Privacy Notice

Purpose of this privacy policy

This privacy policy aims to give you information on how RSPCA London East collects and processes your personal data through your use of this website, including any data you may provide through this website when you:

• subscribe to our publications or newsletters, request information from us or become involved in one of our campaigns

• use our veterinary services

• volunteer or fundraise for us, or sign up for an event

• pledge or make a donation

• adopt or foster an animal from us

• apply for a role with us

• apply for membership of our branch

• sign up for educational resources or take part in any education programmes

• ask a question, report cruelty or make a complaint.

This website is not intended for children and we do not knowingly collect data relating to children.

It is important that you read this privacy policy together with any other privacy policy or fair processing policy we may provide on specific occasions when we are collecting or processing personal data about you so that you are fully aware of how and why we are using your data. This privacy policy supplements other notices and privacy policies and is not intended to override them.

Controller

ROYAL SOCIETY FOR THE PREVENTION OF CRUELTY TO ANIMALS LONDON EAST BRANCH is the controller and responsible for your personal data (collectively referred to as "RSPCA London East Branch", "we", "us" or "our" in this privacy policy).

We have appointed a data privacy manager who is responsible for overseeing questions in relation to this privacy policy. If you have any questions about this privacy policy, including any requests to exercise your legal rights, please contact the data privacy manager using the details set out below.

Contact details

If you have any questions about this privacy policy or our privacy practices, please contact our data privacy manager in the following ways:

Full name of legal entity: ROYAL SOCIETY FOR THE PREVENTION OF CRUELTY TO ANIMALS LONDON EAST BRANCH

Email address: rspcalondoneast@gmail.com

Postal address: RSPCA London East, Kemp House, 124 City Road, London EC1V 2NX

You have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues (www.ico.org.uk). We would, however, appreciate the chance to deal with your concerns before you approach the ICO so please contact us in the first instance.

Changes to the privacy policy and your duty to inform us of changes

We keep our privacy policy under regular review. It is important that the personal data we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your personal data changes during your relationship with us.

Third-party links

This website may include links to third-party websites, plug-ins and applications. Clicking on those links or enabling those connections may allow third parties to collect or share data about you. We do not control these third-party websites and are not responsible for their privacy statements. When you leave our website, we encourage you to read the privacy policy of every website you visit.

Personal data, or personal information, means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified. It does not include data where the identity has been removed (anonymous data).

We may collect, use, store and transfer different kinds of personal data about you which we have grouped together as follows:

• Identity Data includes first name, maiden name, last name, username or similar identifier, marital status, title, date of birth and gender.

• Contact Data includes billing address, delivery address, email address and telephone numbers.

• Financial Data includes bank account and payment card details.

• Technical Data includes internet protocol (IP) address, your login data, browser type and version, time zone setting and location, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform, and other technology on the devices you use to access this website.

• Profile Data includes your username and password, feedback and survey responses. 

• Usage Data includes information about how you use our website, products and services.

• Marketing and Communications Data includes your preferences in receiving marketing from us and our third parties and your communication preferences.

We also collect, use and share Aggregated Data such as statistical or demographic data for any purpose. Aggregated Data could be derived from your personal data but is not considered personal data in law as this data will not directly or indirectly reveal your identity. For example, we may aggregate your Usage Data to calculate the percentage of users accessing a specific website feature. However, if we combine or connect Aggregated Data with your personal data so that it can directly or indirectly identify you, we treat the combined data as personal data which will be used in accordance with this privacy policy.

We do not collect any Special Categories of Personal Data about you (this includes details about your race or ethnicity, religious or philosophical beliefs, sex life, sexual orientation, political opinions, trade union membership, information about your health, and genetic and biometric data). Nor do we collect any information about criminal convictions and offences.

If you fail to provide personal data

Where we need to collect personal data by law, or under the terms of a contract we have with you, and you fail to provide that data when requested, we may not be able to perform the contract we have or are trying to enter into with you (for example, to provide you with goods or services). In this case, we may have to cancel a product or service you have with us but we will notify you if this is the case at the time.

We use different methods to collect data from and about you including through:

• Direct interactions. You may give us your Identity, Contact and Financial Data by filling in forms or by corresponding with us by post, phone, email or otherwise. This includes personal data you provide when you:

  • • • subscribe to our publications or newsletters, request information from us or become involved in one of our campaigns

      • use our veterinary services

      • volunteer or fundraise for us, or sign up for an event

      • pledge or make a donation

      • adopt or foster an animal from us

      • apply for a role with us

      • apply for membership of our branch

      • sign up for educational resources or take part in any education programmes

      • ask a question, report cruelty or make a complaint

      • give feedback or contact us.

• Automated technologies or interactions. As you interact with our website, we will automatically collect Technical Data about your equipment, browsing actions and patterns. We collect this personal data by using cookies and other similar technologies. Please see our cookie policy for further details.

We will only use your personal data when the law allows us to. Most commonly, we will use your personal data in the following circumstances:

• Where we need to perform the contract we are about to enter into or have entered into with you.

• Where it is necessary for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests.

• Where we need to comply with a legal obligation.

Please see the 'Glossary' section to find out more about the types of lawful basis that we will rely on to process your personal data.

Generally, we do not rely on consent as a legal basis for processing your personal data although we will get your consent before sending third party direct marketing communications to you via email or text message. You have the right to withdraw consent to marketing at any time by contacting us.

Purposes for which we will use your personal data

We will not rent, swap or sell your personal information to other organisations for them to use in their own marketing activities. The legal basis that we rely on for processing your data will depend upon the circumstances in which it is being collected and used, but will in most cases fall into one of the following categories:

• where you have provided your consent to allow us to use your data in a certain way

• where the processing is necessary to carry out for the performance of a contract with you

• where the processing is necessary in order for us to comply with a legal obligation; or

• where it is in our legitimate interests to perform our functions, for example, processing donations or sending you administrative communications where our legitimate interest is to raise funds and to deliver our charitable purposes.

We have set out below a description of all the ways we plan to use your personal data. Note that we may process your personal data for more than one lawful ground depending on the specific purpose for which we are using your data. Please contact us if you need details about the specific legal ground we are relying on to process your personal data.

Data research and accuracy

On occasion we may also use your personal information for research purposes so that we can improve our services and better meet the needs of our beneficiaries. This may include us contacting you to see if you would like to become involved in one of our research projects. We also feature case studies on our website and materials about the amazing work that our supporters undertake for us. In both instances we will always obtain your prior consent before using your data in these ways.

We continually strive to improve the quality and accuracy of the information you have provided, such as your contact details, by checking against external data lists such as the Post Office's National Change of Address database & The National Deceased Register. This helps us ensure our records are fully up-to-date and to avoid misdirecting communications.

Marketing Communications

Where you give us your consent, we will also use your personal data in order to send you marketing and fundraising communications in connection with the following marketing and fundraising activities and services:

• Supporter Magazines and updates - including our newsletters, magazines and other publications informing you about our work

• Appeals and fundraising activities - including requests for donations, information about how you can leave us a gift in your will, how you can raise money on our behalf or attend or take part in a fundraising event, and updates on the impact that your fundraising activities have had on our work

• Animal welfare campaigning -  information about our campaigning activities both in the UK and abroad, including how you can support such campaigns, (for example by lobbying influential figures or signing a petition), and updates about the progress of our campaigns

• Volunteering  - information about how you can help support our work by giving up your time or using your influence to progress our aims, along with updates on the impact of your work;

• Rehoming and adopting or fostering services - information about how you can access or take part in these services and communications and updates about the animal adoption, rehoming and fostering sector and RSPCA news around this topic

• Membership - details of how you can join-up as a member of our branch

• Social media – we use social media and other internet platforms to communicate with people and share information about the vital work that we do for animal welfare

You decide how you want us to contact you, whether by mail, email or by phone or text message (SMS/MMS) and you can update your communication preferences at any time by emailing us. From time to time we will also send you a communication to update and refresh your communication preferences.

Our website may also include links to other websites, not owned, associated or managed by the RSPCA. Whilst we try our best to only link to reputable websites we cannot be held responsible for the privacy of information collected by sites not managed by us, nor can we accept responsibility or liability for them. For this reason you should consult the privacy notice on any external website you link to before you submit any personal information to those websites.

Rehoming an animal from us

When you apply to rehome an animal from us, we’ll need to share personal information such as your name, address and telephone number, to enable a home visit by our volunteers. We may also share such information with other RSPCA branches (e.g. if you live in another branch’s catchment area and they are carrying out a home visit on behalf of our branch).

We try to make sure that all animals are microchipped when they’re rehomed from us; this is a legal requirement in relation to dogs. We will share your personal information with a microchip company in case your animal goes missing. Depending on which microchip is used, this will be one of the following providers: AVID, Anibase or Petlog.

Volunteers

If you apply for a volunteer role with us, we’ll hold the personal information you provide to process your application. If we need to disclose information to a third party, we will not do so without asking you beforehand unless the disclosure is required by law.

If you apply to volunteer with us we’ll only hold your data for the purposes of that application. We won’t hold your personal information for any longer than is necessary for the purposes of that application.

We may also share volunteer information with the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA National Society), for the purposes of keeping a register of current volunteers. Further, your personal information will be held and processed so that you can be contacted about future volunteering opportunities. We’ll only hold information relating to the nature of your voluntary work and we’ll delete it in accordance with our retention policies.

Reporting a concern about animal welfare to us

When reporting an animal welfare concern to us, we will treat your personal information in confidence and will only share it in the circumstances mentioned below or where we are authorised to do so by law.

We use your personal information for the purposes of animal welfare and for the prevention and detection of crime. We may pass your personal information to the RSPCA National Society where it is necessary for the purposes of investigating or resolving your concern.

We do not use your personal information for any other purpose unless we obtain your prior consent to do so. For example, where as a result of your telephone call to us you wish to make a donation to us, your personal information will be used to process this donation and to keep in contact with you, only if you agree to us doing so.

Membership

If you are a member of our branch we need to hold your personal information so that we can keep our register of members up to date.

We will also communicate with you about your RSPCA membership and provide you with information in accordance with our governing documents. When applying to become a member, we may check if you have any affiliations to groups that you may have that oppose or seek to undermine the RSPCA’s aims.

Our donors and supporters

If you wish to support us by making a donation, registering to fundraise for us, or signing up to an event, we will collect your name and contact details as a minimum.

Where appropriate, we may also ask for your date of birth and your motivation or personal experience for supporting us. We will use the information you provide to give you the services, products or information you asked for, tailor communications  to you, to administer your donation including processing gift aid, to send you a thank you letter, to support your fundraising or manage your marketing preferences.

We may also send you administrative communications, for example confirming a direct debit instruction when you have made a donation to us.

Third-party marketing

We will get your express opt-in consent before we share your personal data with any third party for marketing purposes.

Opting out

You can ask us or third parties to stop sending you marketing messages at any time by contacting us at any time.

Cookies

You can set your browser to refuse all or some browser cookies, or to alert you when websites set or access cookies. If you disable or refuse cookies, please note that some parts of this website may become inaccessible or not function properly. For more information about the cookies we use, please see Cookie Policy.

Change of purpose

We will only use your personal data 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 purpose. If you wish to get an explanation as to how the processing for the new purpose is compatible with the original purpose, please contact us.

If we need to use your personal data for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and we will explain the legal basis which allows us to do so.

Please note that we may process your personal data without your knowledge or consent, in compliance with the above rules, where this is required or permitted by law.

We may use service providers (such as fundraising agencies, direct mailing companies, mobile marketing providers, market research companies and software platform providers) to help us provide you with our services.

We may give relevant persons within these service providers access to your personal information, but only to allow them to perform their services for us. Some service providers may be based outside of the European Economic Area (EEA) however, we will endeavour to ensure that any data transfers outside of the EEA are carried out in compliance with relevant data protection legislation and that the processing of your data is subject to appropriate security measures.

We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal data to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal data on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected personal data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so.

How long will you use my personal data for?

Whatever your relationship with us, we will only store your information for a specified amount of time as set out in our internal data retention policy, which takes into account relevant legal, accounting, regulatory retention requirements and operational considerations. The length of time that data will be kept may depend on the reasons for which we are processing the data and on the law or regulations that may apply to the information. Where legacies are concerned, because legacy information is crucial to the valuable work that we undertakes, we may keep data you provide to us indefinitely to carry out legacy administration and to communicate effectively with the families of people leaving us legacies. This also enables us to identify and analyse the source of legacy income we receive and also enables us to defend contested legacies where it is appropriate to do so.

Once the retention period has expired, the information will be confidentially disposed of or permanently deleted. If you request no further contact from us, we will keep some basic information about you on our suppression list in order to avoid sending you unwanted materials in the future. When we anonymise or delete your data, we will ensure that it is no longer identifiable to you. We may keep anonymised data for future analysis on aggregated data so that we can understand our supporters better.

Under certain circumstances, you have rights under data protection laws in relation to your personal data.

Right of access

You have the right to know what information we hold about you and to ask to see your records. We will supply any information you ask for that we hold about you as soon as possible, but this may take up to 30 days (or potentially longer if it is a complex request).  We will not charge you for this other than in exceptional circumstances. You will be asked for proof of identity. To request a copy of your data please contact us.

Right to be informed

You have the right to be informed about how your personal data is being/will be used. This notice, as well as any additional information or notice that is provided to you either at the time you gave us your details or otherwise, is intended to provide you with this information.

Right to restrict processing

In certain situations, you have the right to ask for processing of your personal data to be restricted because there is some disagreement about its accuracy or legitimate usage.

Right to withdraw consent

Where we process your data on the basis of your consent you can withdraw that consent at any time.

Right to object

You also have a right to object to us processing data where we are relying on it being within our legitimate interests to do so. Please note that in some cases we may still have a legitimate reason to continue processing the data. You can read more about our legitimate interests.

Right of erasure

In some cases, you have the right to be forgotten (i.e. to have your personal data deleted from our database), also known as the right of erasure. Please note that there may be cases where we cannot delete all the data we hold about you, for example where we are processing it for legal purposes. In addition, where you have requested that we do not send you marketing materials, we will need to keep some limited information in order to ensure that you are not contacted in the future.

Right of rectification

If you believe our records are inaccurate you have the right to ask for those records concerning you to be updated. To update your records please get in touch with us.

Right to data portability

Where your personal data is processed on the basis of consent or as part of a contract we have with you, you have the right to request that the data is transferred from one service provider to another.

We want to make sure that your personal information is accurate and up to date. You may ask us to correct or remove any information you think is inaccurate by contacting us.

Please note the Freedom of Information Act (the 'FoIA') applies to public authorities and certain organisations that are listed in Schedule 1 of the FoIA.  The RSPCA National Society and RSPCA branches are not listed and thus have no formal obligations under the FoIA. However, we support transparency and will supply information where possible.

If you wish to exercise any of the rights set out above, please contact us.

No fee usually required

You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal data (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request is clearly unfounded, repetitive or excessive. Alternatively, we could refuse to comply with your request in these circumstances.

What we may need from you

We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your personal data (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is a security measure to ensure that personal data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it. We may also contact you to ask you for further information in relation to your request to speed up our response.

Time limit to respond

We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month. Occasionally it could take us longer than a month if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests. In this case, we will notify you and keep you updated.

LAWFUL BASIS

Legitimate Interest means the interest of our business in conducting and managing our business to enable us to give you the best service/product and the best and most secure experience. We make sure we consider and balance any potential impact on you (both positive and negative) and your rights before we process your personal data for our legitimate interests. We do not use your personal data for activities where our interests are overridden by the impact on you (unless we have your consent or are otherwise required or permitted to by law). You can obtain further information about how we assess our legitimate interests against any potential impact on you in respect of specific activities by contacting us.

Performance of Contract means processing your data where it is necessary for the performance of a contract to which you are a party or to take steps at your request before entering into such a contract.

Comply with a legal obligation means processing your personal data where it is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation that we are subject to.

THIRD PARTIES

Internal Third Parties

Other charities under the RSPCA umbrella and who are based in the UK.

External Third Parties

• Service providers who provide administration services or services in connection with donations

• Professional advisers including lawyers, bankers, auditors and insurers based in the UK who provide consultancy, banking, legal, insurance and accounting services

• HM Revenue & Customs, regulators and other authorities who require reporting of processing activities in certain circumstances.

YOUR LEGAL RIGHTS

You have the right to:

Request access to your personal data (commonly known as a "data subject access request"). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.

Request correction of the personal data that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate data we hold about you corrected, though we may need to verify the accuracy of the new data you provide to us.

Request erasure of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal data where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal data where you have successfully exercised your right to object to processing (see below), where we may have processed your information unlawfully or where we are required to erase your personal data to comply with local law. Note, however, that we may not always be able to comply with your request of erasure for specific legal reasons which will be notified to you, if applicable, at the time of your request.

Object to processing of your personal data where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground as you feel it impacts on your fundamental rights and freedoms. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal data for direct marketing purposes. In some cases, we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process your information which override your rights and freedoms.

Request restriction of processing of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your personal data in the following scenarios:

• If you want us to establish the data's accuracy.

• Where our use of the data is unlawful but you do not want us to erase it.

• Where you need us to hold the data even if we no longer require it as you need it to establish, exercise or defend legal claims.

• You have objected to our use of your data but we need to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to use it.

Request the transfer of your personal data to you or to a third party. We will provide to you, or a third party you have chosen, your personal data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format. Note that this right only applies to automated information which you initially provided consent for us to use or where we used the information to perform a contract with you.

Withdraw consent at any time where we are relying on consent to process your personal data. However, this will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before you withdraw your consent. If you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide certain products or services to you. We will advise you if this is the case at the time you withdraw your consent.