Privacy Policy

AdviceUK is registered (ICO Registration Reference Z6958702 – https://ico.org.uk/ESDWebPages/Entry/Z6958702) in accordance with and seeks to comply with the UK Data Protection Act 2018/GDPR.

AdviceUK is committed to protecting your privacy. This privacy statement explains our policy on collecting, storing, and processing your personal information. References to ‘we’ or ‘us’ are to Advice UK, registered charity no: 299342, Company Limited by Guarantee, registered in England no 2023982 of AdviceUK, Suite 610, 150 Minories, London EC3N 1LS

Whose personal data do we work with?

We regularly process the personal data of people who fall into the following categories:

• Individuals receiving services and making use of products provided by AdviceUK (eg AdviceFinder, AdvicePro, AdviceJobs, AdviceUK Insurance Services, AdviceUK Training & Qualifications), including those attending our events
• Individuals working at or connected with our member organisations
• Individuals receiving services from organisations we support
• Individuals representing partner organisations, funders and other stakeholders relevant to our work.
• Our suppliers, including those delivering work for AdviceUK on a freelance basis
• Our supporters, including those who make donations to our work
• Members of our governing body
• Our employees
• Individuals visiting our website

Additionally, on some occasions we use profiling and screening techniques to ensure communications are relevant and timely, and to provide an improved experience for our supporters. Profiling also allows us to target our resources effectively, which members 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 potential supporters who may be interested in the services we offer. If you don’t want us to do this please email the dataprotection@adviceuk.org.uk mailbox stating ‘OPT OUT’ in the subject field.

What personal data do we collect?

We collect personal data when you interact with us, for example:

• When you submit an application for membership
• When you purchase a product or service
• When you complete a customer survey or feedback form
• When you visit our website
• When you attend an event
• When we have contact with you that relates to our wider interests in advice provision and the interests of our members, or your interests in our work
• When you undertake work on our behalf or supply us with products or services

The information we gather and how we use it relates to the nature of your relationship with AdviceUK and the reasons for which your personal data is being processed. We seek to give an overview of this here, but please contact us if you need further information.

How will we use the information about you?

We collect and work with personal data. Personal data is information that can be used to identify a living individual, such as names, addresses, phone numbers, e-mail addresses, postcodes, customer and client records, details of enquiries, IP addresses, location data, online identifiers, pictures or other biometric data, service records, attendance lists, minutes of meetings, mailing lists, bank account details and other financial records.

We need to collect and use personal data to provide services and products, to fulfil our charitable objectives, to run the organisation efficiently and effectively, to meet our legal obligations, to contract with individuals and organisations, and to fundraise and generate income for our work. We only collect personal data that we need. If we need your consent to collect or use your personal data, we will ensure that we have this consent from you. We will do our best to keep personal information secure by taking appropriate technical and organisational measures.

We will never give personal data to third parties, with the following exceptions:

• Where you have given us your consent to share your personal data, for example to get help or support from another organisation.
• To further the legitimate interests of AdviceUK and our members and customers, for example: improving a service that we provide; developing a new service or product; letting our members know about a service you provide, or processing the personal data of third parties in the course of carrying out consultancy work.
• Where AdviceUK has a contract in place for providing one of its services (e.g. AdviceUK Membership, AdvicePro, AdviceFinder, AdviceUK Training & Qualifications, AdviceUK Insurance services, AdviceJobs). AdviceUK will use the contractual legal basis to process the personal data of the parties involved. Namely for the successful administration and performance of a contract.
• Where we use third party organisations to process your personal data on our behalf, for example organisations that provide us with cloud-based ICT services.
• Where we need to process your data to carry out a public task: this relates to our role as Competent Authority for the Insolvency Service in maintaining a register of Approved Intermediaries for Debt Relief Orders.
• Where we have legal obligations, for example, our legal obligations to prevent terrorism and money laundering, or to provide personal data to HMRC.
• In a life or death situation where we need to protect your vital interests or the vital interests of a third party, for example if you needed urgent medical assistance and were unable to give your consent to us seeking such assistance on your behalf.
• Where we have reasonable grounds for believing that not sharing personal information will result in serious harm to you or a third party, in line with our confidentiality policy and legitimate charitable purposes.
• Where we judge that sharing personal information is justified for the prevention of crime, in line with our confidentiality policy and legitimate charitable purposes.

We keep your personal information only for as long as it is necessary, and for compliance purposes (standard retention schedule 6-8 years). In some circumstances, we may be legally required to retain your personal information for longer e.g. Insurance / legal issue or audit purposes. Where your information is no longer required, we will ensure it is disposed of in a secure manner.

We use your information collected from the website to personalise your repeat visits to our website. Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. Although we will do our best to protect your personal data, we cannot guarantee the security of your data transmitted to the Website and any transmission is at your own risk. Once we have received your information, we will use strict procedures and security features to try to prevent unauthorised access.

Personal information you submit to AdviceUK is stored on secure servers. Sometimes, in order to complete your participation in services/ surveys and customer feedback. Data maybe passed to other parts of the organisation, partner organisations (IAS LTD , VCS Insurance , ACM Solutions Limited), companies or contractors operating on our behalf to enable the latter to take place. We may also in order to successfully process your data need to transfer personal information you submit to us to countries or jurisdictions outside the EEA which do not provide the same level of data protection. In such instances, we will ensure that we will only transfer personal information to secure organisations with good data protection practices.

Marketing

We would like to send you information about products and services of ours and other 3rd party companies which may be of interest to you. You have a right at any time to stop us from contacting you for marketing purposes or giving your information to other 3rd party organisations. If you no longer wish to be contacted for marketing purposes, please email the dataprotection@adviceuk.org.uk mailbox stating ‘OPT OUT’ in the subject field.

What are my rights?

Under data protection legislation applying from May 25 2018, you have the rights listed below. Get in touch as described in the ‘How to Contact Us’ section if you wish to exercise any of your rights. We will respond within one month, though in some circumstances we may need to extend the time for a full response for a further two months. You will not usually need to pay us for making the request.

For further, independent information and detail about your rights, see https://ico.org.uk/for-the-public/

• The right to be informed – we inform you through this privacy statement and through other privacy-related communications, whether you interact with us in person, by telephone, by e-mail, online or using other channels.
• The right of access – you have the right to ask us for confirmation that your data is being processed and to access this data (a ‘subject access request’).
• The right to rectification – you have the right to have inaccurate or incomplete personal data corrected or completed.
• The right to erasure – you have the right in some circumstances to ask us to erase your personal data (the ‘right to be forgotten’). Sometimes, this right may not apply, for example when the personal data needs to be retained for insurance purposes, or in relation to legal claims.
• The right to restrict processing – you have the right to ask us to limit how we collect and use your personal data, for example, to stop us deleting data that you might need in relation to a legal claim.
• The right to data portability – you have the right in some circumstances to be given your personal data in a structured, commonly used and machine readable form. This only applies to personal data you have given directly to us, where processing is carried out by automated means, and where the personal data is being processed based on your consent or in relation to a contract.
• The right to object – you have the right in some circumstances to object to processing of your personal data. This includes your right to object to: processing that we justify as being based on our legitimate interests; direct marketing; and processing of personal data for research and statistical purposes.
• Rights in relation to automated decision making and profiling – on some occasions we use profiling and screening techniques to ensure communications are relevant and timely, and to provide an improved experience for our supporters. Profiling also allows us to target our resources effectively, which members 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 potential supporters who may be interested in the services we offer. If you don’t want us to do this please email the dataprotection@adviceuk.org.uk mailbox stating ‘OPT OUT’ in the subject field.

Cookies

Cookies are text files placed on your computer to collect standard internet log information and visitor behaviour information. This information is used to track visitor use of the website and to compile statistical reports on website activity. For further information please feel free to visit our cookie policy page. You can set your browser not to accept cookies and the following websites (www.aboutcookies.org or https://www.youronlinechoices.com/uk/) tell you how to remove cookies from your browser. However in a few cases some of our website features may not function as a result.

Other websites

Our website contains links to other websites. This privacy policy only applies to this website so when you link to other websites you should read their own privacy policies.

Changes to our privacy policy

We keep our privacy policy under regular review (next review date 25/03/2025) and we will place any updates on this web page. This privacy policy was last updated on 25/09/2024.

How to contact us

Please contact us if you have any questions about our privacy policy or information we hold about you:

By Email – dataprotection@adviceuk.org.uk
Or write to us at: AdviceUK, Suite 610, 150 Minories, London EC3N 1LS

If you are not satisfied with our response to any query you raise with us, or you believe we are processing your personal data in a way that is inconsistent with the law, you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office – Wycliffe Lane, Water Lane, Wilmslow, SK9 5AF / 0303 123 1113 / https://ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/email/