At Autism NI we are committed to protecting your personal information and being transparent about what we do with it. We are committed to using your personal information in accordance with all applicable laws concerning the protection of personal information and not to do anything with your information you wouldn’t reasonably expect.

This policy is written in accordance with the Data Protection Act 2018.

If you have any questions about it this Privacy Policy, please contact us at Autism NI, Donard, Knockbracken Healthcare Park, Saintfield Road, Belfast BT8 8BH, email info@autismni.org or telephone 028 9040 1729.

1. How do we obtain your personal information?

We collect information in the following ways:

When you give it to us directly You may give us your information in order to sign up for one of our events, when you contact us to ask about our activities, to tell us your story, order products and services from us, seek assistance e.g. from our Autism NI Helpline or Family Support Service, make a donation to us, fundraise on our behalf, or otherwise give us personal information.

Sometimes when you support us, your information is collected or processed by an organisation working for us (e.g. an events management company). Where they are doing it purely on behalf of Autism NI, we will be responsible for your information at all times.

When you give permission to other parties to share it with usYour information may be shared with us by independent event organisers or fundraising sites like Just Giving or Virgin Money Giving. These independent third parties will only do so when you have indicated that you wish to support Autism NI with your consent.

You should check their Privacy Policy when you provide your information to understand fully how they will process your information. We may also obtain information about you from a family member or a friend who contacts us on your behalf or if a fundraiser passes on your details to us.

When your information is available publicly or from other external sourcesWe may combine information that we already have about you with information available publicly or information available from external sources in order to gain a better understanding of you and to improve our fundraising methods, products and services. Such information could be for example, socio-demographic and lifestyle information and information about previous donations you have made. The information we get from other external sources may depend on your privacy settings or the responses you give, so you should regularly check them. For example, you may have provided permission for a company or other organisation to share your data with third parties including charities. This could be when you buy a product or service, register for an online competition or sign up with a comparison site. Depending on your settings or the privacy policies for social media and messaging services like Facebook, WhatsApp or Twitter, you might give us permission to access information from those accounts or services.

We may also obtain information about you where it is publicly available and found in places such as Companies House, Land Registry website and information that is published in articles and newspapers.

To understand how we use information about the communications devices you use, such as IP address (the location of the computer on the internet) and cookies, please see 'How we use cookies' page.

 

What information do we collect?

Personal information is any information that can be used to identify you. For example, it can include information such as your name, date of birth, email address, postal address, telephone number, fax number and credit/debit card details, as well as information relating to your health or personal circumstances.

Data protection law recognises that certain categories of personal information are more sensitive. This is known as sensitive personal information and covers health information, racial or ethnic origin, religious beliefs or other beliefs or a similar nature, political opinion and trade union membership.

We would only collect sensitive personal information where there is a clear need to do so such as participation in a challenge event, to ascertain what services are relevant to you or to cater other services and support to you. Before collecting any sensitive personal information about you we will make it clear to you what information we are collecting and the purposes for collecting such.

 

How do we use your information?

How we use your information would largely depend on why you are providing it. We may use your information in the ways set out below.

  • We use your personal information to give you the information, support, services, or products you ask for.
  • We use your information to gain a full understanding of your situation, so we can develop and offer you the best possible personalised services.
  • We use your information to keep a record of your relationship with us and for internal administrative purposes (such as our accounting and records), and to let you know about changes to our services or policies. We use your personal information to look into, and respond to, complaints, legal claims or other issues.
  • We use your personal information to claim Gift Aid on your donations.
  • We use personal data to carry out statistical analysis and research in order to help us to understand how we are performing and how we can improve our services and meet the needs of people that require our help.
  • We may also use your personal information for other purposes which we specifically notify you about and, where appropriate, obtain your consent. 

 

2. Direct marketing

With your consent, we may use your information to send you communications about our work and how you can help us to help you, for example, information about our campaigns, volunteering and fundraising activities and how you can donate to us. Occasionally, we may include information from partner organisations or organisations who support us in these communications. Our forms have clear marketing preference questions and we include information on how you can say no to such marketing. You can let us know if you would prefer not to receive these communications at any time by emailing info@autismni.org  calling us on 028 9592 2880, or writing to Autism NI at the address above.

 

3. Building profiles and targeting communications

We use profiling techniques to ensure communications are relevant and timely, and to provide an improved experience to our supporters. Profiling also allows us to target our resources effectively. It enables us to provide you with a service that it better suited for your needs while raising more funds, sooner, and more cost-effectively, than we otherwise would.

In order to create a profile for you, we may use the information which you give us and which we collect from external resources, including information that is publicly available about you.

This sort of profiling can include us using information such as your age, where you live, your job, networks and any previous donations you have made, to assess how likely it is that you would be interested in donating to us and the level of donation that you may be able to give.

We may also use this information to help us determine whether and in what ways you might be interested in getting involved in our other fundraising activities. You can let us know if you would prefer us not to profile you in this way by emailing info@autismni.org calling us on 028 9592 2880, or writing to Autism NI at the address above.

 

4. Who do we share your information with?

We will not sell your details to any third parties, but we may sometimes share your information with our trusted service providers who are authorised to act on our behalf, our trading companies, and associated organisations who work on our behalf, or whom we work with in partnership to deliver and improve services for autistic individuals and their families.

When we collect your personal information, we use strict procedures and security features to prevent unauthorised access. However, no data transmission over the Internet is 100% secure. As a result, while we try to protect your personal information, Autism NI cannot guarantee the security of any information you transmit to us and you do so at your own risk.

 

5. How do we use cookies?

Autism NI uses cookies to give you a more personalised web service. To see how we use cookies, what they are, and which ones we use please go to our 'Cookie Policy' page. This page also includes instructions on how to disable cookies if you don’t want them to be used. 

 

6. Links

Autism NI’s website may include links to other sites, not owned or managed by us. We cannot be held responsible for the privacy of information collected by websites not managed by us. 

 

7. Accessing and updating your personal information

You can request access to any information we hold about you by contacting Autism NI, Donard, Knockbracken Healthcare Park, Saintfield Road, Belfast, BT8 8BH, email info@autismni.org or telephone 028 9592 2880. Equally, please let us know of any changes to your personal information.

You can also let us know if you would no longer like to receive fundraising communications from us or if you would prefer us not to profile you for the purposes of targeting or tailoring our fundraising efforts, by emailing info@autismni.org calling us on 028 9592 2880, or writing to us at the address above.

 

8. Changes to this policy

We may change our privacy policy from time to time so please check back periodically.  

This Privacy Policy was last updated May 2018.