How do we protect the information you provide?
We want to make sure that you understand how we use the information you give to us and know how to ask questions to find out more if you wish. To provide the best possible service, we need to collect and store important information about you and your caring situation. We recognise that this information is often personal or sensitive and want you to feel confident that we will protect the confidentiality of information you provide to the highest standard and as the law requires (The General Data Protection Regulation: May 2018)

What is personal information?
This means anything that would identify you. This could include your name, address, date of birth, information about your caring situation and who you care for. It could also include less obvious things, for example if the person you care for has an extremely rare health condition, or you have a job that only you, or a small number of others, do.

What information do we record?
We may collect your name, address, telephone number, email address, date of birth, ethnicity, employment status and information about your caring situation. We will document details of discussions we have with you and may also need to record details you have given us about the person you care for. This is often important information which helps our Advisors to understand your caring situation better.

Where do we record it?
All information is recorded in our highly secure electronic database. The database is called Charitylog.

Referrals from professionals
Sometimes we will add your personal details to our database because we have received a referral from a professional you have spoken to, such as a GP or social worker. We always ask them to indicate you have agreed to the referral on the form we receive. In this situation, you will be sent an information pack with details of how we use your details, the services we provide, the support we can offer you and our monthly Enewsletter.

How do we use the information you provide?
We use this to help us to ensure we provide the information, services and support you need. For example, we may use your phone number if you or your referrer have asked us to contact you, or your address to send you newsletters. If you have provided an email address, we will use this to send you our newsletter and e-bulletins through which we provide much useful information. If you do receive the newsletter by email, we will always tell you how to stop this if you wish. If you do not have an email address or tell us you would prefer to receive it by post, we will arrange this.

We may also contact you to ask if you would be willing to help develop or improve our services. For example, we may send out a questionnaire or survey with our newsletter asking for your feedback or suggestions.

Do we share your information with anyone?
Sometimes, to make sure you receive the right support, we may share your information. For example, we may arrange for you to see a counsellor or benefits advisor, and need to pass on your information - but will only do so with your consent.

We will not share your personal information with organisations and individuals outside the Carers Centre without your consent except in the most exceptional circumstances. Exceptional circumstances might be that we have been asked for information by the police or law courts relating to a criminal investigation, or we need to share information in order to ensure a vulnerable person who might be at risk of harm, receives proper protection.

If you have a statutory carer’s needs assessment with one of our Carer Advisors, there are some circumstances where we will share the completed assessment document with Adult Social Care (social services) This will always be discussed with you at the start of the assessment and you can refuse. You should, though, be aware that if you don’t consent to this, there will be some restrictions on the support we can offer through the assessment.

Information and data collected for reporting or service monitoring purposes is always completely anonymised. We will never sell or give access to your information to third party organisations, nor share your personal information with third parties for their benefit. 

How long will we keep your information?
We will hold your information for as long as you want to maintain your connection with the Carers Centre. If you ask to be removed from our database or you ask to receive no further contact from us, we will remove you from our mailing list and make your database record inactive.

We may keep some basic information in order to avoid sending you unwanted materials in the future, however, your record would not be ‘live’, we would not be accessing it and we would not use or share it unless required to do so by law.

If you ask us, we'll anonymise your record so we remove from our database all information which enables us to identify you. In some circumstances, you may be able to request that your record be deleted; the so-called ‘right to be forgotten’. We will respond to all such requests within one month and in accordance with what the law permits.

Do we use cookies?
A cookie is a small file downloaded onto your computer when you visit a website. Cookies are used by many websites to do a number of things, for example ‘remembering’ your visit to the site and which pages you have looked at. We do not collect any personal information about you through use of cookies. More information about our cookie policy >>>

What rights do you have?
You have a legal right to access information held about you. Contact us if you want to ask for this. Your request will need to be in writing but if you need some advice or information about this first, you can call us to discuss it. There are some exceptions to what we can disclose, but we will make this clear to you. We will not charge you for this.

You can ask us to stop using or holding information about you if this is causing you substantial, unwarranted damage or distress. There are a few exceptions to this, which we would explain to you.

If you believe we are holding any inaccurate information about you, you have the right to ask us to correct it. We will respond to all of such requests within one month and will always act in accordance with the law.

What if your personal information changes?
We want to be sure the information we hold is accurate and up to date. Please tell us if your personal details change (such as your address or phone number, or maybe you are no longer a carer and want us to stop sending you a newsletter)

 To summarise, we will only use the information you provide for the purpose it was given, and if:

• You have given your consent; or
• If there is a legitimate interest in doing so; or
• If we are required to do so by law

Please contact us (a) if you would like to know more about this policy or (b) if your personal details have changed.

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Please Note: Your data may also be available to our website provider to enable us and them to deliver their service to us, carry out analysis and research on demographics, interests and behaviour of our users and supporters to help us gain a better understanding of them to enable us to improve our services. This may include connecting data we receive from you on the website to data available from other sources. Your personally identifiable data will only be used where it is necessary for the analysis required, and where your interests for privacy are not deemed to outweigh their legitimate interests in developing new services for us. In the case of this activity the following will apply:

• Your data will be made available to our website provider
• The data that may be available to them include any of the data we collect as described in this privacy policy.
• Our website provider will not transfer your data to any other third party, or transfer your data outside of the EEA.
• They will store your data for a maximum of 7 years.
• This processing does not affect your rights as detailed in this privacy policy.