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Privacy policy

If you visit our website or contact us, this Privacy Notice is for you.

We (Gingerbread) are committed to protecting your personal information and respecting your privacy. Whenever you share personal information with us, we aim to be clear with you about how we use your personal information, and to not do anything with your personal information that you wouldn’t reasonably expect.

Gingerbread, the charity for single parent families, is registered in England and Wales as a company limited by guarantee, no. 402748, and a registered charity, no. 230750. You can contact us using the information set out in this Notice below in Section 13.

This Notice gives you detailed information on why and when we collect your personal information when you use our websites (including www.gingerbread.org.uk) and other services, how we use your personal information, how we keep it secure, and how you can let us know if you would like us to change how we manage it.

We update this Notice from time to time as we make improvements or when laws change. If we make significant changes to this Notice or the ways we use personal information, we will notify you where it’s reasonably possible for us to do so.

Further information is provided below on:

1. Collecting your personal information

2. How do we use your personal information?

3. Lawful bases

4. Helpline services

5. Supporter profiling and research

6. Who do we share your personal information with?

7. International data transfers

8. How do we keep your personal information safe?

9. How long do we keep your personal information?

10. Your rights

11. Change how we communicate with you

12. Change to this Notice

13. Contact us

1. Collecting your personal information

Personal information means any information which could be used to identify an individual. It does not include information where the identity of the individual has been fully and effectively removed (anonymous data).

We will never sell your personal information to other organisations and will only ever share it in appropriate, legal or exceptional circumstances (See Section 6).

We may collect the following personal information about you:

· Identification information, such as your name;

· Contact information, such as your email address, telephone number and postal address;

· Demographic information, such as your gender, ethnicity or marital status.

· Financial information, such as payment card details and billing address;

· Any other information you provide to us when you tell us your story or otherwise request our support.

When we collect personal information, we will always explain clearly what information we are collecting, why we are collecting it and how we’ll use it, including – in some cases – with a separate Privacy Notice or Statement. There are a number of ways we could receive your personal information:

  • Directly

If you give us your information directly for any reason. For example, when you make a donation or fundraise for us, contact us for support via our Helpline or other services, register as a member, ask about our activities, take part in our research, or tell us your story.

  • Indirectly

If you give your information to a third-party to pass on to us. For example, by using fundraising sites like JustGiving, Raisley or independent event organisers, such as Virgin London Marathon. We may also work on marketing initiatives with third parties under which they may share your personal information. These independent third parties will only share your personal information with us if you’ve indicated that you’re happy for them to do so. You should check the Privacy Notices or Policies of these third parties when you provide your personal information to them, in order to understand fully how they will process your personal information.

  • Publicly available

Occasionally we obtain personal information from public sources to better understand our supporters. For example, we might collect information from Companies House, charity or corporate annual reviews, or information that has been published via social media channels (where your settings are public) or in online and offline articles and newspapers.

  • Website and applications

We also collect certain technical information from you when you interact with our website and other applications. This information includes, for example, your IP address, operating system, browser type, and the amount of time you spend on web pages you visit. We collect this information using Cookies and via third-party tools such as Google Analytics. For more information about this, please see our Website Terms and Conditions. We sometimes use third-party applications on our website to provide a range of services. For a full list of third-party applications used on our website see our Website Terms and Conditions.

Special category data Certain types of personal information are sensitive and need more protection. For example, information about your race or ethnic origins, political opinions, sex life or sexual orientation, religious beliefs, and health information. There are also special rules about the use of criminal information (information about criminal convictions or allegations about criminal convictions). We only collect these types of information where we have a valid reason for doing so (for example, where we require it in order to provide support to a beneficiary) and only if the law allows us to do so. We may collect special category data when it’s relevant to the support that we provide to you, where we want to conduct research to ensure that we are providing services to different demographics, or when you provide us with this information when you tell us about your story.

2. How do we use your personal information?

We use your personal information to:

· Provide you with information about us (where you have requested it) and to communicate with you in general

· Send you updates about Gingerbread and our activities, services and products

· Administer your donation or support your fundraising, including processing gift aid

· Administer and process legacies (including establishing entitlement and processing legacy payments)

· Invite you to attend or to organise events, including focus groups

· Understand how we can improve our services, products or information to better support our beneficiaries

· Collect your story about your lived experiences of single parenthood for use within our communications, for example on our website or on social media channels

· Promote our charitable aims (including the use of case studies for this purpose)

· Create an evidence base to support our work and to influence policy

· Report to third parties, such as statutory authorities or other charity partner organisations, where we are contracted to provide a service on their behalf

· Monitor, analyse, evaluate and improve our operations (including our overall strategy) and our website, and to demonstrate our impact

· Recruit and train staff and volunteers

· Establish, defend or enforce legal claims

· Advertise to you on third party websites, such as Facebook

· Create lookalike and remarketing audiences on Facebook and Google, including uploading your email address so we can advertise to people who are similar to you (see below)

· Keep a record of your contact and relationship with us

· Ensure we know how you prefer to be contacted.

We will only use your personal information for the purposes for which we collected it unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another reason and that reason is compatible with the original purposes. If we need to use your personal information for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and explain the legal basis which allows us to do so.

We may combine the information you provide to us with information available from publicly available sources. This is so that in certain cases we can build a profile, better understand you and target our communications with the most relevant information. For example, we may wish to send you invitations

to attend special events or to discuss specific fundraising projects. Where we use such profiles it enables us to be more efficient and cost-effective with our resources, and also reduces the risk of someone receiving information that they might find irrelevant, intrusive or even distressing. For more information please see Section 5.

Direct marketing We will only contact you about our work and how you can support us by phone, email or text message, if you have agreed for us to contact you in this manner.

If you have provided us with your postal address, we may send you information about our work and how you can support us by mail unless you have told us that you would prefer not to hear from us in that way.

There are several ways you can stop direct marketing communications from us:

· Click the ‘unsubscribe’ link in any email communication that we send you. We will then stop any further emails from that particular service.

· Reply ‘STOP’ to any text message that we send you.

· Email us at data@gingerbread.org.uk or write to us at Gingerbread, 54-74 Holmes Road, London NW5 3AQ.

Developing a better understanding of our supporters through your personal information means we can make better decisions, fundraise more efficiently and, ultimately, support single parents and their families more effectively.

3. Lawful bases

The law on data protection sets out a number of reasons for which an organisation may collect and process your personal information. There are six lawful bases that we rely on, depending on why we are processing your information:

Consent – If you’ve given your consent to the processing of your personal information for one or more specific purposes. For example, you may voluntarily share personal information while registering to our services or providing feedback; in such instances, we will always ask for your explicit consent before requesting the information, and you have the right to refuse to consent to it. If we seek to rely on your consent when collecting your personal information, we will always make it clear to you which data is necessary in connection with a particular service and we will always make it clear how you can revoke your consent.

Legitimate interests – If we require your data to pursue our legitimate interests in a way which might reasonably be expected as part of running our charity. If we process your personal information for this reason, we believe we have a legitimate reason and that this reason does not materially impact and/or is not overridden by your rights, freedom or interests. For example, if you access our services, we may send you relevant, personalised communications about Gingerbread updates, campaigns, services and products. If we rely on our legitimate interest to use your personal information, you have the right to object.

Contractual – If the processing of your personal information is necessary for us to comply with our contractual obligations when entering into a contract or a contract we already have with you. This may include, for example, collecting your payment card details if you make a donation to us, or your address details if you place an order with us.

Legal obligation – If the processing of your personal information is necessary for us to comply with a legal obligation. For example, in order to claim gift aid on a donation, Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) requires us to retain your gift aid declaration which includes personal details such as your name, home address, and UK tax-payer status.

Vital interests – If the processing of your personal information is necessary to protect your vital interest, or those of another person. For example, we may share personal information with agencies, including local authority services and the police, where it is necessary to protect someone’s life. Any decisions we make to share personal information in this way will be in accordance with the Government’s advice, including: Information sharing: Advice for practitioners providing safeguarding to children, young people, parents and carers. To find out more about the lawful basis for processing personal information, visit the ICO website.

Public task – If the processing of your personal information is needed for us to perform a task in the public interest or for official functions, and the task or function has a clear basis in law. This basis can only be used by public sector organisations e.g. Government, local authorities.

Special Category Data – As mentioned above, we only collect and use more sensitive types of personal information (also known as special category data) where we have a valid reason for doing so, for example where you provide us with this information when you register as a Gingerbread member or tell us your story. In order to process special category data, we rely on your explicit consent or, and in accordance with the Data Protection Act 2018, on the condition that:

· we are supporting individuals with a particular disability or medical condition (where it is not reasonable for us to obtain your consent);

· the processing is necessary for us to provide you with confidential counselling, advice or support (where it is not reasonable for us to obtain your consent); and/ or

· the processing is necessary to safeguard the welfare of a child or an adult at risk.

4. Telephone Helpline and Online Webchat Services

This section of our Privacy Notice relates specifically to how we collect and use your personal information when you use our Helpline service. Based on your situation (for example, if there is a safeguarding concern or if we need to follow up with information via email or call back), we may collect the following personal information from you when you use our Helpline Service:

· Name;

· Telephone number and e-mail address;

· Any information you provide to us when you tell us your story.

We may also collect special category data if you provide this information as part of your conversation(s) with us when you use the Helpline or Webchat service, or if you consent to provide feedback following your engagement with the service.

We collect this personal information so that we can:

· Assist you with your queries and provide you with support;

· Call you back and/ or provide you with any further information, if you request this.

· Contact you at a later date to enquire about the impact of our service.

In order to collect and use your personal information in this way, we rely on the lawful basis that it is in our legitimate interests to do so and that our legitimate interests are not overridden by your rights and freedoms.

When processing special category data, we rely on the lawful bases detailed in the previous section. If you do not want us to collect and/ or store any of your personal information that we collect when you call the Helpline or use the webchat, you can either inform the Advice Worker that you speak/chat to or contact us using the details set out in Section 12 of this Privacy Notice.

5. Supporter profiling and research

We are grateful for every single donation we receive from our supporters – every penny goes towards our services, campaigning and other activities that help to improve the lives of single parent families. We want to ensure that what we ask of our supporters is fair, reasonable, and relevant to them. For this reason, we may sometimes engage in what is called ‘profiling’.

Profiling is standard practice across the charity sector, it simply means that we look at your personal information and consider what’s appropriate to ask of you or send to you. Profiling is a form of processing of personal information to build up a picture of a person. We may use the information we hold about you based on your interactions with us to help us build our relationship with you and personalise what we offer.

We may do this manually, for example by looking at the information you have given us, or information that’s publicly available – for example on social media, Companies House, and online/offline articles or newspapers. We will only ever access third-party or public sources which we consider to be credible and accurate.

It means we can tailor communications so that they are relevant (perhaps in relation to one of our services in your area), timely, and respectful – only asking for donations that are within a supporter’s means, or that are appropriate for those who may be able/willing to give more than they already do.

It also enables us to identify those who might be in a position of being able to help us fund entire projects or services, and whether they would like to meet with us to develop a more personal relationship and/or discuss future opportunities to support our work in helping single-parent families.

We do not undertake automated decision-making, which would involve making significant decisions affecting you solely by automated means.

Opting out of supporter profiling It is your right to opt-out of your information being used for any sort of profiling, to do this please send a request to data@gingerbread.org.uk.

6. Who do we share your personal information with?

We will not sell or exchange your details with any third parties. Depending on why you provided us with your personal information and how we are using it, we may need to share your information with other organisations or individuals. This may include those who are authorised to provide services and act on our behalf, for example, in processing payments, the printing of letters or delivery of products. We have systems and processes in place to ensure your personal information is stored securely and is used only for the purposes it was provided.

We may also share your personal information with third parties where necessary to protect or defend our legal rights or the rights of another party.

Public and governmental authorities We may have to share your personal information with another organisation to comply with the law. For example, if you provide us with VAT exemption information, we may have to share your completed VAT exemption form with HMRC if requested.

In exceptional circumstances, we may be required to share your details where the wider duty of care or the public interest might justify making it known. For example, if there is a risk of harm to an individual and/or to others, if we receive a court order, to comply with the law, or when instructed by the police or regulatory bodies.

  • Social media

We may share your personal information (such as email address and phone number) with social media sites (such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter and LinkedIn) when we use social media tools to show you Gingerbread content while you use these services. This information may also be used by the social media site on our behalf to identify other users with similar interests who may be interested in our content. These social media services may also receive some personal information about you when you visit our website, or view our videos, and engage with us in that way (in other words, we identify individuals who might be interested in our work and our aims, and then ask social media platforms to check whether those individuals have accounts with them and, if so, provide those individuals with our advertising and campaigning material). For more detailed information, please see Facebook’s information about custom audiences and data policy.

Please note: You have the right to object to this. If you do not want us to share your email address or telephone number with social media sites (even in encrypted form), then you can ask us not to by contacting us using the details below. You can also control what ads you see via your ad settings within social media sites such as Facebook; we have no control over this.

  • Email marketing

We use email marketing software to send emails to update our supporters on our work and provide advice and support to our members. These software use your email address and also store a record of your consent to hear from us. To send you emails that are particularly relevant to you, we may also use your location if you have provided us with your postcode.

  • Third party service providers, software and applications

We sometimes use third party applications and software to deliver particular services via our website, for example, our Webchat. For a full list of third party applications and software used by Gingerbread that may collect personal information from users see Terms and conditions – Gingerbread.

As mentioned above, we may also share your personal information with third parties that provide services on our behalf, such as third parties that we engage to process payments, print letters or deliver our products.

  • Third parties in corporate transactions

In connection with any proposed or actual reorganisation, merger, sale, joint venture, assignment, transfer or other disposition of all or part of our organisation, we may share your personal information as part of the transferring of assets.

  • Professional advisors

We may share your personal information with our accountants, auditors, lawyers, insurers, bankers or other professional advisors.

7. International data transfers

We do not currently transfer personal information we hold to a country outside the UK. If we do so, we will take steps to ensure that your personal information is protected in accordance with appropriate safeguards especially where the recipient country is not considered to be adequate under UK law. In particular, we will rely on the appropriate safeguards under data protection legislation, such as standard contractual clauses approved by the UK Government to protect your personal information.

8. How do we keep your personal information safe?

Gingerbread is responsible for collecting your personal information. We use rigorous procedures when we collect your personal information in order to prevent unauthorised access – for example, any donation payment details are encrypted and the forms you complete on our site are transmitted through a secured connection (known as secure sockets layer, SSL). However, no data transmission over the Internet is 100% secure and although we try to protect your personal information, Gingerbread cannot guarantee the security of any information you transmit to us and you do so at your own risk. We have appropriate technical controls in place to protect your personal details. We ensure that your information is only accessible by appropriately trained staff, volunteers and contractors.

When we use external companies to collect, process or store data on our behalf, we carry out comprehensive checks and put in place contracts to control how they manage the data they have access to.

9. How long do we keep your personal information?

We have a records retention policy which sets out how long we will keep your information for. In some cases the retention periods are governed by law, in other cases by best practice.

Most information will be kept for 3 – 10 years (usually 6 years), but the exact time frame will depend on the nature of the information. If you would like more details about how long we keep your personal information, please contact us at data@gingerbread.org.uk.

10. Your rights

You have a right to:

· be kept informed about what we are doing with your personal information

· request access to your personal information – this enables you to receive a copy of the personal information we hold about you unless we can rely on an exemption

· object to the processing of your personal information, where we are relying on the legitimate interest lawful basis, using your personal information for direct marketing, or for research purposes

· request us to update or delete the personal information we hold about you

· withdraw consent for processing your personal information if that is the lawful basis that we are relying on, and if it’s not necessary for the purpose you provided it to us (e.g. processing your donation or registering you for an event) we will do so

· ask us to restrict how we use your personal information for a period of time

· request us to send personal information that you have provided to us to you or to another organisation in a commonly used electronic format

· object to the use of automated decision-making and profiling. Please contact us on 020 7428 5420 or data@gingerbread.org.uk if you have any concerns.

Please note that these are legal rights which may not apply in all cases, and which may be subject to legal exceptions. We may also request that you provide us with information to confirm your identity, before we provide any personal information to you.

You have a right to complain to the Information Commissioner about how we use your personal information. For further information on your rights, visit the ICO website.

If you wish to access your information, please send a description of the information you want to see and proof of your identity by post to Data Protection, Gingerbread, 54-74 Holmes Road, London, NW5 3AQ. We would appreciate if you could provide a request for access to your personal information via post, rather than email, so that we can make sure that we only provide personal data to the right person. You can of course still email us at data@gingerbread.org.uk to make a request or if you have any questions.

If there are any discrepancies in the information we provide, please let us know and we will correct them. For further information, we recommend reading the Information Commissioner’s guidance. If you have any concerns with the way your personal information has been handled you can contact the ICO.

11. Change how we communicate with you

If at any time you wish to stop or change how we communicate with you for direct marketing or fundraising purposes, or update the personal information we hold, please contact us by email at data@gingerbread.org.uk or phoning 0207 428 5400.

You can also unsubscribe from our eNewsletters at any time. Simply click on the “unsubscribe” link in any of our email news updates.

We may continue to send you communications which are purely administrative.

If you are unhappy with how we handle your personal information or any requests you make, please contact our Data Protection Lead using the details below (Section 13).

12. Changes to this Notice

We review this Notice regularly and may update it from time to time. If we make any significant changes in the way we treat your personal information we will make this clear on our website or by contacting you directly where we can.

13. Contact us

If you have any queries about this Privacy Notice, please contact Victoria Benson (Chief Executive) at data@gingerbread.org.uk.

Last updated: 16 May 2022

This Notice came into effect: 16 May 2022

Cookie Policy

About this cookie policy.

This Cookie Policy explains what cookies are and how we use them. You should read this policy to understand what cookies are, how we use them, the types of cookies we use i.e, the information we collect using cookies and how that information is used and how to control the cookie preferences. For further information on how we use, store and keep your personal data secure, see our Privacy Policy.

You can at any time change or withdraw your consent from the Cookie Declaration on our website.

Learn more about who we are, how you can contact us and how we process personal data in our Privacy Policy.

Your consent applies to the following domains: gingerbread.org.uk

What are cookies?

Cookies are small text files that are used to store small pieces of information. The cookies are stored on your device when the website is loaded on your browser. These cookies help us make the website function properly, make the website more secure, provide better user experience, and understand how the website performs and to analyze what works and where it needs improvement.

How do we use cookies?

As most of the online services, our website uses cookies first-party and third-party cookies for a number of purposes. The first-party cookies are mostly necessary for the website to function the right way, and they do not collect any of your personally identifiable data.

The third-party cookies used on our websites are used mainly for understanding how the website performs, how you interact with our website, keeping our services secure, providing advertisements that are relevant to you, and all in all providing you with a better and improved user experience and help speed up your future interactions with our website.

What types of cookies do we use?

The cookies used on our website are grouped into the following categories.

The below list details the cookies used in our website.

Necessary Cookies:

Name Description Expiry
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary Determines whether the user has accepted the cookie consent box. 1 year
cookielawinfo-checkbox-non-necessary Determines whether the user has accepted the cookie consent box. 1 year
rc::a This cookie is used to distinguish between humans and bots. This is beneficial for the website, in order to make valid reports on the use of their website. Persistent
rc::c This cookie is used to distinguish between humans and bots. Session
SISession Used to hold information about the Click4Assistance tools and proactive rules. Session
Button Cookie used by Click4Assistance Session

Analytic Cookies:

Name Description Expiry
_clck Collects data on the user’s navigation and behaviour on the website. This is used to compile statistical reports and heatmaps for the website owners. 1 year
_clsk Registers statistical data on users’ behaviour on the website. Used for internal analytics by the website operator. 1 day
_cltk Registers statistical data on users’ behaviour on the website. Used for internal analytics by the website operator. Session
_conv_s This cookie contains an ID string on the current session. This contains non-personal information on what dubpages the visitor enters – this information is used to optimize the visitor’s experience. 1 day
_ga Registers a unique ID that is used to generate statistical data on how the visitor uses the website. 2 years
_ga_# Used by Google Analytics to collect data on the number of times a user has visited the website as well as dates for the first and most recent visit. 2 years
_gat Used by Google Analytics to throttle request rate. 1 day
_gid Registers a unique ID that is used to generate statistical data on how the visitor uses the website. 1 day
_hjAbsoluteSessionInProgress This cookie is used to count how many times a website has been visited by different visitors – this is done by assigning the visitor an ID, so the visitor does not get registered twice. 1 day
_hjFirstSeen This cookie is used to determine if the visitor has visited the website before, or if it is a new visitor on the website. 1 day
_hjIncludedInPageviewSample Used to detect whether the user navigation and interactions are included in the website’s data analytics. 1 day
_hjIncludedInSessionSample Registers data on visitors’ website-behaviour. This is used for internal analysis and website optimization. 1 day
_hjSession_# Collects statistics on the visitor’s visits to the website, such as the number of visits, average time spent on the website and what pages have been read. 1 day
_hjSessionUser_# Collects statistics on the visitor’s visits to the website, such as number of visits, average time spent on the website and what pages have been read. 1 year
_hjTLDTest Registers statistical data on users’ behaviour on the website. Used for internal analytics by the website operator. Session
c.gif Collects data on the user’s navigation and behaviour on the website. This is used to compile statistical reports and heatmaps for the website owner. Session
CLID Collects data on the user’s navigation and behaviour on the website. This is used to compile statistical reports and heatmaps for the website owner. 1 year
collect Used to send data to Google Analytics about the visitor’s device and behaviour. Tracks the visitor across devices and marketing channels. Session

Marketing Cookies

Name Description Expiry
_fbp Used by Facebook to deliver a series of advertisement products such as real time bidding from third party advertisers. 3 months
ads/ga-audiences Used by Google AdWords to re-engage visitors that are likely to convert to customers based on the visitor’s online behaviour across websites. Session
ANONCHK Registers data on visitors from multiple visits and on multiple websites. This information is used to measure the efficiency of advertisement on websites. 1 day
MUID Used widely by Microsoft as a unique user ID. The cookie enables user tracking by synchronising the ID across many Microsoft domains. 1 year
SM Registers a unique ID that identifies the user’s device during return visits across websites that use the same ad network. The ID is used to allow targeted ads. Session
SRM_B Tracks the user’s interaction with the website’s search-bar-function. This data can be used to present the user with relevant products or services. 1 year
tr Used by Facebook to deliver a series of advertisement products such as real time bidding from third party advertisers. Session

How can I control the cookie preferences?

You can manage your cookies preferences by clicking on the “Settings” button and enabling or disabling the cookie categories on the popup according to your preferences.

Should you decide to change your preferences later through your browsing session, you can click on the “Privacy & Cookie Policy” tab on your screen. This will display the consent notice again enabling you to change your preferences or withdraw your consent entirely.

In addition to this, different browsers provide different methods to block and delete cookies used by websites. You can change the settings of your browser to block/delete the cookies. To find out more out more on how to manage and delete cookies, visit wikipedia.orgwww.allaboutcookies.org.

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