Our Privacy & GDPR Policy
Contents
1. Who are we?
2. Our commitment to your privacy
3. Why do we collect your personal data?
4. What kind of personal data do we collect? How do we collect it?
5. How do we store your data?
6. Your rights
7. Making a complaint
8. Leaving our website
1. Who are we?
Chew Valley Plants Trees (the “group”, “CVPT”, “us”, “we”) formed in February 2020 with the aim to double tree cover in the Chew Valley area over the next 10 years, and to becoming a hub of tree-planting expertise.
CVPT is deeply concerned about the impact climate breakdown will have on our environment and are actively engaged in doing what it can at a grass roots level. Tree planting is widely accepted as a crucial means of capturing carbon from the atmosphere, but at c. 7% woodland cover the Chew Valley has only half the woodland cover the UK has on average. The UK itself falls far below that of other countries.
CVPT acknowledges that much of the land in the Chew Valley is prime arable land that sustains the livelihoods of so many families in the Valley, and the group does not want to change this; in fact it wants to enhance it. Using data mapping techniques part funded by Friends of the Earth, CVPT believes it is possible to double tree cover using marginal grassland only. Going a step further, techniques such as agro-forestry could be used to benefit existing land uses such as grazing to increase productivity. Besides storing carbon, increasing tree cover provides real, tangible benefits such as providing shade, improving water quality, increasing habitats for pollinators and other wildlife, not to mention the mental health of our communities. Trees are positive for our lives and livelihoods as well as nature.
As a group we want to engage with local landowners in the Chew Valley area to encourage tree planting and other environmentally sustainable practices, and to become a hub to engage the wider community about the benefits planting trees and hedgerows can bring.
2. Our commitment to your privacy
At CVPT we are committed to protecting the personal information and right to privacy of our members, supporters and volunteers. Below we have outlined our policy concerning how we collect information, what we do with it and what controls you have.
Firstly we will never sell your personal data. Should you wish to find out more about the information we hold about you, or about our privacy policy, that cannot be found below, please contact us:
Ben Newton, Data Protection Officer
We will always handle personal information in a lawful, fair and transparent manner. No information will be kept after a supporter or volunteer has informed us of their wish for CVPT to delete their data. If we learn of a funder, volunteer or supporter’s death, their information will be removed from our records.
We use three key definitions to describe people mentioned in this policy. These are definitions used by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK’s independent body set up to uphold information rights (www.ico.org.uk)
‘Data subject’: this is you, one of our members and supporters. As the data subject, we respect your right to control your data.
‘Data controller’: this is us, chew Valley Plants Trees. With your permission, we determine why and how your personal data is used (as outlined in this policy).
‘Data processor’: this is a person, or organisation, who processes your data on our behalf, with your permission. For example, this might be an online payments provider such as Stripe or Paypal.
3. Why do we collect your personal data?
We use your personal data to keep in touch with you. We will only ever collect, store and use your personal data when we have an identified purpose and reason to do so. Firstly, we will never sell your data, and we will never share it with other organisations without your consent.
a) To enable you to volunteer with us
If you are a CVPT volunteer, we collect your personal data so that we can keep in touch with you about, for example:
Changes to planned volunteer work programmes that you may be taking part in
The positive impact you have on our work, by sending you our newsletter
Dedicated volunteer thank-you events
b) To contact you regarding events we are organising
We collect your personal data so that we can keep in touch with you about, for example:
Events we are organising and that we think you may be interested in
Changes to planned events that you may be taking part in
c) To contact you about the provision of any items, such as trees, that you have indicated an interest in
We collect your personal data to:
Contact you about arranging deliveries of any trees and ancillary products you may have pledged to receive from CVPT
d) To contact you regarding a donation you may have made
We collect your personal data to:
Contact you to say a huge thank you
Get in touch should there ever be any issues processing your donation payment
e) To send you information about our work, our fund-raising and ask for your opinion
We collect your personal data to:
Create a mailing list of individuals to communicate information to
Contact you in relation to any information about our work, our community, or about our fundraising activities
Contact you to ask for your opinion, or for your help, regarding our activities
You can opt-out of communications or change how we keep in touch at any time. If you wish to do so please contact us.
4. What kind of personal data do we collect? How do we collect it?
a) Basic information
We will usually collect basic information about you, including your name, postal address, telephone number and email address.
We collect this data from you directly. Sometimes this is in person; other times, it is over the telephone, in writing, through an email or through our website and social media channels.
b) Getting to know you better
We also collect information about you that helps us to get to know you better. This may include:
your preferences of how you would like us to contact you
ways you’ve helped us through volunteering your time
records of donations you’ve made towards fundraising appeals (unless you have specifically asked to remain anonymous)
records of events you’ve attended, or campaigns or activities that you’ve been involved in
c) Sensitive personal data
We do not normally collect or store sensitive personal data (such as information relating to health, beliefs or political affiliation) about supporters and members. However, there are some situations where this might occur.
When we do so, we will be very clear as to why we are collecting such information, and we will only do so with your specific consent and permission. In these situations, we collect the data from you directly.
It may be that in the future we may collect extra information about you should you take on a specific role in CVPT, for example:
References
Criminal records checks
Details of emergency contacts
Medical conditions
We may also collect sensitive personal data if you are attending an event as volunteer and have access needs or medical conditions that require specific support or have an accident at one of our events. This information will be retained for legal reasons, for safeguarding purposes and to protect us (including in the event of an insurance or legal claim). If this does occur, we’ll take extra care to ensure your privacy rights are protected.
5. How do we store your data?
a) Security
All of the personal data we process is processed by our members in the UK. However, for the purposes of IT hosting and maintenance your information may be situated outside of the European Economic Area (EEA). This will be done in accordance with guidance issued by the Information Commissioner’s Office.
Electronic data and databases are stored on secure computer systems and we control who has access to information (using both physical and electronic means). We have a set of detailed data protection procedures which personnel are required to follow when handling personal data.
b) Payment security
All electronic CVPT forms that request financial data will use the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol to encrypt the data between your browser and our servers.
If you use a credit card to donate, make a membership donation or purchase something online we will pass your credit card details securely to our payment providers (Stripe or Paypal).
CVPT complies with the payment card industry data security standard (PCI-DSS) published by the PCI Security Standards Council, and will never store card details.
Of course, we cannot guarantee the security of your home computer or the internet, and any online communications (e.g. information provided by email or our website) are at the user’s own risk.
c) Data retention policy
We will only use and store information for as long as it required for the purposes it was collected for. We review what information we hold every 5 years, and delete what is no longer required.
We will only use and store information for so long as it is required for the purposes it was collected for. How long information will be stored for depends on the information in question and what it is being used for. For example, if you ask us not to send you marketing emails, we will stop storing your emails for marketing purposes (though we’ll keep a record of your preference not to be emailed).
We continually review what information we hold and delete what is no longer required. We never store payment card information.
6. Your rights
We respect your right to control your data. Your rights include:
a) The right to be informed. This privacy notice outlines how we capture, store and use your data. If you have any questions about any elements of this policy, please contact us.
b) The right of access. If you wish to obtain a record of the personal data we hold about you, through a Subject Access Request (https://ico.org.uk/your-data-matters/your-right-of-access/). We will respond within one month.
c) The right to rectification. If we have captured information about you that is inaccurate or incomplete, we will update it.
d) The right to erase. You can ask us to remove or randomise your personal details from our records.
e) The right to restrict processing. You can ask us to stop using your personal data.
f) The right to data portability. You can ask to obtain your personal data from us for your own purposes.
g) The right to object. You can ask to be excluded from marketing activity.
h) Rights in relation to automated decision making and profiling. We respect your right not to be subject to a decision that is based on automated processing.
For more information on your individual rights, please see the Information Commissioner’s Office.
7. Making a complaint
CVPT wants to exceed your expectations in everything we do. However, we know that there may be times when we do not meet our own high standards. When this happens, we want to hear about it, in order to deal with the situation as quickly as possible and put measures in place to stop it happening again.
We take complaints very seriously and we treat them as an opportunity to develop our approach. This is why we are always very grateful to hear from people who are willing to take the time to help us improve.
Our policy is:
To provide a fair complaints procedure that is clear and easy to use for anyone wishing to make a complaint.
To publicise the existence of our complaints procedure so that people know how to contact us to make a complaint.
To make sure everyone in our organisation knows what to do if a complaint is received.
To make sure all complaints are investigated fairly and in a timely way.
To make sure that complaints are, wherever possible, resolved and that relationships are repaired.
To learn from complaints and feedback to help us to improve what we do.
All complaint information will be handled sensitively, in line with relevant data protection requirements.
8. Leaving our website
We are not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of any other websites linked to our website. If you have followed a link from our website to another website you may be supplying information to a third party.