Privacy Statement

Privacy statement

Friends of the Elderly is committed to protecting and respecting your privacy and security. Whenever you provide us with your personal information via our website, we will treat that information in accordance with this policy, our terms and conditions and current UK Data Protection legislation. By using the site and any services we offer via our site, you are agreeing to be bound by this policy.

Please read the following carefully to understand our views and practices regarding your personal data and how we will treat it.

This policy may change from time to time, so please check this page periodically.

Friends of the Elderly is a registered charity, number 226064. The registered address is 40-42 Ebury Street, London SW1W 0LZ.

Data Protection

Friends of the Elderly will ensure that appropriate security measures are taken against unlawful or unauthorised processing of personal data, and against the accidental loss of, or damage to, personal data. Data subjects may in some cases apply to the courts for compensation if they have suffered damage from such a loss.

The Act requires Friends of the Elderly to put in place procedures and technologies to maintain the security of all personal data from the point of collection to the point of destruction. Personal data may therefore only be transferred to a third-party data processor if he agrees to comply with those procedures and policies, or if he puts in place adequate measures himself.

Maintaining data security means that we will ensure the confidentiality, integrity and availability of the personal data, defined as follows:

  • Confidentiality means that only people who are authorised to use the data can access it.
  • Integrity means that personal data should be accurate and suitable for the purpose for which it is processed.
  • Availability means that authorised users should be able to access the data if they need it for authorised purposes.

Security procedures include:

  • Entry controls. Any stranger seen in entry-controlled areas should be reported.
  • Exit controls. Data should be protected when in transit, for example, when sent by e-mail or post, or held on a laptop or memory stick. Before allowing any third party to process personal data that it controls, Friends of the Elderly will enter into written arrangements with the data processor in accordance with the Act. Secure lockable desks, cabinets and cupboards. Desks, cabinets and cupboards will be kept locked if they hold confidential information of any kind. (Personal information is always considered confidential.)
  • Methods of disposal. Paper documents holding personal data will be shredded. Floppy disks and CD-ROMs will be physically destroyed when they are no longer required.
  • Equipment. Data users should ensure that individual monitors do not show confidential information to passers-by and that they log off from their PC when it is left unattended.

Fundraising and Data Protection

The Fundraising Department complies with the Institute of Fundraising Data Protection Code of Practice. The latest edition is dated November 2008. It is the Director’s responsibility to ensure that any updates to the code are implemented and procedures updated accordingly.  Specific procedures for the department in line with the code are:

  • The fundraising team will not collect or process sensitive data. If we receive information of a sensitive nature from a supporter we will not add this to their database record.
  • The charity will not swap data with other businesses or charities.
  • All communication which could potentially result in a new contact e.g. donor acquisition, event invitations, marketing leaflets, etc., will contain Data Protection opt out details for names and addresses.
  • Where email and telephone details are collected opt in boxes will be completed in order to capture this information on the Raisers Edge database. Even if a supporter is well known to us, we will obtain their express permission to capture this data.
  • Data Protection statements on response forms will be batched and filed by date.
  • We will archive data after six years where there has been no transaction with the charity in that period (six years is adhered to in order to comply with Gift Aid audit requirements)
  • Archived records will be anonymised in order that gift history can be maintained for analysis purposes.

Friends of the Elderly would like to keep in touch with you to let you know about the vital work we do for older people and services. By submitting your email, address and phone number(s) on our site, you are agreeing to being contacted in these ways by Friends of the Elderly. You can unsubscribe from these communications at any time.

If you do not wish to continue receiving information from us please email us at enquiries@fote.org.uk or telephone us at 020 7730 8263. You can exercise your right to ask us to stop processing your data at any time by contacting us.

Friends of the Elderly is registered as a Data Controller with the Information Commissioner. Friends of the Elderly is the Data Controller for the purposes of collecting your information on our Site.

1.What personal information is collected from you

When you visit the Site we collect various personal information which may include your name, address, contact details, IP address, and information regarding what pages are accessed and when. If you make a donation online your card information is collected by a partner organisation, but is not held by us. If you supply such information we are legally bound by the Data Protection Act 1998.

2. How your information is used

• We may use this information in the following ways :
• Process orders submitted by you;
• To carry out our obligations arising from any contracts entered into by you and us;
• Verify your identity;
• Seek your views or comments on the services we provide;
• Notify you of changes to our services;
• Improve our services or for marketing purposes and market research;
• Send you communications which you have requested and that may be of interest to you. These may include information about campaigns, appeals and other fundraising activities.

3. Who has access to your information

We are committed to protecting the personal data of our supporters, customers and users. Any details you give us will be held in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998. Friends of the Elderly is the sole owner of the information collected on this Site. We will not sell, share, or rent this information to third parties, unless we have your explicit permission to do so, or we are required to do so by law, for example, by a court order or for the purposes of prevention of fraud or other crime. Where you have given us permission we may contact you about other services and products.
When you are using our secure online donation pages, your donation is processed by 3rd parties, who specialise in the secure online capture and processing of credit/debit card transactions. If you have any questions regarding secure transactions, email the partner organisation. We may transfer your personal information to a third party as part of a sale of some or all of our business and assets to any third party or as part of any business restructuring or reorganisation, or if we are under a duty to disclose or share your personal data in order to comply with any legal obligation or to enforce or apply our terms of use or to protect the rights, property or safety of our customers. However, we will take steps with the aim of ensuring that your privacy rights continue to be protected.

4. National data opt-out

As a care provider, Friends of the Elderly complies with the national data opt-out. For more information about the opt-out visit https://digital.nhs.uk/services/national-data-opt-out.

5. How you can access, update or delete your information

A formal request from a data subject for information Friends of the Elderly holds about them must be made in writing. Employees, volunteers and agency workers who receive a written request should forward it to their Line Manager immediately and all such requests should be dealt with by the Data Compliance Manager.

When receiving telephone enquiries, employees, volunteers and agency workers should be careful about disclosing any personal information held on Friends of the Elderly’s systems. In particular they should:

• Check the caller’s identity to make sure that information is only given to a person who is entitled to it
• Suggest that the caller put their request in writing where the employee is not sure about the caller’s identity and where their identity cannot be checked
• Refer to their line manager or the Data Protection Compliance Manager for assistance in difficult situations. Employees, volunteers and agency workers should not be bullied into disclosing personal information.

The accuracy of your information is important to us. If you change email address, or any of the other information we hold is inaccurate or out of date, please email us at enquiries@fote.org.uk , or write to us at Friends of the Elderly,40-42 Ebury Street,LondonSW1W 0LZ. You have the right to ask for a copy of the information Friends of the Elderly hold about you (we may charge £10 for information requests) to cover our costs in providing you with details of the information we hold about you.

If you do not want to continue receiving information by email from us, please follow the instructions at the bottom of the email, which will tell you how to contact us to unsubscribe.

6. Security precautions in place to protect the loss, misuse or alteration of your information

When you give us personal information, we take steps to ensure that it is treated securely. Non-sensitive details (your email address etc.) are transmitted normally over the Internet, and this can never be guaranteed to be 100% secure. As a result, while we strive to protect your personal information, Friends of the Elderly cannot guarantee the security of any information you transmit to us, and you do so at your own risk. Once we receive your information, we make our best effort to ensure its security on our systems.

7. Use of ‘cookies’ on the Site

What are cookies?  A cookie is a small amount of data sent to your computer or mobile phone from a website. This means the website can recognise your device (your computer or mobile phone) if you return to the same site.

A cookie often includes a unique identifier, which is a randomly generated number. This is stored on your device’s hard drive. Many cookies are automatically deleted after you finish using a website.

Cookies are not programs and do not collect information from your device.

Cookies make your experience of using websites faster and easier. They allow websites to create a customised view of pages to which you navigate. For example, they are commonly used to authenticate or identify registered users of a website without requiring them to sign in each time they access it. Other uses include maintaining a ‘shopping basket’ of goods a user has chosen to purchase, site personalisation (presenting different pages to different users) and tracking the pages a user has visited on a site for analysis purposes.

Cookies may come with or without an expiry date. Cookies without an expiry date exist until the browser is closed, while cookies with an expiry date may be stored by the device until the expiry date passes.

You can restrict or block cookies set by Friend of the Elderly but this may limit your use of some functionality, core pieces of content will still be possible even with cookies disabled.

Friends of the Elderly uses third-party suppliers who also set cookies on https://www.fote.org.uk/, these are providing site usage analytics which allow us to evaluate how our site is performing and improve the information and services Friends of the Elderly provides. In addition third party cookies are provided to deliver sharing functionality across the site. Information about these third party cookies can be found in the section below detailing the cookies used on the site.

How to manage your cookies

Cookies are sent to your browser (whether you use Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Safari or any other browser) by a website and then stored in the cookies directory of your device.

To check and update your cookies settings, you will need to know what browser you are using and what version of it you have. You can usually find this out by opening the browser (just as if you were going to use the internet) and then clicking on ‘Help’ and then ‘About’. This will give you information about the browser version you are using.

To find out how to allow, block, delete and manage the cookies on all standard web browsers, go to www.aboutcookies.org and select the browser and version you are using. You’ll also find information about how to delete cookies from your computer.
If you use a mobile phone to browse the website or other sites that use cookies, please refer to your handset manual for guidance.

Cookies used on the Friends of the Elderly website
The following are cookies you may come across on this site.

  • Google
  • Domain: google.com
  • Purpose: Friends of the Elderly uses Google cookies to record information about which pages you have landed on and how you have navigated through the site.
  • Doubleclick: This domain is owned by Doubleclick (Google). The main business activity is: Doubleclick is Googles real time bidding advertising exchange.

This data enables us to understand:

  • which pages people visit on the site
  • which internet browsers are being used
  • what is popular
  • which interactive tools are used

For more information visit Google Privacy Center: transparency and choice.

  • AddThis
  • Domain: addthis.com
  • Purpose: Friend of the Elderly uses the ‘AddThis’ button to enable visitors to share information easily using a variety
of social networking web sites and other services. The AddThis Privacy and Data Practices Policy details what information is collected and used by this service.
  • HotJar
  • Domain: hotjar.com
  • Purpose: Friends of the Elderly uses HotJar to analyse visitors’ sessions on our website (by recording their mouse movements) and website behaviours to identify website issues and improve the user experience.This data enables us to understand:
  • how users are interacting with our site,
  • which elements of the site are causing problems with the user experience
  • if there are any errors with the site. This also includes replaying sessions and watching interactions back.

8. Facebook Pixel

  • Facebook
  • Domain: facebook.com
  • Purpose: Friends of the Elderly uses Facebook pixel to record a visitor’s actions on our website. This enables us to measure the performance of Facebook ads for statistical and market research.
  • A cookie will be stored on your computer for these purposes. This data will be stored by Facebook and will be in accordance with their Data Usage Policy https://www.facebook.com/about/privacy.

The personal data collected will not be seen by us and will be anonymous to us.

  • You can revoke the collection of your data by Facebook Pixel by visiting https://www.facebook.com/settings?tab=ads.

9. What happens when visitors link to another site?

Our Site contains links to other websites. This privacy policy applies only to our Site‚ so visitors should always be aware when they are moving to another site and read the privacy statement of any site which collects personal information. We cannot be responsible for the privacy policies and practices of other sites even if you access them using links from our Site.

We do not pass on any personal information about our visitors to any other site. In addition, if you linked to this Site from a third party site, we cannot be responsible for the privacy policies and practices of the owners and operators of that third party site and recommend that you check the policy of that third party site and contact the owner or operator if you have any concerns or questions.

10. 16 or Under

If you are aged 16 or under‚ please get your parent/guardian’s permission beforehand whenever you provide personal information to the Site. Users without this consent are not allowed to provide us with personal information.

11. Contact us

If at any time you would like to contact us with your views about our privacy practices, or with any enquiry relating to your personal information, you can do so by sending an e-mail to us at enquiries@fote.org.uk or telephone us at 020 7730 8263.