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Privacy Policy

Privacy Policy

We want everyone who supports 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 Solent Mind Privacy Policy may change so please remember to check back from time to time, this is version 6 and was last updated August 2023. Where we have made any changes to this Privacy Policy, we will make this clear on our website or contact you about any changes.

We are committed to treating you with respect and openness.

Contents

1. Who we are

2. How we collect information about you

3. Information we collect and why we use it

4. Profiling: making our work more unique to you

5. Legal basis for using your information

6. Marketing

7. Sharing your Information

8. Keeping your information safe

9. How long we hold your information for

10.     Your rights

11. Monitoring

1. Who we are

Here at Solent Mind, we are committed to protecting your personal information and making every effort to ensure that your personal information is processed in a fair, open and transparent manner.

We are a "data controller" for the purposes of the Data Protection Act 2018 and 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. A separate Children’s Privacy notice is available on request and is used in services where we work with people under the age of 16.

For further information about our privacy practices, please contact our Data Protection Officer by:

• Writing to Solent Mind, 15-16 The Avenue, Southampton, SO17 1XF

• Calling us on 02382 027810

• Our Data Protection Officer is Revd Mark James - Email; dpo@solentmind.org.uk

2. How we collect information about you

Everything we do, we do to ensure that we can help people experiencing a mental health problem get both support and respect. We want to make sure you receive the communications that are most relevant to you, be it through receiving support from one of our services, visiting our website or receiving emails, post or phone calls. We want to make sure you receive the best attention when you book on an event, become a member or make a donation.

We collect information from you in the following ways:

When you interact with us directly: This could be if you use one of our services, ask us about our activities, register with us for training or an event, make a donation to us, ask a question about mental health, purchase something, apply for a job or volunteering opportunity or otherwise provide us with your personal information. This includes when you phone us, visit our website, make a purchase from our shops, or get in touch through the post, or in person.

When you interact with us through partners or suppliers working on our behalf: This could be if you access a service which is delivered through a trusted organisation working on our behalf and always under our instruction.

When you interact with us through third parties: This could be if you provide a donation through a third party such as Just Giving or one of the other third parties that we work with and provide your consent for your personal information to be shared with us.

When you visit our website: We gather general information which might include which pages you visit most often and which services, events or information is of most interest to you. We may also track which pages you visit when you click on links in emails from us. We also use "cookies" to help our site run effectively.

We use this information to personalise the way our website is presented when you visit to make improvements and to ensure we provide the best service and experience for you. Wherever possible we use anonymous information which does not identify individual visitors to our website.

From other information that is available to the public: In order to tailor our communications with you to your background and interests we may collect information about you from publicly available sources or through third party subscription services or service providers.

3. Information we collect and why we use it.

Personal Information

Personal information we collect includes details such as your name, date of birth, email address, postal address, telephone number and credit/debit card details (if you are making a purchase or donation), as well as information you provide in any communications between us. You will have given us this information whilst using one of our services, making a donation, registering for an event, placing an order on our website or any of the other ways you interact with us. We may also receive personal data about you if we have received a referral from a health professional.

We will mainly use this information:

If you do not provide this information, we will not be able to provide you support, or process your donation, sign you up for a particular event or provide goods and services you have requested.

We may also use your personal information:

Special Category Data

If you share your personal experience or the experiences of a friend or relative, we may also collect this information. If you provide us with any Special Category Data (previously known as Sensitive Personal Information) by telephone, email or by other means, we will treat that information with extra care and confidentiality and always in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

There may be some circumstances where you can remain anonymous, if you are happy to share your personal details with staff members or if you would like us to share your story with the media or other parties as part of our work telling people’s personal stories about mental health (for example, on our blog).A special note about the Special Category Data and Criminal Offences Data we hold

Data Protection Law recognises that some categories of personal information are more sensitive. Special Category Data can include information about a person’s health, race, ethnic origin, political opinions, sex life, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, trade union membership, genetics or biometrics.

We will only use this information:

4. Profiling: making our work more unique to you

We want to improve how we communicate with you and the information we provide through our services, website, products and information. To do this we may use profiling and screening methods so that we can better understand our service users, supporters and your preferences and needs to provide a better service and experience for you.

We may carry out targeted fundraising activities using profiling techniques based on the information that we hold about you. We may also work with third party organisations who provide additional insight using general information about you that is publicly available.

This information can be appended to the information that you have provided which allows us to use our resources more effectively by better understanding the background of our supporters and making appropriate requests based on what may interest them and their capacity to give.

You can of course opt out of this activity at any time. To do this, email ‘fundraising@solentmind.org.uk’ with the subject line ‘Please stop analysis of my data’ or by contacting us at Solent Mind; 15-16 The Avenue, Southampton SO17 1XF, or by phone on 02382 027810

5. Legal basis for using your information

We will process your personal information fairly and lawfully by ensuring that we only use it if we have a lawful reason and when we do, we make sure you know how we intend to use it and tell you about your rights.

In some cases, we will only use your personal information where we have your consent. This might be when you access services that are not commissioned by a public body or because we need to use it in order to fulfil a contract with you (for example, because you have placed an order on our website).

Another reason for using your personal information is known as ‘public task’, where we may use your personal information to carry out our duties on behalf of a public authority e.g. where services are commissioned by a local authority, NHS trust or other public body.

There are also other lawful reasons that allow us to process your personal information and one of those is called 'legitimate interest'. This means that the reason that we are processing information is because there is a legitimate interest for Solent Mind to do so to help us to achieve our vision of ensuring that everyone experiencing a mental health problem gets both support and respect.

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.

Some examples of where we have a legitimate interest to process your personal information are where we contact you about our work via post, use your personal information for improving our services, data analytics, or conducting research to better understand who our supporters are.  In addition, we may process your personal data to comply with a common law or statutory obligation (for example, dealing with complaints and claims and delivering services commissioned by a public body), or for complying with guidance from the Charity Commission.

6. Marketing

We will only contact you about our work and how you can support Solent Mind by phone, email or text message, if you have agreed for us to contact you in this manner.

However, if you have provided us with your postal address we may send you information about our work and how you can support Solent Mind by mail, unless you have told us that you would prefer not to hear from us in that way.

You can update your choices or stop us sending you these communications at any time by contacting 'fundraising@solentmind.org.uk’ or clicking the unsubscribe link at the bottom of the relevant communication.

7. Sharing your Information

The personal information we collect about you will mainly be used by our staff (and volunteers) at Solent Mind so that they can support you.

Your information may be shared with a team of professionals who will be providing you with support. Solent Mind works with partners in the NHS such as your GP, Community Mental Health Teams as well as other agencies, including Social Services and we may need to share information about you with them. We only do this to provide the most appropriate support for you or where the welfare of other people is involved.

Examples of when we may also need to share information may also include;

We will never sell or share your personal information with organisations so that they can contact you for any marketing activities. Nor do we sell any information about your web browsing activity.

Solent Mind may however share your information with our trusted partners and suppliers who work with us on or on our behalf to deliver our services, but processing of this information is always carried out in accordance with agreed arrangements. We make sure that they store the data securely, delete it when they no longer need it and never use it for any other purposes. Some examples of where we may share your information are with our partners who help to create and send information to you to reduce our costs, when a project or service we operate on behalf of a local authority, NHS trust or other publicly funded body is transferred by the said funding body to another organisation or with our partners who help us to process donations and claim Gift Aid and our partners who help us to manage our social media accounts.

We enter into contracts with these service providers that require them to comply with data protection laws and ensure that they have appropriate controls in place to secure your information.

Legal disclosure

We may disclose your information if required to do so by law (for example, to comply with applicable laws, regulations and codes of practice or in response to a valid request from a competent authority); or, in order to enforce our conditions of sale and other agreements.

                                                                                     

8. Keeping your information safe

We take looking after your information very seriously. We've implemented appropriate physical, technical and organisational measures to protect the personal information we have under our control, both on and off-line, from improper access, use, alteration, destruction and loss.

Unfortunately the transmission of information using the internet is not completely secure. Although we do our best to protect your personal information sent to us this way, we cannot guarantee the security of data transmitted to our site.

Our websites may contain links to other sites. While we try to link only to sites that share our high standards and respect for privacy, we are not responsible for the content or the privacy practices employed by other sites. Please be aware that advertisers or websites that have links on our site may collect personally identifiable information about you. This privacy statement does not cover the information practices of those websites or advertisers.

9. How long we hold your information for

We only keep your personal information as long as is reasonable and necessary for the relevant activity, depending on the nature of the information and the purpose for which it held. It may be to fulfil statutory obligations (for example, the collection of Gift Aid, and to comply with our contractual obligations when delivering commissioned services).

10. Your rights

You have various rights in respect of the personal information we hold about you – these are set out in more detail below. If you wish to exercise any of these rights or make a complaint, you can do so by contacting our team at Solent Mind; 15-16 The Avenue, Southampton. SO17 1XF, by email at dpo@solentmindmind.org.uk and by phone on 02382 027810. You can also make a complaint to the data protection supervisory authority, the Information Commissioner's Office, https://ico.org.uk/

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, how long we keep it for and whether it has been used for any automated decision making. You can make a request for access free of charge. However, we may charge a “reasonable fee” for the administrative costs of complying with the request if:

Please make all requests for access in writing or by contacting a member of our   team by telephone or in person.  We may require you to provide us with evidence of your identity if deemed necessary.  We will let you know if this is required. 

Please note, some of these rights only apply in certain circumstances and we may not be able to fulfil every request. However, we will respond to your request within the timescales set by the relevant legislation, which is usually one calendar month.

11. Monitoring

Your communications with our teams (including by telephone or email) may be monitored and/or recorded for training, quality control and compliance purposes to ensure that we continuously improve our customer service standards.

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