Privacy and cookies

Last updated: 01/03/22
Accessible version on request

Your personal information

SeeAbility is committed to respecting and protecting your privacy and will be transparent about how we may use your information. We do not share, sell, rent or lease your personally identifiable information or data with anyone else for marketing purposes. We will always respect your preferences about how and if we contact you.

We only ever use your information for charitable and/or fundraising purposes. Charitable services may include for example, provision of support and accommodation services, information resources or specialist sight testing.

SeeAbility is registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office. Once you choose to provide us with personally identifiable information (e.g. any information by which you can be identified), you can be assured it will only be used to support your relationship with SeeAbility, for the purpose for which it was requested and it will be kept securely.

If any of your personal information changes, please email supportercare@seeability.org, call 01372 755 042 or write to us at SeeAbility, Wesley House, Bull Hill, Leatherhead KT22 7AH.

Policy on information collection and use

We may collect personal information from you if:

You (for example) make a donation, set up a regular payment, sign a petition, respond to a mailing or appeal, join our lottery or support us in a non financial way like helping at an event.
You apply for a job with us or apply to be a volunteer or trustee.
We provide you with services such as specialist support or accommodation.
You are a relative or key contact/representative of someone we support or may potentially support.
You are supported by SeeAbility directly or indirectly and media consent is given relating to use of stories, photos and/or film.
You become an employee, volunteer, or you are an agency providing such services.
You provide consultancy services to us.
You apply to take part in a challenge event, attend an event arranged by SeeAbility or if you fundraise on our behalf.
You request newsletters or updates from us.
You use our website or social media sites.
You watch SeeAbility videos on YouTube or you interact with our adverts or other content online.
You contact us with a query or other correspondence (including by social media) or become involved with us in any other way.

We may receive personal information about you from sources such as but not limited to:

Third party fundraising sites such as Just Giving or other fundraising service organisations who will share data with us based on their own data protection and/or privacy policies.
Publicly available sources to keep your records up to date (such as Post Office National Change of Address database and postcode validation, or deceased records checks), other contact details and whether you are a tax payer (for Gift Aid purposes).
Information in the public domain, where the law allows us to; e.g. Electoral roll.
Local authorities where an enquiry is received regarding potential specialist support or an agreement exists to support you or provide accommodation or other services.
We may combine such information with that we already hold.

Ways we may use your personal information

To administer or process the provision of support and accommodation services, information resources or specialist sight testing or other types of charitable services.
To administer or process your donation or other transaction or administrative task.
To provide you with information (including fundraising and marketing) you have asked for or consented to receive or that we legally have a right to send.
To profile our database so that we can understand who, how and why people support us and who we could contact regarding our charitable and/or marketing and fundraising work (there is more information on this in the section below).
To keep a record of your relationship with us.
To provide key information where you have signed up to take part in an event.
To comply with applicable laws and regulations and requests from statutory agencies.
To provide you with information about goods or services we feel may interest you.
To ensure our website content is optimally presented to you for your device.

Sharing social media content with you

Using social media is a great way for us to update you on our work, and let you know the difference your support is making.

If you use Facebook or Instagram and have opted in to receiving communications from us, from time to time we may use these platforms as part of our relationship with you. Your contact details will be encrypted and uploaded to enable these platforms to determine whether you are a registered account holder with them. If there is a match we may show you communications which we think will be of interest to you. The encrypted data is not retained by the social media provider and is deleted by the platform if it does not match with an existing, registered account.

We may also use your data to identify audiences with similar interests, behaviours and demographics. This will allow us to promote SeeAbility content to like-minded people who we think may also be interested in finding out more about the work we do. We believe this is the most efficient way for us to reach even more people, meaning we use our funds more effectively.

If you do not wish us to use your data in this way, please let us know by contacting us directly on media@seeability.org.

Data screening – more detailed information

We may segment our database of supporters by things such as home postcode, size and frequency of gifts to SeeAbility. This helps us understand our supporter base and helps us make sure our marketing and fundraising communications are relevant to people and thus as cost efficient as possible.

We may also use in house resources and/or wealth screening or insight companies (operating as a data processor to us) to analyse some of your personal information and create a profile of your likely interests and preferences. This helps us to determine the likely level of a potential future donations or legacy gifts and means that we can then just approach a subset of people who are more likely to be able to support us in particular ways. This helps ensure we use charitable resources effectively and allows us to ensure our communications to you are relevant and appropriate. You may opt-out of such screening by contacting us.

We also use research to identify new potential supporters. For these people and a small proportion of our current supporters we may undertake more detailed research and data collation on areas such as, but not limited to, your job, income, philanthropy and networks using publicly available information such as the electoral roll, public registers, press reports and social media. You can opt-out of such research by contacting us.

Things we do to protect you and your data and respect your preferences about how we communicate with you

When we communicate with you, we will always give you the opportunity to opt out of receiving such information, for example via an opt-out tick box.
We will seek consent to process your data at the point of collection but in some cases we may process data in advance of consent if we are legally allowed and where we have legitimate reasons for doing so, as defined in relevant legislation.
We will use or keep your personal data active for no longer than is necessary for the purposes for which it is processed, in accordance with our internal policies and with relevant legislation.
If you request no further contact from us, we may keep some basic information in order to suppress your data from future communications and to reduce the likelihood of duplicate records being used.
Generally, we will not collect or process your information if you are under 18. However, if you want to participate in a fundraising or other activity, please make sure a parent, carer or legal guardian is aware of your intention to give us your information in advance. We will be clear on all relevant materials about the minimum age required for participation in an event.
We may collect information from users of our website or social media sites such as IP addresses, hardware, software, browser types, domain names, access times and the referring websites that visitors use to access web pages. We may compile aggregate statistics and provide them to third parties for analysis purposes, but we do not include information that identifies individual website users or donors by name. We use this information to maintain the quality of the service and to collect general statistics.
We may compile aggregate demographic information from you if you subscribe to our website and/or connect with us via social media sites. We may use this aggregated information to create a profile in order to target other potential supporters online, but no personally identifiable information will be disclosed.
Under Data Protection law certain categories of personal information are known as sensitive personal data (e.g. health information, political opinions). If we collect such information about people we provide charitable services to, we will follow all legal requirements relating to holding and using it. We do not generally collect such data about our supporters but may do where there is a clear reason for doing so, such as participation in a challenge event such as a marathon.
We may also collect sensitive personal data if you put that information in the public domain or if you share your story, photos or film relating to sight loss and disability with us. We will always ensure we have full specific consent to use such information in advance.

Rights of access, correction, erasure, and restriction

Your duty to inform us of changes

It is important that the personal information we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your personal information changes during your working relationship with us.

Your rights in connection with personal information

Under certain circumstances, by law you have the right to:

Request a copy of the personal information we hold about you. In most cases, this is free of charge. We may need to ask you to verify your identity before actioning any request for information. If you have authorised a third party to act on your behalf, we will ask them to prove they have your permission. We will provide the relevant information (subject to any legal exceptions that apply) as soon as possible and within 30 days, unless there is a specific reason causing a delay, which we would let you know about.
Request correction of the personal information that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate information we hold about you corrected.
Request erasure of your personal information. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal information where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal information where you have exercised your right to object to processing (see below).
Object to processing of your personal information where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal information for direct marketing purposes.
Request the restriction of processing of your personal information. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of personal information about you, for example if you want us to establish its accuracy or the reason for processing it.
Request the transfer of your personal information to another party.
If you want to review, verify, correct or request erasure of your personal information, object to the processing of your personal data, or request that we transfer a copy of your personal information to another party, please contact the Human Resources Manager by writing to our Head Office address in Leatherhead.

You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal information (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request for access is clearly unfounded or excessive. Alternatively, we may refuse to comply with the request in such circumstances.

What we may need from you

We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access the information (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is another appropriate security measure to ensure that personal information is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it.

Right to withdraw consent

In the limited circumstances where you may have provided your consent to the collection, processing and transfer of your personal information for a specific purpose, you have the right to withdraw your consent for that specific processing at any time. To withdraw your consent, please contact our Human Resources Manager at enquiries@seeability.org. Once we have received notification that you have withdrawn your consent, we will no longer process your information for the purpose or purposes you originally agreed to, unless we have another legitimate basis for doing so in law.

If you have any questions about this privacy notice or how we handle your personal information, please contact the Human Resources Manager at enquiries@seeability.org. You have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues.

Who has access to your information

We may allow our staff, consultants or external providers working on our behalf to access and use your information for the purposes for which you have provided it to us. We only provide them with the information they need to deliver the service they are contracted to deliver and we take all necessary measures to protect it.
We do not share, sell, rent or lease your data to third parties for marketing purposes.
We may securely transfer your data to authorised third party data processors in accordance with this policy or where we have your permission.
We may disclose your information to other organisations and agencies if we have a legal duty to do so, in order to enforce or apply any agreements, comply with the law or to protect your rights, safety or property, or those of others. An example would be the sharing of your information with HMRC when we are administering Gift Aid.
We may securely share your information with other relevant organisations who provide services relating to personal support, or who regulate our work, on a need to know basis.
You have the right to request a copy of information we hold about you. If you would like to request this, please contact us via the details at the beginning of this document.

Where your information is stored

All data is stored on secure servers in accordance with our internal security policies. We will encrypt online payment transactions, or use a third party supplier who does so.

Information we collect from you may be transferred to, stored and processed outside of the European Economic Area (EEA). If we transfer your data outside the EEA we will take reasonable steps to ensure that the recipient operates appropriate security measures. By submitting your details you agree to this use of your data.

Data security

If you register on our website or with other services with us, we may provide access via a password, which you should keep confidential. Please do not share that password with others.

The transmission of information via the internet may not be completely secure (but note we always use encryption for payment transactions). We will do our best to protect your personal data but cannot guarantee the security of your data when transmitted to our site – data is transferred at your own risk. Once we have received your information, we will use a range of measures to try and prevent unauthorised access to your data from others.

If you use standard email for communications with SeeAbility, this will not be protected and you should be aware that SeeAbility cannot guarantee that it remains confidential whilst in transit. All email sent to SeeAbility will be monitored and checked to ensure our systems are operating securely.

Online transactions, donations and direct debit processing

Online donations set up by this website are fulfilled by Stripe. Direct Debit instructions set up on this website are processed by Go Cardless. SeeAbility also uses other Direct Debit processing services provided in conjunction with our Bank or other reputable suppliers. Lottery Direct Debit and Recurring Card transactions are provided by reputable service providers in conjunction with our contracted External Lottery Manager (Capen). We do not store credit/debit card information following completion of your transaction – it is securely destroyed once the payment or donation has been processed. Only staff authorised and trained to process payments will be able to see your card details.

Privacy statement revisions

We will review and may revise this Privacy Statement at any time in response to changes in legislation or other factors.

Links to other sites

The SeeAbility website (http://www.seeability.org) contains links to other sites. SeeAbility is not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of linked websites.

SeeAbility’s website

If you have any questions or complaints about anything on our website please email media@seeability.org.

Cookie policy

Cookies are small pieces of information sent to your computer and stored on your hard drive. SeeAbility uses these pieces of information to set users' preferences, to personalise your experience and improve the quality of our website.

Cookies cannot be used to identify you personally. You can find out more about cookies and how to delete or control them on the GOV.uk website. Below is a list of the cookies we use and what they are used for:

Cookie name	Purpose
__stripe_mid	Stripe (payment provider) to facilitate the payment of donations.
dm_i recordID sessionID	DotDigital is our email marketing platform. Tracks and identifies a visitor as a contact whilst they browse a site’s pages. This data can then be used for better segmenting and targeting of contacts.
_gid _ga __utma __utmz __unam NID	We use Google Analytics to track how visitors are using the website and creating analytics reports.
datr x-src fr lu c_user datr dpr fr presence sb sb xs _fbp	These cookies and tracking pixels enable behavioral advertising and analytics by Facebook.
has_js	Indicates whether JavaScript is enabled on the user's browser.
cookie-agreed cookieconsent_status cookie-agreed-version	Determines whether cookies are accepted or not in our cookie opt in banner.
Browsealoud	Browsealoud uses cookies to track user preferences and usage.
Donorbox	We use Donorbox (our website donation platform) to process payments for single donations.