Privacy Policy

1. Introduction
Birth Empowered is committed to integrity and transparency at every level of the organisation; this includes the ways that we collect, handle and maintain our data records. The purpose of this policy is to lay out how our values translate into how we handle personal data and to demonstrate how our information handling adheres to legislative and statutory requirements.

This policy outlines:
  • The scope and application of this policy
  • What information we collect
  • How we use and store personal data
  • Information about your right
  • Cookies policy

 

2. Scope
This policy applies to Birth Empowered who is the data controller with regards to personal data you have disclosed to us.

It applies to all data and information collected and held regarding individuals and businesses external to the organisation, and includes supporters, customers, stakeholders and interested parties. All data collected and held about individuals internal to the organisation including staff, volunteers and service users, is dealt with in the Internal Privacy and Data Handling Policy and Procedure.

This policy applies to information held in any format, both print and electronic, and extends to portable storage (USB/memory sticks etc) email, recordings and photographs. This policy draws on established good practice and guidance and recommendations contained on the Information Commissioner’s section for organisations https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/ the Data Protection Act 1998, the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003 (PECR) and the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) which take effect from the 25th May 2018.


3. What information we collect
We sometimes collect data from you when you interact with Birth Empowered online, face to face, by post, over the phone or by SMS. Some of this information is personal data which can be used to identify you. Personal data includes your name, address, date of birth, telephone number, email address and sometimes bank details if you are making a donation. We will only collect data which is relevant to the purpose for which you have given it.

Examples of when we collect information are when you do things such as:

  • Sign up for our newsletter
  • Sign up to hear about learning opportunities
  • Request information from us
  • Request training
  • Make online purchases

 

4. Why we collect personal data
We collect personal data to ensure you (our customers, supporters and interested parties) receive up to date information you have requested from us.

We also may use your personal data to keep you informed about our work based on what you have indicated you would like to receive, such as the newsletter, or information about learning opportunities.


5. How we will contact you
We may contact you via post, email, telephone or SMS text. However, we will only contact you through the channel you have told us you wish to receive our communication, and where we have received your consent to do so.

When we contact you directly about Birth Empowered, including courses, regular correspondence such as newsletters, or learning opportunities, this is a type of Direct Marketing. We contact you about these things when you have given us your consent to do so.

Some supporters may not have expressed their communication preferences to us. In those cases we will conduct a balancing exercise to determine whether or not we have a legitimate interest in continuing to send Direct Marketing. This balancing exercise will include recent contact, learning or purchasing activity, any previous notification that we may send Direct Marketing, whether we have previously given you a clear opportunity to opt-out of Direct Marketing and, importantly, whether you would reasonably expect to receive information from us. We will also ensure you have not objected to receiving Direct Marketing.

If you are a new supporter we will aim to capture your consent for Direct Marketing purposes at the data collection point. You do not have to give consent – it is your decision. If you do consent, we will also try and capture your preferences for how you would like to be contacted, by phone, text, email or by post. Should you wish you can specify a time limit for your consent to be valid, after which time we will not be able to contact you unless you give further consent. As a default position we will consider consent to remain valid while you are regularly interacting with us or receiving our regular communications and have not objected to doing so.

You can give or withdraw consent to Direct Marketing, or change your contact preferences at any time by emailing us at hello@birthempowered.org.


6. Storing and sharing personal data
Birth Empowered is committed to ensuring that there are appropriate technical controls in place to protect your personal details, for example, our online forms are always encrypted (this prevents other people accessing them) and our website is maintained and secure.

We regularly review who has access to information that we hold to ensure it is only accessible by trained staff and, where appropriate, volunteers.

Your data will not be processed outside of Birth Empowered and will not be disclosed to any parties outside of Birth Empowered, except for trusted parties and affiliates with whom we work, for example, sending e-newsletters or processing purchases.

We only enter into relationships with third parties who have appropriate data protection policies and procedures in place. All data held by third parties is deleted when it is no longer needed. We will always clearly indicate instances when your personal information will be shared with a third party.

Third parties we use are:

shopify for our website

gomodern for our newletter

carepatron for our support services


We regularly review the information that we hold, and remove data that is no longer required.

As part of our responsibilities to ensure that data we hold is accurate and up to date, and you can contact us to update any information we hold about you by emailing hello@birthempowered.org.

We will not disclose your data to any other third parties unless we have your explicit consent to do so. At no time will your data be passed to a third party for marketing purposes.

Your personal data will be held on our database during the period of our active relationship. Once we no longer require your data it will remain on our database indefinitely but will be marked inactive and no further steps will be taken to process it. We will not keep your personal data for any longer than it is necessary. Once it is no longer required we will take all reasonable steps to destroy it or erase it from our systems.



7. Your rights
In relation to us processing your personal data you have the following rights, which can be exercised at any time.

  • To withdraw your consent for us to process your data
  • To be forgotten – to request your data is no longer processed or stored by us
  • Subject Access Requests – a right to request a copy of the data we hold aboutyou.
  • To object to your data being used by us for the purpose of Direct Marketing.

If at any time you have concerns about the way your data has been processed by Birth Empowered, and these concerns cannot be resolved by Birth Empowered, you have the right to take those concerns externally and raise them with the regulator, the Information Commissioner, www.ico.org.uk


8. Questions and contact details
Contact us via email: hello@birthempowered.org