Privacy Policy

The Sick Children’s Trust’s Privacy Policy

This Privacy Policy explains:

1. Where we collect your personal information from
2. What information we collect
3. How we use that information
4. Who we share your information with
5. The security of your data
6. How you can request that we update, edit or remove your information
7. Changes to this policy
8. Complaints Procedure

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, please contact us by emailing info@sickchildrenstrust.org, calling 020 7638 4066, or writing to The Sick Children’s Trust at 4th Floor, 28-30 Worship Street, London, EC2A 2AH.

1. Where do we collect your personal data from?

We collect information in the following ways:

Information you give us directly

You may give us your information when you stay in one of our houses, make a donation, enquire about or sign up for one of our events or our lottery, sign up to our newsletter,  fundraise for us, complete a purchase through our online shop, or otherwise provide us with personal information.When you allow other parties to share your information with us.

We may collect your information if it is passed on to us on your behalf by a family member, friend, or other fundraiser. If you have given your permission, your information may be shared with us by fundraising sites such as JustGiving, or by external event organisers, such as marathons or challenges. Please check the privacy policies of these individual parties to further understand how they will use your information.

When your information is available publicly or from other external sources

We may on occasion combine information about you that is publicly available with the information you give us, to ensure you receive relevant information from us. This may include online sources such as Companies House or the Land Registry website as well as newspaper articles and information you publish on social media.

2. What information do we collect?
  • The personal information we collect may include your name, date of birth, postal address, email address, telephone number, and credit/debit card details (if you are making a donation or a purchase from our website). Due to the nature of our work, we may also collect information about your child/children including their name(s) and date(s) of birth, as well as you and/or your child/children’s medical history where appropriate. In particular, we collect information regarding the health of the children whose families we support in our ‘Homes from Home’. We may also collect information regarding your health if you are taking part in a challenge event or something similar. This falls under the category of sensitive personal information, which also covers racial or ethnic origin, religious beliefs, political opinion and trade union membership. We only collect sensitive personal information where it is necessary to do so, to ensure that we provide you with the most relevant information and services.
  • We collect information about the use of our website, such as which pages users visit most often, which are of most interest and which items are downloaded or accessed. We may also track what users are clicking on in our emails and which webpages they go on to visit. Wherever possible we use aggregated or anonymous information which does not identify individual email recipients or individual visitors to our website.
  • We hold a suppression list of those who have indicated that they would not like to receive further communications from us (for more information on opting out of our communications, please see ‘How to request that we edit, update or remove your personal data’ below).
3. How do we use your personal information?

We may use your personal information in the following ways:

  • To analyse the information you give us to better understand our supporters and their needs and preferences. We may also use this information to monitor usage of our ‘Homes from Home’, including who is using them and how often they are being used.
  • To provide you with information you have asked us for, in our publications, by email or over the phone.
  • To ensure we give you the best service possible, whether that be to enhance the service that our staff provide, let you know about anything we feel may be of interest to you, to fulfil gift aid declarations and orders from our website, to improve our information and communications, or to personalise the website to better suit your needs.
  • To contact you for marketing and fundraising purposes, but always in line with new GDPR legislation. This includes where you have explicitly opted in to receive communications from us, and also, in the case of sending Marketing or Fundraising communications by post, where we believe that we have legitimate interest to do so. We will always balance our legitimate interest against your rights as an individual and act in a way that does not contradict your previously expressed preferences (i.e. if you have opted out of communications by post, we will not send these).
  • For targeted fundraising, to ensure that we are contacting you with the information that is most useful and of most interest to you. To achieve this, we may use profiling techniques, including using internet research to combine information that is publically available with the information you have given us. If you would prefer that we didn’t use your information for profiling purposes, then you can opt out at any time by emailing us at info@sickchildrentrust.org
  • We may need to 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).
    For internal record keeping, for example a suppression list or to record feedback or complaints.
4. Who do we share your data with?

We will never sell or swap your information with third parties. The only organisations we will share your information with are trusted partners, agencies and suppliers whom we have retained to assist us to more effectively undertake our work. For example, this would be mailing houses who print and post our newsletters and mailings, our email provider if you have signed up to receive email communication from us and our direct debits processor.

All our trusted partners are required to comply with data protection laws and our high standards of data protection. They can only process your information in strict compliance with our instructions, and only have access to your information for these purposes. We have robust third party data processing agreements in place for each of these suppliers.

We promote our aims and activities online, including via platforms such as Facebook. We may ​ask a platform to show our adverts to a particular group of individuals, including you, and we may share your data to show you these advertisements but only where your privacy settings permit.

We will never share your data for any other purposes.

5. Security of data

The ongoing security of your data is of upmost importance to us.

We have in place 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.

We will only keep your information for as long as is reasonable and necessary. This may be to fulfil statutory obligations, to ensure that we are able to operate the service in accordance with legal requirements and tax and accounting rules, and for the administration of Gift Aid.

If we no longer need your information, we will ensure that it is disposed of securely.

6. How to request that we edit, update or remove your personal data

You can always let us know if you would like a copy of the information we hold about you, or if you would like us to edit, update or remove your information. You can do this by emailing info@sickchildrenstrust.org calling 020 7638 4066 or writing to The Sick Children’s Trust, 4th Floor, 28-30 Worship Street, London, EC2A 2AH.

7. Changes to this policy

This policy will be updated from time to time so please check back here to stay up to date. This version is correct as of June 2021

8. Complaints Procedure

The Sick Children’s Trust takes all concerns and complaints very seriously as they provide us with opportunities to improve and maintain the high standards we strive to achieve. We will ensure that we make changes to our practices as necessary.

How to make a general complaint

To make a complaint or raise a concern please:

The Sick Children’s Trust will acknowledge and provide an initial response to your feedback within three working days of receiving it. If we need to conduct a more in-depth investigation, we will provide you with a clear and evidence based full response within 28 days.

Requirements for The Sick Children’s Trust within the complaints procedure

In order to investigate your complaint fully, The Sick Children’s Trust will complete an internal complaints form detailing the following for our records:

  • Name
  • Date complaint received
  • Nature of complaint
  • Details of any investigation undertaken
  • A copy of all communications between you and The Sick Children’s Trust.

Please note, the record of complaint will be retained for 24 months from the date it was made in compliance with the Fundraising Regulator’s Good Practice guide. However, if you wish to have your details and information removed, in line with data protection we will act upon your request.

The Sick Children’s Trust cannot respond to complaints made anonymously. However, we will investigate the complaint and use the information to improve in any way that we can.

If the complaint is escalated to the Fundraising Regulator, The Sick Children’s Trust will fully cooperate and consider its recommendation(s).

How to make a fundraising complaint

If you have a complaint about fundraising activities run by The Sick Children’s Trust or undertaken by a third party, please in the first instance raise it with The Sick Children’s Trust (as directed above). If you are dissatisfied with the response, please refer your complaint within two months (of The Sick Children’s Trust’s final response) to the Fundraising Regulator by visiting their website or by calling 0300 999 3407. The Fundraising Regulator will aim to let you know whether an investigation will go ahead within four weeks of receipt according to its own code of practice.

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