised access.

  1. International Data Transfers

To deliver services or manage our relationship with you, it is sometimes necessary for us to share your personal information outside the UK Many countries do not have data protection laws which offer you as much protection as in the United Kingdom. We will, however, where required take reasonable steps to ensure that any recipient of your personal information based outside the UK implements appropriate safeguards to protect your personal information.

  1. Exercising your Rights

Where we rely on your consent to use your personal information, you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time. This includes the right to ask us to stop using your personal information for marketing or fundraising purposes or to unsubscribe from our email list at any time. You also have the following rights:

  1. Right of access– you can write to us to ask for confirmation of what personal information we hold on you and to request a copy of that personal information. Provided we are satisfied that you are entitled to see the personal information requested, and we have successfully confirmed your identity, and we will provide you with your personal information subject to any exemptions that apply.
  2. Right of erasure– at your request, we will delete your personal information from our records as far as we are required to do so. In many cases, we would propose to suppress further communications with you, rather than delete them.
  3. Right of rectification– if you believe our records of your personal information are inaccurate, you have the right to ask for those records to be updated. You can also ask us to check the personal information we hold about you if you are unsure whether it is accurate/up to date.
  4. Right to restrict processing– you have the right to ask for processing of your personal information to be restricted if there is disagreement about its accuracy or legitimate use.
  5. Right to object– you have the right to object to processing where we are (i) processing your personal information on the basis of the legitimate interests ground, (ii) using your personal information for direct marketing or (iii) using your personal information for statistical purposes.
  6. Right to data portability– to the extent required by the GDPR, where we are processing your personal information (that you have provided to us) either (i) by relying on your consent or (ii) because such processing is necessary for the performance of a contract to which you are a party or to take steps at your request prior to entering into a contract, and in either case, we are processing using automated means (i.e. with no human involvement), you may ask us to provide the personal information to you – or another service provider – in a machine-readable format.
  7. Rights related to automated decision-making– you have the right not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing of your personal information which produces legal, or similarly significant, effects on you, unless such a decision (i) is necessary to enter into/perform a contract between you and us/another organisation; (ii) is authorised by UK law to which YMCA is subject (as long as that law offers you sufficient protection); or (iii) is based on your explicit consent.

We may ask you for additional information to confirm your identity and for security purposes, before disclosing the personal information requested to you. Please note that some of these rights only apply in limited circumstances. For more information, we suggest that you contact us using the details below.

You are further entitled to make a complaint about us or the way we have processed your personal information to the data protection supervisory authority in your home country. In the UK, the data protection authority is the Information Commissioner’s Office – www.ico.org.uk. For further information on how to exercise this right, please contact us using the details in section 18 below.

  1. Changes to this Notice

We may update this Notice from time to time. We will notify you of significant changes by contacting you directly where reasonably possible for us to do so and by placing an updated notice on our website. This Notice was last updated on 28 January 2022.

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  1. Links and third parties

We link our website directly to other sites. This Notice does not cover external websites and we are not responsible for the privacy practices or content of those sites. We encourage you to read the privacy notices of any external websites you visit via links on our website.

  1. How to contact us

For all questions or concerns regarding the processing of your personal information, please do get in touch. You can write to:

YMCA England & Wales
Data Protection Lead
10-11 Charterhouse Square
London EC1M 6EH

You can also email: dataprotection@ymca.org.uk or call 020 7186 9500, or if you wish to opt-out email: supporterservices@ymca.org.uk, or call on 0207 186 9518.

If you require a donation refund/cancellation, please click here to view our Refund Policy.