At Samaritans, privacy is at the heart of what we do.
We are committed to protecting your privacy and the personal information that we hold. This statement is explains how Hillingdon Samaritans uses your personal information, whether you are using our service, interested in volunteering or making a donation. We may revise it from time to time.
Who are we?
Samaritans offers a safe place for you to talk, any time, in whatever way is best for you.
Samaritans has more than 200 branches and locations in the UK, the Republic of Ireland, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man, some of which are independent charities.
Samaritans of Hillingdon is an independent Charitable Incorporated Organisation, registered with charity number 1174063.
Within this Privacy Statement ‘we’ and ‘us’ means Hillingdon Samaritans.
How we use personal information
If you use Samaritans’ service
Hillingdon Samaritans works strictly within the policies of the Central Charity to protect information about those who use our service. Whilst we process such data for brief periods under agreement with them, we do not store it. The Central Charity is the data controller and you should refer to their policy (here) for details or to contact them.
If you visit our premises in person, your image may be captured on our CCTV system that monitors outside areas purely for security and crime prevention purposes. Recorded data is kept securely, only viewed in the event of an incident, and deleted automatically after 2 weeks unless a specific incident makes it necessary to keep a particular segment for longer. We store this information for this brief period under the ‘legitimate interest’ legal basis.
If you enquire about helping, donate or volunteer with us
If you offer to help us, we need to record your details in order to respond and to process your donation or application. We do this for both our and your ‘legitimate interests’, as we are storing only information you have given us or know about and are only using it in ways you would expect us to that are not unduly intrusive.
In some cases, details of potential supporters are sent to us by the Central Charity or another branch, under a written agreement and subject to security provisions. We may also share information about existing and prospective volunteers with the Central Charity for statistical and monitoring purposes and, with your knowledge and consent, with referees whose names you give us and with the government’s Disclosures and Barring Service.
If you join Hillingdon Samaritans as a volunteer or ask us to keep you informed of activities and events, we will store your details on a secure system run by Three Rings CIC. They, in turn will share your email address with SendInBlue or other email provider in order for us to send messages to you. You can see and control the data stored, which comprises the information you have given us, plus details of your shifts, training attended, additional responsibilities you hold, and any emails you have sent or received to or from other volunteers through the system. Written agreements prevent either of these companies disclosing or using your data in any way other than sanctioned by us.
If you donate to us via an online payment site, such as BT MyDonate or CAF, they will share with us your contact details, donation amount and any message, but not your credit card information. Please refer to the payment site in question for their privacy policy. If you increase the value of your donation through the government Gift Aid scheme, we may need to pass your name, address and donation amount to HMRC.
If you request to sponsor a day of our operation through our Ruby Appeal, your chosen message and any name or nickname you have specified will be displayed on our website on the day in question, and on the calendar of the year. Your contact details will also be stored in order that we can email you in advance of the message appearing and to invite you to renew your support. This Ruby Appeal data is held under an agreement with us by Wordspree, who may not disclose the data to anyone else or for any other purpose.
We may contact volunteers and supporters by email or post, unless you have asked us not to.
We may disclose your personal information if we are requested to do so by a regulator or law enforcement bodies, or where we are otherwise required to do so by law. We may also need to share your information with external organisations in the case of suspected fraud or for the prevention or detection of other crimes.
We will never sell or pass your personal information to other organisations to use for their own purposes.
Where and how we store your information
Hillingdon Samaritans stores data only on UK computers subject to various technical and organisational measures to keep your data safe. Electronic databases are stored on secure computer systems and we control who has access to information, using both physical and electronic means. Our volunteers receive data protection training and are provided with guidance that they are required to follow when handling personal information.
Although we do our best to keep your information safe, the transmission of information over the internet is never completely secure, so please bear this in mind when you share information with us via our website.
How long we keep your personal information for
We only keep your personal information for as long as required, depending on what it was collected for, and in accordance with legal requirements and tax and accounting rules.
If you have told us that you don’t want to be contacted by Hillingdon Samaritans, we will keep your details on a ‘suppression’ list to help ensure that we do not continue to contact you.
Your rights
The data protection laws give you certain rights over your personal information and how we use it. These include:
- the right of access to a copy of the information that we hold about you;
- the right to ask us to correct inaccurate information that we hold about you;
- the right, in certain circumstances, to object to specific uses of your data; and
- the right, in certain circumstances, to request the information that we hold about you to be deleted.
If you wish to exercise any of these rights, please:
- Put your request in writing and email or post it to the relevant address below.
- Provide proof of identity including your name and postal address.
Help us to respond to you as quickly as possible by being specific about which information you would like to receive a copy of or that you would like us to amend/delete. We will only send a response to a subject access request to you at a postal address.
Using our website
Do we use 'Cookies'?
Our website uses cookies, as almost all websites do. Cookies are small text files that are placed on your computer or mobile phone when you browse websites. You can find more information about how we use cookies and update your cookie preferences on our cookie policy pages.
Contacting us
Hillingdon Samaritans, 2 Press Road, Uxbridge UB8 1AT