Privacy Policy

Glaucoma UK Privacy Policy

Glaucoma UK is the operating name of the International Glaucoma Association (IGA). We are the only charity solely dedicated to supporting the 700,000+ people living with glaucoma in the UK. As a charity we rely on the kindness and generosity of our supporters and members, and we are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy.

This policy explains how and why we collect personal information about individuals and how we use that information.  It explains the legal basis for this and the rights you have over the way your information is used.

For the purposes of the data protection legislation, including the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018, the Data Controller is Glaucoma UK. This means that we are responsible for deciding how we hold and use personal information about you.

Glaucoma UK is registered as a Data Controller in the name of the IGA: registration number Z7866865.

If you have any queries about this Policy or concerning your personal information please contact us by email at  info@glaucoma.uk by phone on 01233 64 81 71 or write to the Data Controller, Glaucoma UK, Woodcote House, 15 Highpoint Business Village, Henwood, Ashford, Kent TN24 8DH.

 

1. What personal information do we collect?

The type and amount of personal data we collect depends on why you are providing it.

If you are requesting information or materials, or to participate in our events, we will collect your name, address and/or email address and telephone number. We may also collect details of your profession and your workplace.

If you are applying for a research grant, a volunteer role or a paid job with us, the information you provide in your application and interview, and any references we take up, are necessary for the purposes of our considering the application.

If you are a supporter, member, donor or a customer purchasing goods, we will ask for your name, address and/or email address, telephone number, credit or debit card details, and whether or not you are a taxpayer (in order to claim Gift Aid).

If you are using our telephone helpline or requesting patient advice or materials relevant to your specific condition, we may also ask for details of your glaucoma, your medical treatment, medication, family glaucoma history, and other relevant health conditions. Certain types of personal data, including information about a person’s health, is given a higher level of protection under data protection legislation.

2. How we collect information

We may collect information from you whenever you have any involvement with us, for example when you:

• Contact us in any way including by phone (calls to our head office numbers are recorded), by email, online, via social media or by post
• Enquire about our activities or services
• Visit our website
• Sign up to receive news about our activities
• Post content onto our website or social media sites
• Volunteer or work for us
• Apply for research funding
• Donate to us or fundraise for us
• Attend our events or meetings and provide us with information

3. Where we collect information from

We collect information:

• From you when you give it to us directly: You may provide your details when you ask us for a service or make a donation, volunteer with us, fundraise for us, attend an event, etc.
• Indirectly from third parties: Your information may be shared with us by other organisations such as fundraising sites like Just Giving and Virgin Money Giving if you are supporting or fundraising for us, and from solicitors or funeral directors where a gift has been left in a will or donations made at a memorial service. We also receive information from the Disclosure and Barring Service in relation to job and volunteering opportunities with us, and we will ask for references from the referees you provide in your application. These third parties should only share information with us in the way they have set out in their own Privacy Policies, which you should check when you give them your details.
• When you use our website: when you use our website information about you is recorded and stored. Please see the information below about the use of cookies.

4. How we use your personal information

We may use the information provided by you in a number of ways which reflect the legal basis applying to processing your data. These include:

1. To provide you with written information that you have requested or correspondence you have sent us (for example on glaucoma and related conditions) or to manage your event registrations, such as conferences or our Annual Lectures
2. To provide you with specific advice about your glaucoma and treatment, or that of a friend or relative, for example via our telephone helpline.
3. For carrying out your obligations under a contract between us, for example for processing memberships and goods purchases
4. To process donations and legacies
5. To process job , volunteer or grant applications,
6. To provide you with communications that may be of interest to you including marketing information about our services and activities, campaigning, fundraising and appeals for donations
7. For analysing the operation of our website and analysing your website behaviour to improve the website and its usefulness
8. Analysing your data and seeking your views so that we can make improvements to our services or represent your views to external bodies such as NICE
9. For accurately maintaining our organisational records and ensuring we know how you prefer to be contacted

 

5. Our legal basis for processing your information

The use of your information for the purposes set out above is lawful because one or more of the following applies:

• It is necessary for us to hold and use your information so that we can carry out our obligations under a contract entered into with you or to take steps you ask us to prior to entering into a contract. (This applies to 4.3 and 4.5).
• It is necessary to comply with our legal obligations – for example processing and retaining records relating to payroll, pensions, donations, gift aid payments, VAT, and insurance. (This applies to 4.3, 4.4, and 4.5).
• Where the purpose of our processing is the provision of information or services to you, we may also rely on the fact that it is necessary for your legitimate interests that we provide the information or service requested, and given that you have made the request, would presume that there is no prejudice to you in our fulfilling your request. (This applies to 4.1, 4.2, 4.4, 4.5, 4.8, and 4.9).
• Where you have provided personal data to us for the purposes of requesting information or requesting that we carry out a service for you, we will proceed on the basis that you have given consent to us using the information for that purpose, based on the way that you provided the information to us. You may withdraw consent at any time by emailing us at info@glaucoma.uk. This will not affect the lawfulness of processing of your information prior to your withdrawal of consent being received and actioned. (This applies to 4.6 and 4.7).
• We also rely on legitimate interest, plus your explicit consent as set out in Article 9(2)(a) of the GDPR as our legal basis for handling health and other special category data as set out in 4.2. 

6. How do we protect your personal information?

We understand the importance of security of your personal information and take appropriate steps to safeguard it.

All telephone recordings are securely held in an encrypted format.

Credit/debit card payments are processed by third-party PCI-compliant payment gateways through secure servers, and card details are securely destroyed immediately after processing.

However, no data transmission over the internet can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. So while we strive to safeguard your information, we cannot guarantee the security of any information you provide online and you do this at your own risk. 

7. Who has access to your information?

We always ensure only authorised persons have access to your information, including our staff, volunteers and contractors who have a need to know, and that everyone who has access is appropriately trained to manage your information. Others who may have access to your information include: 

• Third parties who provide services for us, including our printing and mailing distributor, our IT Support provider, our accountants and legal advisers, and the banks that process payments on our behalf. We select our third party service providers with care. We provide these third parties with the information that is necessary to provide the service and we will have an agreement in place that requires them to operate with the same care over data protection as we do.
• Analytics and search engine providers that help us to improve our website and its use.

Owing to matters such as financial or technical considerations the information you provide to us may be transferred to countries outside the European Economic Area (EEA), which are not subject to the same data protection regulations as apply in the UK. We meet our obligations under GDPR by ensuring that the information has equivalent protection as if it were being held within the EEA. We do this by ensuring that any third party processing your data outside the EEA either benefits from an adequacy determination for GDPR purposes and/or, where appropriate, we have entered into a Data Processing Agreement which contains model EU clauses.

We may also disclose your personal information if we are required to do so under any legal obligation and may use external data for the purposes of fraud prevention and credit risk reduction, or where doing so would not infringe your rights, but is necessary and in the public interest.

Other than this, we will not share your information with other organisations without your consent.

We would really appreciate it if you let us know if your contact details change. You can do so by contacting us at info@glaucoma.uk or by calling us on 01233 64 81 71.

 

8. Cookies and IP addresses

Cookies are small text files stored on your computer by the websites you visit.

They track your interactions with a website to make it work more efficiently for future sessions.

Cookies have many different uses. For example, they can store information to help you enter a site without having to log in. They can also help a website remember your preferred settings so it reloads them on your next visit. Cookies do not normally store personal information.

You can find full details of our cookie policy here.

 

9. Individuals aged 18 or under

We do not knowingly solicit or process personal information from anyone aged 18 or under without parental or guardian’s consent.

Anyone aged under 18 who contacts Glaucoma UK should have the consent of a parent or guardian before supplying any personal information. If our staff consider that someone contacting us or requesting our services is under 18 they will ask for details of age before proceeding.

 

10. How long will we keep your personal information?

As glaucoma is a lifelong condition, we know that your need for support and your relationship with us will change over time, and we will only retain your personal data for as long as is necessary for a particular activity.

If you are a Glaucoma UK supporter, we will keep your details and may process your data while we have an ongoing relationship with you. If we haven’t heard from you for seven years, we will archive your data, which means we won’t use it any more unless you decide to restart your relationship with us.

If you’ve told us that you’ve left us a gift in your will or have expressed an interest in do so, we will keep data about you and your relationship with us until six years after your estate is wound up. This information will be used to make sure we receive any gift you may make.

We keep recordings of calls to our helplines and complaints for ten years, except where we need to keep the data as a record of your consent to be contacted by us, in which case we keep it for as long as we need it for compliance purposes.

We keep financial records, Gift Aid records and details of any contracts we enter into with you for seven years after the relevant transaction, which is required by law. We do not keep your credit card details in accordance with payment industry standards.

If you ask us to stop contacting you with marketing or fundraising materials, we will keep a record of your contact details and limited information needed to ensure that we comply with your request.

 

11. Your rights

You have the right to:

• request details of the processing activities that we carry out with your personal information through making a Subject Access Request. This can be done by emailing info@glaucoma.uk or by writing to the Data Controller, Glaucoma UK, Woodcote House, 15 Highpoint Business Village, Henwood, Ashford, Kent TN24 8DH. You can also make your request in person, by calling us on 01233 64 81 64,  or via social media, but we may request you confirm it in writing for clarity.
• request rectification of information that is inaccurate or out of date
• erasure of your information (also known as “the right to be forgotten”)
• restrict the way in which we are dealing with and using your information
• request that your information be provided to you in a format that is secure and suitable for re-use (also known as “the right to portability”)
• Rights in relation to automated decision making and profiling including profiling for marketing purposes.

 

Some of these rights only apply in certain circumstances and certain safeguards and limits or exemptions may apply in specific cases. We will let you know if we are unable to respond to your request to exercise your data protection rights.

You will not usually have to pay a fee to exercise these rights, but we may charge a reasonable fee if your request is unfounded or excessive. Alternatively, we may refuse to comply with the request in such circumstances.

We may need to request information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to exercise these rights. This is to ensure that personal information is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it.

If you are not happy with the way we have processed or dealt with your information, you can complain to the Information Commissioners Office. Further details can be found here https://ico.org.uk/concerns/

 

12. Changes to this policy

We review this policy regularly. Do please check this policy each time you consider giving your personal information to us.