Privacy Notice

This Privacy Notice, outlined below, sets out how and why Ulster Wildlife uses your personal information. We want to ensure that you remain informed about how we use it, and can feel confident that your information is only being used for the purposes that we have set out below. Ulster Wildlife is committed to protecting the privacy and security of your personal information. 

Who we are

Ulster Wildlife is a local charity that champions native wildlife. We work with local people to secure space for nature in our countryside, towns, coastlines and seas. Our vision is of a healthy, well cared for natural environment which contributes to enjoyment, quality of life, prosperity, health & well-being.

Ulster Wildlife is the operating name of Ulster Wildlife Trust, registered with the Charity Commission for Northern Ireland NIC101848 and is a ‘not for profit’ company incorporated in Northern Ireland limited by guarantee NI 12711.

Ulster Wildlife is part of a network of Wildlife Trusts across the UK collectively known as The Wildlife Trusts but is an independent local charity.

Ulster Wildlife is defined as the ‘Data Controller’ - We are a "data controller" for the purposes of the Data Protection Act 1998 and (from 25 May 2018) the EU General Data Protection Regulation 2016/679 ("Data Protection Law"). This means that we are responsible for, and control the processing of, your personal information.

Data Protection Principles

We will comply with data protection law. This says that the personal information we hold about you must be:

  • used lawfully, fairly and in a transparent way;
  • collected only for valid purposes that we have clearly explained to you and not used in any way that is incompatible with those purposes;
  • relevant to the purposes we have told you about and limited only to those purposes;
  • accurate and kept up to date;
  • kept only as long as necessary for the purposes we have told you about; 
  • kept securely.

How we store your data

All of the personal data we process is processed by our staff in Northern Ireland. Electronic data and databases are stored on secure computer systems and we control who has access to information (using both physical and electronic means). Our staff receives data protection training and we have a set of detailed data protection procedures which personnel are required to follow when handling personal data.

We will never sell your information and will never share your information with third parties for the purposes of marketing. We provide a limited number of suppliers/contractors with your information to allow them to perform services on our behalf. We have contracts in place with all these third-party service providers. This means that they cannot do anything with your personal information unless we have instructed them to do it. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes. They will not share your personal information with any organisation apart from us unless we give them our consent. They will hold it securely and retain it for the period we instruct. 

We only keep your information as long as is reasonable and necessary for the relevant activity, which may be to fulfil statutory obligations (for example, the collection of Gift Aid). 

Legal basis for using your information

As a data controller, we have to have a lawful basis or bases for processing your personal data and have to inform you of the fact that your data is being processed. We collect your personal data principally for our management and administrative use only.

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

  • where we need to perform a ‘contract’ or agreement we have entered into with you;
  • where we need to comply with a legal obligation;
  • 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 have gained your specific consent.

We may also use your personal information in the following situations, which are likely to be rarer:

  • where we need to protect your interests (or someone else's interests); and
  • where it is needed in the public interest or for official purposes.

Your rights

We respect your right to control your data. Your rights include:

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.

The right of access
If you wish to obtain a record of the personal data we hold about you, through a Subject Access Request, we will respond within one month.

The right to rectification
If we have captured information about you that is inaccurate or incomplete, we will update it.

The right to erase
You can ask us to remove or randomise your personal details from our records.

The right to restrict processing
You can ask us to stop using your personal data.

The right to data portability
You can ask to obtain your personal data from us for your own purposes.

The right to object
You can ask to be excluded from marketing activity and processing based on our legitimate interests.

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.

You also have the right to complain about how your data is being processed which can be done directly to Ulster Wildlife’s Data Protection Officer – Dawn Miskelly or you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office.

Read Ulster Wildlife’s Complaints Policy and Procedure.

Cookies

Our website uses cookies, as almost all websites do, to help provide you with the best experience we can. Cookies are small text files that are placed on your computer or mobile phone when you browse websites.

Our cookies help us:

  • Make our website work as you'd expect
  • Remember your settings during and between visits
  • Improve the speed/security of the site
  • Allow you to share pages with social networks like Facebook
  • Continuously improve our website for you

We do NOT use cookies to:

  • Collect any personally identifiable information (without your express permission)
  • Collect any sensitive information (without your express permission)
  • Pass personally identifiable data to third parties
  • Pay sales commissions

You can learn more about all the cookies we use below.

 

Cookie provider: The Wildlife Trusts
Purpose: Used by the website to remember cookie preferences.
Cookies: cookie-agreed, MCPopupClosed

Cookie provider: Facebook
Purpose: Used by Facebook for sharing content, conversion tracking, optimisation and marketing.
Cookies: _fbp, fr
Provider policy: Facebook

Cookie provider: Paypal
Purpose: Used to support payment services.
Cookies: AKDC, LANG, X-PP-SILOVER, akavpau_ppsd, enforce_policy, nsid, ts, ts_c, tsrce, x-csrf-jwt, x-pp-s
Provider policy: Paypal

Cookie provider: Vimeo
Purpose: Used to embed videos from Vimeo using cookies that we consider essential to the video player experience. Does not use third-party analytics or advertising cookies.
Cookies: player, vuid
Provider policy: Vimeo

Cookie provider: Eventbrite
Purpose: Used to deliver event booking services and content tailored to the user’s interests.
Cookies: _ga, _gat, _gid, AS, csrftoken, eblang, G, janus_re, mgref, SP, SS, ebGAClientId, lux_uid, SERVERID
Provider policy: Eventbrite

Cookie provider: New Relic
Purpose: Anonymously maintains a user’s browsing session on the website to allow us to monitor and troubleshoot website performance.
Cookies: JSESSIONID
Provider policy: New Relic

Cookie provider: Engaging Networks
Purpose: Maintains a user’s browsing session on the website when participating with our online campaigning activities.
Cookies: en_sessionId
Provider policyEngaging Networks

Cookie provider: Google
Purpose: Used to understand website usage including how users found and explored our site and how their experience can be enhanced. Google also provides campaign tracking, advertising and website functionality services.
Cookies: IDE, _ga, _gat, _gat_UA-xxxxxxx-xx, _gid
Provider policy: Google

Cookie provider: Stripe
Purpose: Used for making card transactions on the website. Provided by Stripe.com which allows online transactions without storing any credit card information.
Cookies: __stripe_mid, __stripe_sid
Provider policy: Stripe

Most web browsers allow some control of most cookies through the browser settings. To find out more about cookies, including how to see what cookies have been set and how to manage and delete them, visit www.allaboutcookies.org

To opt out of being tracked by Google Analytics across all websites visit http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout

Other websites

Our website may contain links to other websites of interest. This privacy policy only applies to this website, so when you click on a link to another website, you should be aware of their own privacy policies.

Changes to this Privacy Notice

This policy holds the latest information regarding our Privacy Policy and we will refer to it every time we ask you for your information or consent. This page will be updated from time to time to reflect current practices.

Privacy notice for members and donors

The kind of information we hold about you and how we collect it

Ulster Wildlife will usually collect basic information about you, including your name, postal address, telephone number, email address and your bank details if you are supporting us financially. 

Most of the time, we collect this data from you directly. Sometimes this is in person; other times, it is over the telephone, in writing or through an email.

We also collect information about you that helps us to get to know you better. This may include:

  • information about your wildlife interests, which you tell us through our Membership Surveys
  • records of donations you’ve made towards fundraising appeals 
  • your preferences of how you would like us to contact you
  • ways you’ve helped us through volunteering your time
  • records of events you’ve attended, or campaigns or activities that you’ve been involved in; enquiries you have made to Ulster Wildlife

Once again, most of the time we collect this data from you directly.

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 will 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 will collect the data from you directly.

We may also collect sensitive personal data if you have an accident on one of our nature reserves, or 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.

Children and young people
In line with Data Protection Law, we will not collect, store or process your personal details if you are under 13 years of age; unless we have the express permission from your parent or guardian to do so (eg on a Wildlife Watch Membership joining form.)

If we have the permission of your parent or guardian, and you are a Wildlife Watch member, we may capture your date of birth at the point of joining. This is so that we can send you information that we feel is suitable to your age.

We are happy to provide you with details around our child protection policy on request.

Information via Third Parties
Occasionally we obtain information, such as your address or demographic information from external organisations and sources (but only where you have given your explicit permission for such information to be shared). When you provide permission to these 3rd Party organisations to share your data, you should always check their Privacy Policies. We have included links here to the Privacy Policies some of the third parties we may use: 

  • Royal Mail’s National Change of Address database to ensure that the address we have listed for you is up to date. We know moving to a new house can be a busy time and appreciate that you don’t always have the chance to send us your new address. By undertaking this exercise, we can update your record without you needing to get in touch.
  • We may also collect demographic and consumption data generated through geo-demographic tools (such as Acorn/CACI). This may include information from public registers and other publicly available sources such as NISRA, Companies House, newspapers and magazines.
  • Through Social media channels eg Facebook or Twitter to run boosted or sponsored posts.

What we use your information for

We will only ever collect, store and use your personal data when we have an identified purpose and reason to do so. The ICO refers to this as a ‘lawful basis’.

Personal information provided to us will only be used for the purpose outlined at the time of collection or submission, and in accordance with your preferences. You can change those preferences or unsubscribe at any time.

The main ways we use the data we collect are:

  • Membership Administration – including sending you a welcome pack, membership card, payment advance notice, membership reminder and renewal letters and online renewal forms.
  • Fulfilment of online shop purchases.
  • Administration of donations, in-lieu of flowers gifts and legacies.

The ICO define the lawful basis for processing your data for these purposes as ‘contractual’.

We also collect your personal data so that we can send you information on our work that we feel will be of interest to you. This includes your membership magazine, fundraising appeals, events, campaigning opportunities, services, products, newsletter requests, feedback, competitions and other activities, as well as information about other carefully selected organisations that we work in partnership with and that support our charitable objectives. From time to time, we may also use your personal data to ask for your opinion about our work (for example biennial membership surveys).

Your personal data also helps us to get to know you better and to develop a ‘profile’ of you on our secure supporter database. This ‘profile’ enables us to send you the information listed above in a timely and relevant way, to suit you. For example, keeping track of the donations you make to our organisation helps us to send you information about fundraising appeals that we feel you would like to hear about. Likewise, keeping a record of your wildlife interests that you tell us about in one of our Membership Surveys, helps us to send you relevant project updates.

This information is in addition to the contractually collected data and is defined as ‘direct marketing’ by the ICO.

As defined by the ICO, we use two different lawful bases for processing your data for ‘direct marketing’ purposes:

  • Legitimate interest - This is where we have identified a genuine and legitimate reason for contacting you, which crucially does not override your rights or interests. We use legitimate interest to send you the information listed above by post.
  • Opt-in consent. This is where you have given us express permission to contact you by particular communication channels. We use opt-in consent to send you the information listed above by email, text message (SMS) or telephone.

Sharing and Storing your information 

We will never sell your information and will never share your information with third parties for the purposes of marketing.

We provide a limited number of suppliers/contractors with your information to allow them to perform services on our behalf, these include (with links to their privacy policy or website):

The third parties we work with at no point ‘own’ your data, so you will never hear from them independently and they will always delete your data from their systems when they have completed the task in hand. We always send your data to partner organisations securely, to minimise the risk of it being intercepted by unknown individuals and/or organisations.

Membership Data is stored on our Raiser’s Edge database and only the necessary Membership Staff have password protected access to this database. Our offsite/cloud back-ups are hosted on servers situated inside the European Economic Area (EEA).

Payment security
All electronic Ulster Wildlife forms that request financial data will use the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol to encrypt the data between your browser and our servers.

  • Direct Debit payment details are stored and submitted securely using a secure data collection tool Formstack
  • Credit or debit card payments are stored and processed via our secure payment processing gateways PayPal Standard or Stripe
  • Card payments taken over the phone are processed using our Danske Bank approved credit card terminal and Ulster Wildlife complies with the payment card industry data security standard (PCI-DSS Level 4, Attested to Aug 2019) published by the PCI Security Standards Council. We will never store card details, receipts contain only the last 4 digits of your card, we redact/shred any written card numbers after processing and only staff with data protection training are permitted to process card transactions.

How long we retain your personal information

We will only use and store information for as long as it required for the purposes it was collected for. We continually review what information we hold, and delete what is no longer required. Your Membership sign-up form and Gift Aid declaration are kept for the duration of your membership and for 7 years from the date of cancellation.

Privacy notice for visitors to our website

The kind of information we hold about you and how we collect it:

When you complete any form on our website your data is captured in a secure web form.  Examples could be when you submit a comment on a page or when you complete an event booking form or if you sign up for our e-newsletter.

What we use your information for:

Our website uses ‘cookies’ to help provide you with the best experience we can. Cookies are small text files that are placed on your computer or mobile phone when you browse websites.

Our cookies help us:

  • Make our website work as you'd expect
  • Remember your settings during and between visits
  • Improve the speed/security of the site
  • Allow you to share pages with social networks like Facebook
  • Continuously improve our website for you

See our Cookies Policy above. By continuing to browse this site, we presume that you agree to their use.

We will never sell your information and will never share your information with third parties for the purposes of marketing. We do use some third parties to process your data which are highlighted below. The third parties we work with at no point ‘own’ your data, so you will never hear from them independently.

Google Analytics
When someone visits www.ulsterwildlife.org we use a third party service, Google Analytics, to collect standard internet log information and details of visitor behaviour patterns. We do this to find out things such as the number of visitors to the various parts of the site. This information is only processed in a way which does not identify anyone. We do not make and do not allow Google to make, any attempt to find out the identities of those visiting our website. If we do want to collect personally identifiable information through our website, we will be upfront about this. We will make it clear when we collect personal information and will explain what we intend to do with it.

E-Newsletter
We use a third-party provider to deliver our E-Newsletter: Mailchimp. We gather statistics around email opening and clicks using industry standard technologies including clear gifs to help us monitor and improve our e-newsletter.

What are the legal grounds for our processing of your personal information

We use ‘legitimate interest’, ‘contract’ and ‘consent’ as the lawful bases for processing your data on our website. This means it is either in our charity’s interest or it is to deliver a service you have requested or if you have consented to receive information from us.

How we retain your personal information

We store all your information securely, we restrict access to only those who need it and we train our staff in handling information securely. All electronic Ulster Wildlife forms that request financial data will use the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol to encrypt the data between your browser and our servers. Your information will only be retained for as long as necessary.

Privacy notice for complainants

The kind of information we hold/process about you

When we receive a complaint from a person we make up a file containing the details of the complaint. This normally contains the identity of the complainant and their contact details and any other individuals involved in the complaint.

How we collect this information

This information usually comes in a written format directly from you in the form of a letter or email. This could also be captured over the phone by a member of staff.

What we use information about you for

We will only use the personal information we collect to process the complaint and to check on the level of service we provide. We do compile and publish statistics showing information like the number of complaints we receive, but not in a form which identifies anyone. As defined by the ICO, we use ‘legitimate interest’ as the lawful bases for processing your data in relation to your complaint. This means that we are processing it to ensure that our legitimate interests in running our operations in an efficient and effective manner are achieved.

Sharing Your Information

We usually have to disclose the complainant’s identity to whoever the complaint is about. This is inevitable where, for example, the accuracy of a person’s record is in dispute. If a complainant doesn’t want information identifying him or her to be disclosed, we will try to respect that. However, it may not be possible to handle a complaint on an anonymous basis.

Depending on the nature of the complaint we may have to take advice from one of our retained advisors eg our solicitor or our HR consultancy. Ulster Wildlife will try to anonymise queries whenever possible but it is possible that some element of personal data may be shared with them in relation to carrying out the investigation of a complaint.

We have contracts in place with all our third-party service providers. This means that they cannot do anything with your personal information unless we have instructed them to do it. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes. They will not share your personal information with any organisation apart from us unless we give them our consent. They will hold it securely and retain it for the period we instruct. 

How long we retain your personal information

We will keep personal information contained in complaint files in line with our retention policy. This means that information relating to a complaint will be retained for three years from closure in the absence of a specific business case supporting a longer period.

It will be retained in a secure environment and access to it will be restricted according to the ‘need to know’ principle.

We also keep a permanent overview of all complaints but this is anonymised and only states the nature of the complaint and the date it was closed and does include the personal data of the complainant. 

Privacy notice for job/traineeship applicants

The kind of information we ask for/process about you
 

Application stage
We ask you for your personal details including name and contact details. We will also ask you about your previous experience, education, referees and for answers to questions relevant to the role you have applied for. You will have to complete a criminal records declaration to declare any unspent convictions. Our recruitment team will have access to all this information.

You will also be asked to provide equal opportunities information. This information will not be made available to any staff outside of our HR and Governance Officer and Operations Director, including the shortlisting panel, in a way which can identify you. Any information you do provide will be used only to produce and monitor equal opportunities statistics.

Some recruitment may be carried out by our appointed HR consultancy – Think People.

Shortlisting
A selection panel will shortlist applications for interview. They will not be provided with your name or contact details or with your equal opportunities information if you have provided it.

Assessments
We might ask you to participate in practical assessments; complete tests or to attend an interview – or a combination of these. Information will be generated by you and by us. For example, you might complete a written test or we might take interview notes. This information is held by Ulster Wildlife. At the assessment you will be asked to provide proof of your identity – you will be asked to produce original documents.

If you are unsuccessful following assessment for the position you have applied for but have been selected as a reserve candidate, we will hold your contact details for a period of 12 months and contact you should a vacancy for the post arise.

Conditional Letter of Offer
If you’re successful at assessment, we will issue you with a conditional letter offer of employment subject to satisfactory references and relevant pre-employment checks where necessary. You must successfully complete pre-employment checks to commence employment. We are required to confirm the identity of our staff, their right to work in the United Kingdom and seek assurance as to their previous employment history.

You, therefore, may be required to provide:

  • Proof of your identity – you will be asked to attend our office with original documents.
  • Proof of your qualifications – you will be asked to attend our office with original documents.
  • We will contact your referees, using the details you provide in your application, directly to obtain references
  • We will also ask you to complete a questionnaire about your health. This is to establish your fitness to work. This is done through a data processor (please see below).

If you applying for a regulated position you will also be asked to complete an application for an Access NI check.

What we use information about you for

We do not collect more information than we need to fulfil our stated purposes and will not retain it for longer than is necessary.

All of the information you provide during the process will only be used for the purpose of progressing your application, assessing your suitability for employment or to fulfil legal or regulatory requirements if necessary. You don’t have to provide what we ask for but it might affect your application if you don’t. The information you provide will be held securely by us and/or our data processors whether the information is in electronic or physical format.

We will use the contact details you provide to us to contact you to progress your application. We will use the other information you provide to assess your suitability for the role you have applied for.

What are the legal grounds for our processing of your personal information

Ulster Wildlife processes your personal data on the following bases:

  1. For the performance of a contract (i.e. your application to us): We process data relating to your name and address, employment history, education, referees etc in order for us to process your application. We process data in relation to interview and assessment to progress the application process.
  2. In order to comply with legal obligations: We process data where we have to disclose information required by law, e.g. for fair employment monitoring.
  3. For the protection of our legitimate interests: We process your personal data to ensure that our legitimate interests in running our operations in an efficient manner and in compliance with the law meaning that we may have to process personal data records of criminal convictions that may impact on your employment, details of health where capability for employment or safety may be an issue, and details of disabilities in order to comply with our obligations to disabled employees.
  4. We process data on the basis of consent: where you agree to it, for example, if you agree to provide consent to a medical report.

Sharing Your Information

Your information will be held securely and we will not share any of the information you provide during the recruitment process with any third parties for marketing purposes or store any of your information outside of the European Economic Area.

Ulster Wildlife will from time to time need to make some of your personal information available to legal and regulatory authorities eg to auditors or where we have another legitimate interest in doing so to other parties which provide products or services to Ulster Wildlife (such as IT systems suppliers, HR and health & safety consultants). We may also be required to disclose applicant data to project funders for the purpose of an audit.

We may use some third parties to provide elements of our recruitment service for us. We have contracts in place all our third parties. This means that they cannot do anything with your personal information unless we have instructed them to do it. They will not share your personal information with any organisation apart from us. They will hold it securely and retain it for the period we instruct.

The following third-party service providers may process personal information about you for the following purposes:

Edwards & Co. Solicitors – legal advisors
Edwards & Co. provides advice on all legal matters for Ulster Wildlife. This includes in relation to employment issues and complaints. It is possible therefore that your personal information could be shared with them in the context of a genuine business need to obtain legal advice.

Think People – HR Consultants
Think People provide HR advice to Ulster Wildlife on all aspects of employment which includes but is not restricted to recruitment, contractual queries, capability assessments and complaints relating to applicants/employees. Ulster Wildlife will try to anonymise queries whenever possible but it is likely that some element of personal data may be shared with them in relation to an employment query which could include sensitive personal data in relation to sickness or disability.

Health Matters NI & Health Matters (Occupational Health) Ltd
  – Health & Safety Consultants and Occupational Health Providers 

If we make you a conditional offer, we will ask that you complete a health questionnaire which will help to determine if you are fit to undertake the work that you have been offered or advise us if any adjustments are needed to the work environment or systems so that you may work effectively.

We will ask you to send the completed questionnaire directly to Health Matters (Occupational Health) Ltd who will provide us with a report outlining any reasonable adjustments etc that we may require. The information you provide will be held by Health Matters who will provide us with a fit to work certificate or a report with recommendations. You are able to request to see the report before it is sent to us. If you decline for us to see it, then this could affect your job offer. If an occupational health assessment is required, this is likely to be carried out by Health Matters.

Cara Networks – IT and Network Providers
Cara Networks manage our computer network and servers. As such they have access to all files, email and data saved on our computer system. Ulster Wildlife has a contract in place with Cara Networks and they will only access personal information if a member of Senior Management or the IT Officer has instructed them to.

In addition, we hold data securely and limit access to your personal information to those employees who have a business ‘need to know’ through restricted access folders and lockable storage. They will only process your personal information on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

How long we retain your personal information

You should treat the following as guidelines for retention times in the absence of a specific business case supporting a longer period.

Information Retention Period
Successful Applicants  
Application form  Duration of employment/training plus 6 years
Information about Criminal Convictions Deleted following recruitment process unless assessed as relevant to ongoing employment relationship. Once the conviction is spent, it is deleted unless it is an excluded profession.
Access NI Check Confirmation Duration of employment/training plus 6 years
Fitness to Work Report Permanently
Letter of Offer  Duration of employment/training plus 6 years
Interview/Assessment Notes 12 Months from date of assessment/interview
Equal Opportunities Monitoring Duration of Employment plus 3 years
References Received 6 months after successful completion of probation period
Unsuccessful Applicants  
Application Forms  12 Months from date of assessment/interview
Interview/Assessment Notes 12 Months from date of assessment/interview
Equal Opportunities Monitoring  Equal opportunities information is retained for 3 years following the closure of the campaign whether you are successful or not.

Privacy notice for people who attend our events

The kind of information we hold/process about you

When you make a booking to attend one of our events we will collect your first name and surname and also possibly the names of any other attendees including children. We will also collect a contact number for you so we can get in touch if there are changes to the event eg if it is called off due to bad weather or the venue changes. If you are booking online we will collect your email address in order to send you a booking confirmation. We may also collect feedback from event attendees on their experiences of our events or have attendees fill in an attendees’ sign–in sheet.

Sensitive personal data
We do not normally collect or store sensitive personal data (such as information relating to health) about event attendees. However, there are some situations where this will occur eg where a young person is booking onto to a summer scheme or snorkel safari and we will be responsible for their care. 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 will collect the data from you directly.

We may also collect sensitive personal data if you 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.

In line with Data Protection Law, we will not collect, store or process personal details of children if they are under 13 years of age; unless we have the express permission from their parent or guardian to do so.

How we collect this information

This information is usually collected either over the phone, through an online webform or by filling in an event booking form or at the event itself.

What we use information about you for

We will only ever collect, store and use your personal data when we have an identified purpose and reason to do so. The ICO refers to this as a ‘lawful basis’.

The lawful basis for processing your personal data in relation to events are:

  1. For the performance of a contract: We process data relating to your name and contact details in order to administer your booking with us. We will also process payment details where there is a charge for events.
  2. In order to comply with legal obligations: We may process your data where we have to disclose information required by law, e.g. for health and safety compliance, insurance purposes or otherwise where disclosure is mandatory.
  3. For the protection of our legitimate interests: We process your personal data to ensure that our legitimate interests in running our operations in an efficient manner including feedback from events and data to establish, present and defend any legal claims.
  4. Where it is necessary to protect vital interests: We keep and process data on emergency contact details and any particular medical conditions of event attendees in order to ensure that your vital interests are protected in the event of an emergency.
  5. We process data on the basis of consent: where you agree to it, for example, if you agree to provide consent to receive further information on our work or to be registered for our e-newsletter or for taking photographs.

Sharing and Storing your Information

We will never sell your information and will never share your information with third parties for the purposes of marketing.

Payment security
All electronic Ulster Wildlife forms that request financial data will use the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol to encrypt the data between your browser and our servers.

  • Credit or debit card payments are stored and processed via our secure payment processing gateways PayPal Standard or Stripe
  • Card payments taken over the phone are processed using our Danske Bank approved credit card terminal and Ulster Wildlife complies with the payment card industry data security standard (PCI-DSS Level 4) published by the PCI Security Standards Council. We will never store card details and redact/shred any written card numbers after processing.

We use:

  • WorldPay & Stripe - For securely processing credit card payments.
  • Wufoo – For securely collecting event bookings through our website.

How long we retain your personal information

We will keep personal information in relation to events in line with standard recommendations and our retention policy. This means that information relating to event attendees will be retained for three years from the date of the event. If you have an accident at one of our events we keep the record for three years unless the accident involves a child in which case the accident report will be kept until the child is 21 years old.

Privacy notice for volunteers

The kind of information we hold/process about you

Ulster Wildlife will collect, store and use the following categories of personal data about you:

  • Personal contact details such as name, title, address, telephone numbers and personal email.
  • Age if you are under 18 years old and parental consent to volunteer.
  • Emergency contact information.
  • Start date/End date of volunteering and volunteering attendance record.
  • Copy of driving licence if using Ulster Wildlife vehicles.
  • Training records.
  • Details of volunteer expenses and travel claims.
  • Photographs.
  • Details of websites visited using company‐provided internet access, emails and messages sent and received and other correspondence, and work‐related social media.
  • Your contact preferences.
  • Access NI check confirmation (if applicable)

We also collect, store and use the following "special categories" of more sensitive personal information:

  • Information about your health, including any relevant medical conditions.
  • Information about criminal convictions and offences

How we collect this information

We collect information directly from you through the application process, during induction and throughout your volunteering with Ulster Wildlife. We may also collect additional information from third parties including former employers or volunteer placement providers or other background check agencies including Access NI. The information collected on your volunteer registration form is also held on a secure database.

What we use information about you for

As an Ulster Wildlife volunteer, we collect your personal data principally for our management and administrative use only. For example so that we can:

  • Inform you of changes to planned volunteer work programmes that you may be taking part in
  • Administer Volunteer Expenses Claims
  • Inform you of the positive impact you have on our work, eg by sending you a volunteer newsletter
  • Invite you to dedicated volunteer thank-you events
  • Make you aware of other volunteering opportunities that we think you would be interested in

Occasionally, the information we hold may include sensitive data relating to your health and data held for equal opportunities monitoring purposes.

We will only use your personal information when the law allows us to.

What are the legal grounds for our processing of your personal information

As a data controller, we have to have a lawful basis or bases for processing your personal data and have to inform you of the fact that your data is being processed.

Ulster Wildlife processes personal data on the following bases:

  1. For the performance of a contract (i.e. your volunteering agreement with us): We process data relating to your name and address, expenses claims, start and finish dates, Access NI checks, volunteering hours to enable us to perform our obligations to you under your volunteering agreement.
  2. For the protection of our legitimate interests: We process your personal data to ensure that our legitimate interests in running our operations in an efficient manner and in compliance with the law including data about your whereabouts, timekeeping, conduct, to ensure that we maintain a safe working environment, to ensure that we comply with our obligations in respect of equal opportunities and to establish, present and defend legal claims or to seek advice on handling situations, to keep training records, driving licences (where applicable), use of vehicles in connection with your volunteering, data from any CCTV used in relation to our activities, records of any drug or alcohol testing undertaken, records of criminal convictions that may impact on your volunteering, details of health where capability for volunteering or safety may be an issue, and details of disabilities in order to comply with our obligations to disabled volunteers.
  3. Where it is necessary to protect vital interests: We keep and process data of emergency contact details and any particular medical conditions of volunteers, or your whereabouts, or volunteer‐related travel in order to ensure that your vital interests are protected in the event of an emergency.
  4. We process data on the basis of consent: where you agree to it, for example, if you agree to provide consent to a medical report, or with regards to the use of photographs during your volunteering. We also provide additional information on our work such as our campaigns or fundraising appeals on this basis.

Sharing Your Information

We will never sell your information and will never share your information with third parties for the purposes of marketing. Ulster Wildlife will from time to time need to make some of your personal information available to legal and regulatory authorities eg to auditors and lawyers, and where it is necessary to administer the volunteering relationship with you or where we have another legitimate interest in doing so to other parties which provide products or services to the Company (such as IT systems suppliers, HR and health & safety consultants). We may also be required to disclose volunteer data to project funders for the purpose of an audit.

We have contracts in place with all our third-party service providers. This means that they cannot do anything with your personal information unless we have instructed them to do it. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes. They will not share your personal information with any organisation apart from us unless we give them our consent. They will hold it securely and retain it for the period we instruct.

The following third-party service providers may process personal information about you for the following purposes:

Edwards & Co. Solicitors – legal advisors
Edwards & Co. provide advice on all legal matters for Ulster Wildlife. It is possible therefore that your personal information could be shared with them in the context of a genuine business need to obtain legal advice.

Think People – HR Consultants
Think People provide HR advice to Ulster Wildlife on all aspects of human resources management including volunteers. This includes in relation to any capability assessment, performance issues and complaints relating to volunteering/volunteers. Ulster Wildlife will try to anonymise queries whenever possible but it is likely that some element of personal data may be shared with them in relation to a volunteering query which could include sensitive personal data in relation to sickness or disability.

Health Matters NI & Health Matters (Occupational Health) Ltd
  – Health & Safety Consultants and Occupational Health Providers

Health Matters NI provide our Occupational Health service. As part of your induction, we may ask that you complete a questionnaire which will help to determine if you are fit to undertake the volunteering activity that you have been offered or advise us if any adjustments are needed to the volunteering environment or systems so that you may work effectively. This questionnaire is only seen by the CEO who will decide whether advice needs to be sought from Health Matters NI. If an occupational health assessment is required, this is likely to be carried out by Health Matters NI.

Ulster Wildlife may also seek advice from Health Matters NI regarding a volunteer’s health, for the purpose of compliance with our health and safety and our occupational health obligations, to assist with management decisions relating to whether a volunteer’s health affects their ability to do their job, and whether reasonable adjustments are necessary to assist volunteers with a disability.

Cara Networks – IT and Network Providers
Cara Networks manage our computer network and servers. As such they have access to all files, email and data saved on our computer system. Ulster Wildlife has a contract in place with Cara Networks and they will only access personal information if a member of Senior Management or the IT Officer has instructed them to.

Ulster Wildlife does not transfer any personal data related to you outside of the EU.

How long we retain your personal information

Ulster Wildlife follows recommended retention periods and you should treat the following as guidelines for retention times in the absence of a specific business case supporting a longer period.

Information Retention Period
Registration form inc medical information, emergency contacts and information on criminal convictions Duration of volunteering plus 3 years
Volunteer Attendance Records Rolling 7 year period
Volunteer Records eg Training, records relating disciplinary or grievance matters, Access NI confirmation etc Duration of volunteering plus 3 years
Summary of record of service, e.g. name, volunteer role held, dates of volunteering  Permanently
Volunteer Travel & Expenses Claims Rolling 7 period
Records relating to accident or injury at work  3 years or 40 years if related to a chemical related accident or injury
Copy of Driving Licence Duration of volunteering plus 3 years
Photographs Permanently

Contact us

If at any time you want to update or amend your personal data or contact preferences please Contact the Membership Team on 028 9046 3108 or email membership@ulsterwildlife.org.

If you have subscribed to our free eNewsletter, you can unsubscribe at any time by clicking on the Unsubscribe button in a current edition. Alternatively, let us know on the contact details above and we will manually unsubscribe you.

Should you wish to find out more about the information we hold about you, or about our privacy notice, please contact us on:
Dawn Miskelly
Operations Director, Ulster Wildlife
Telephone 028 9045 4094
Email: info@ulsterwildlife.org
McClelland House, 10 Heron Road, Belfast, Northern Ireland, BT3 9LE

Our office hours are: Monday – Friday, 9am – 5pm.

We update this notice periodically.
Last updated: September 2019