Privacy Policy

PRIVACY POLICY

Noah’s Ark Children’s Hospice is committed to protecting and respecting your privacy and data. Whether you are a supporter, or your family uses our services and/or facilities at The Ark, we want to be transparent about why we need your information and how we will use it. 

WHO WE ARE

Noah’s Ark Children’s Hospice helps babies, children and young people with life-threatening or life-limiting conditions, and their families, make the most of every day. And we support those who die young to do so in as much comfort as possible, surrounded by family. We are here to enable those we support to enjoy life as children, rather than as patients; as families, not just as carers. 

The following information provides details on how we may collect, use, and where appropriate share personal information in accordance with the UK General Data Protection Regulations (UK GDPR). 

YOUR ACCEPTANCE OF THIS POLICY AND OUR RIGHT TO CHANGE IT 

By providing your information, you consent to our collection and use of the information you provide in the way(s) set out in this policy. If you do not agree to this policy, please consider carefully whether you wish to provide your information. From time to time, we may make changes to this policy. If we do, we will post the changes on our website, and changes will apply from the time we publish them.  

Noah’s Ark Children’s Hospice is responsible for ensuring compliance and implementation of this policy. Our contact details are below: 

Noah’s Ark Children’s Hospice, The Ark, Byng Road, Barnet, EN5 4NP 

Email: [email protected] 

Telephone: 020 8449 8877 

Registered charity number: 1081156 

PRIVACY NOTICE

This Privacy Notice forms part of our Privacy & Data Protection policy. At Noah’s Ark we protect your rights and provide you with our contact details should you have questions about the data we process that relates to you personally. 

Our day-to-day activities involves processing and storing personal information relating to our supporters. We adhere to the requirements of the Data Protection Act 2018 https://www.gov.uk/data-protection. 

HOW WE COLLECT AND USE YOUR DATA 

The personal data we hold is provided by you. Some examples of the ways you may have engaged with us are: 

  1. You subscribe to our newsletter or e-news.
  2. You have donated funds, gifts or gifts in kind to us.
  3. You play in our ‘Your Hospice lottery’ or one of our raffles.
  4. You wish to, or have, attended an event.
  5. You have made a complaint or enquiry to us.
  6. You have made an information request to us.

The information you receive about us and the ways in which you can get involved are your choice. You can change your mind at any time or ask to see the information we hold about you, by contacting Noah’s Ark Children’s Hospice, The Ark, Byng Road, Barnet, EN5 4NP. You can also call 020 8449 8877 or email [email protected]  

It’s important that you understand what information we hold, how we may use it, and what your rights are. Here’s a quick summary: 

  • We collect information that is either personal or non-personal data – such as webpages accessed. 
  • We collect information about the families and children we provide support to, supporters, general users, volunteers and employees. 
  • We collect information to provide services, information to fundraise for our vital work, for administration, profiling, analysis, and for the prevention and detection of crime. 
  • We will update your data when you tell us to do so. 
  • We only collect the information that we need or that would be useful, to provide you with the best possible service and experience. 
  • We do our utmost to keep personal information secure, including SSL technology (secure server software) wherever we collect personal data online. 
  • We never sell your data, and we will never share it with another company or charity for marketing purposes. 
  • We only share data where we are required to by law or with carefully selected partners we work with. All our partners are legally required by their contract to treat your data carefully and to only use it as instructed.  

Our websites use cookies to track information about how people are using it. 

YOUR RIGHTS 

You have certain rights in relation to your personal information. We try to be as transparent as possible in our communications with you. Those rights will not apply in all cases or to all information that we hold about you. For example, we may need to continue to hold and process information to establish, exercise or defend our legal rights. 

You have the right to: 

  • Request a copy of the information we hold about you. 
  • To be informed about why we need and how we use your data. 
  • Update or amend incorrect/out of date information we hold about you. 
  • Change the way we communicate with you at any time. 
  • Ask for your personal information to be removed from our records. Please note that we may retain your name, home and email address on a ‘suppression list’ – this means that you will be excluded from all future communications and we will not make contact with you. 
  • Object to the processing of your information for marketing purposes. 
  • Raise a concern or complaint about the way in which your information is used. 
RIGHT OF ACCESS REQUEST

You have a right of access to your personal data. If you make a formal request, we will require proof of your identity before we can disclose any information. We may also ask you to clarify the specific information you are looking for to help us deal with your request as quickly as is possible. 

We aim to provide you with the information that you are entitled to within one month from the date your identity has been verified by us. 

To find out more about your rights, or to obtain a copy of the information we hold about you, please contact us at:  

Noah’s Ark Children’s Hospice, The Ark, Byng Road, Barnet, EN5 4NP 

Email: [email protected]  

Telephone: 020 8449 8877 

THE ACCURACY OF YOUR DATA 

We aim to ensure that the information we hold about you is accurate and up to date. However, if you advise the information that we hold about you is inaccurate or we become aware in another way of its inaccuracy, we will update it as soon as possible. 

To update your details please contact a member of the Supporter Engagement Team on 020 8449 8877 or email: [email protected] 

THIRD PARTIES

We occasionally use external organisations (third parties) who provide services for us. Your personal information will not be shared by them with any organisation apart from us. We liaise with them to ensure your personal data is held securely and retained only for as long as required. Third party contracts are in place with our data processors. 

In some circumstances we may be legally obliged to share information. For example, under a court order or where we cooperate with other regulatory bodies such as the Care Quality Commission, Charities Commission, or HMRC during inspections or investigations. We might also share information with other regulatory bodies to further their, or our, objectives. In any scenario, we’ll satisfy ourselves that we have a lawful basis on which to share the information. We will document our decision making and satisfy ourselves that we have a legal basis on which to share the information. 

On rare occasions, we may be required by law, to share information with law enforcement agencies such as the Police. Please note that you will not be informed if this takes place. 

The generosity of philanthropists enables our work and we aim to build meaningful long-term relationships with our supporters. To that end, we may carry out research to understand your connection to the Charity, your capacity to support at a higher level, and your areas of interest in our work.

We carry out research directly and in some instances we will use trusted third party partners, such as wealth screening and prospect research agencies to manage our resources more efficiently.

In undertaking this research, we may seek publicly available data regarding wealth indicators such as profession, house prices and other factors relating to your place of work, area of residence or other information we hold, and overlay this on our database to estimate the potential for existing supporters to give more significant donations to the Charity, and to enable us to contact them to explore this. We may also record information about your propensity to support the Charity, such as your support of other charities, where this is in the public domain. We may create flags in our database to record these indicators.

We also conduct due diligence research on existing and potential supporters to ensure that donations accepted are unlikely to cause reputational damage to the Charity that could impact our ability to fundraise from other sources, or to provide our services.

We may hold data about people with whom we do not have a relationship, but whom we believe might support the Charity, including patients and contacts of Noah’s Ark Children’s Hospice who have a connection to our work, local philanthropists, or those who are known to support our area of work, or any other reason we think someone might be interested in supporting the Charity. In these instances we may research these people using any of the methods above, and hold their data for up to three years before contacting them, at which point we will collect the individual’s communication preferences

OUR LEGAL BASIS FOR COLLECTING AND SHARING PERSONAL DATA

We must have a lawful basis for processing your information. These will vary on the circumstances of why we process and how we use your information: 

The legal bases for the bulk of our processing are the activities are within our legitimate interests as a charity that provides hospice care for babies, children and young people and their families. This includes our legitimate interest to generate support, donations and income through direct marketing. We consider and balance any potential risks (both positive and negative) and your rights before we process your personal data for our legitimate interests. We will not use your personal data where our interests are overridden by the impact on you. You have the right to ask us not to process your personal data for marketing purposes. 

Where the processing is necessary for compliance, we have a legal obligation to which we are subject i.e., we must provide certain contact information and other details about our services to HMRC and The Charity Commission, 

  1. The processing is necessary for us to perform a task – in the public interest or for our official functions and the task or function has a clear basis in law. 
  2. The processing is necessary for a contract we have with the individual, or because they have asked you to take specific steps before entering into a contract. 
  3. To protect vital interests e.g., the processing is necessary to protect someone’s life. 
  4. You have given consent for us to process the information. 

Occasionally, we may use a balancing test (Legitimate Interest Assessment) to support our processing of activities and to help us demonstrate accountability. This process proves that we have taken in to account all considerations in determining and processing the data in question. 

CHANGES TO THIS POLICY  

From time to time, we may update this policy. When significant changes are made to the way we treat your personal information we will send a notice to the primary email address you have provided us with or by placing a notice on our website or via our e-newsletter. By continuing to use our website you will be deemed to have accepted the changes. 

We occasionally review our approach to consent and the balancing of legitimate interest with the rights and interests of the individual. If the balancing exercise indicates a different approach would be appropriate, we may change our approach accordingly. A change in the law may also require us to review this policy. 

STORING YOUR INFORMATION

Information is stored by us on computers located in the UK. We may also store some information in paper files in secure cabinets. 

For financial and technical reasons, we may, on occasion, need to use the services of a supplier outside the European Economic Area (EEA).  If this were to occur, we would ensure that your information is held in compliance with the Data Protection Act and the General Data Protection Regulations. By submitting your personal information you agree to this transfer, storing or processing at a location outside the EEA. We will take all reasonable steps to ensure that your data us kept secure and in accordance with this privacy policy. 

We place great importance on the security of all personal data and information associated with our supporters, customers and beneficiaries. We have security measures in place to protect against the loss, misuse and alteration of personal data under our control – such as, only authorised personnel are permitted to access user information and we use secure server software (SSL) to encrypt financial and personal information you input before it is sent to us. 

Please note, we cannot guarantee that loss, misuse or alteration of data will not occur while under our control, but we use our best efforts to try to always prevent this. 

We will keep your information to deliver our services and we always take into consideration our legal, tax and accounting obligations when deciding how long we should keep it. The data we hold for you allows us to provide details of the services and information you have requested. This helps us to manage your relationship with us and your preferences to comply with the law. We will not communicate with you if you have asked us not to do so.  

YOUR PRIVACY INTERESTS

When we process your personal information for our legitimate interests, we consider and balance any potential impact on you and your rights under data protection and relevant law. Our legitimate business interests do not automatically override your interests – we will not use your personal data for activities where our interests are overridden by the impact on you (unless where we are required or permitted to by law, for example where we are required by law to share personal data to HMRC for Gift Aid purposes or are required to share information with the Police). 

The following are examples of when and why we would use this approach in our work: 

  1. Direct Marketing
  2. Ordering or entering events online
  3. Your best interest
  4. Personalisation
  5. Data analytics
  6. in-house research 
  7. Research
  8. Due diligence 
  9. Complaints

Our income generation opportunities are greatly increased if we undertake fundraising appeals. Experience has shown that direct fundraising appeals can generate positive response rates. 

Where relevant, we will use postal communications to contact people. For example, our unsolicited introductory communications to people who have not previously engaged are weighted toward postal contact. 

MARKETING

Noah’s Ark Children’s Hospice undertake a range of marketing and communications activities to keep our supporters and those interested in the charity up to date on what we are doing. This may include newsletters, financial appeals and general updates from the charity. Awareness of the charity and our work is essential to the success of all areas of Noah’s Ark – inclusive of service usage.   

As a charity we are dependent on the support and generosity of people in fundraising and volunteering. When people have shown an interest in supporting us before, we believe that you may or will be interested in supporting us in the future. We always try and be as open as we can and will respect your rights and wishes if you ask us not to contact you.  

MARKETING PREFERENCES

We will only market to you in the way you have explicitly given consent for us to do so. You can tell us if you would like to receive communications from us via post, telephone and/or email. You can change your preferences at any time by emailing: [email protected] or calling 020 8449 8877. 

HOW WE MARKET TO YOU

There are a variety of methods to send marketing to you, including post, telephone and email. We do all we can to ensure our marketing does not cause distress or overwhelm. There may be times when we get in touch with you because of legitimate interest. Our decision to use legitimate interest has been carefully considered weighing up our interests against your rights to privacy. 

This policy was updated in August 2024. Review date: April 2026.