1.    Overview

1.1 Purpose of this privacy policy

Welcome to Women of Grace UK’s privacy policy. 

Women of Grace UK is a skills-based volunteering charity in the UK. We help women who are survivors of FGM

This privacy policy explains how we will process your personal data obtained in connection with your use of our website and services.

Women of Grace UK respects your privacy and is committed to protecting your personal data. This privacy policy tells you about how we look after your personal data It tells you about your privacy rights and how the law protects you.

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

This website is not intended for users from outside the UK. 

It is important that you read this privacy policy together with any other privacy 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. 

1.2 Who we are and how to contact us

Women of Grace UK, a company registered in England & Wales with company number 01452482, charity registration number 278837 (England and Wales) and SC041623 (Scotland), (referred to as “Reach”, “we”, “us” or “our” in this privacy policy).

If you have any questions about this privacy policy, including any requests to exercise your legal rights, please contact us using the details below.

Name: Women of Grace UK
Address: The Rectory, Takeley, CM22 6QX
E-mail: support@womenofgrace.org.uk

We keep our privacy policy under regular review. This version was updated on 21/01/2022. Previous versions of our privacy policy are available on request.

2.    The type of personal information we collect 

Personal data, or personal information, means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified. The personal data we collect about you will vary depending on how you use our website and services:

We currently collect and process the following information:

  • Personal identifiers and characteristics (for example, name and profile pictures)

  • Contact details (for example email addresses, addresses and telephone numbers)

  • Work history information that you provide (for example in CV’s, personal statements or your Reach volunteer profile)

  • Skills and volunteering related interests and availability

  • Feedback you provide us about your experience of using our website and services for example when you report content via our platform, send us emails, or reply to surveys about the impact of our service.

  • Customer Service requests or queries received from you, in relation to your use of our website or services via email, telephone or our website.

  • Application data including information on applications or enquiries made by you, through our website, to/about volunteer roles advertised on our website.

  • Placement data including information on the outcome of applications made by you, through our service; if you were placed into volunteering roles you applied for.

  • Conversation history; created when you use the messaging tool on our platform to message or share information with other registered users on the platform.

  • Marketing preferences (for example to receive our newsletter or alerts.)

  • Technical data such as your internet protocol (IP) address, your login data, browser information, operating system and platform and URL clickstream to, through and from our website

  • Usage data about how you use our website and services, for example, searches carried out, opportunities and profiles viewed, page response times, download errors, length of visits to certain pages, and page interaction information.

  • Equality and Diversity information we collect data from volunteers who consent on age, gender, and ethnicity.

  • Monitoring information, in addition to the Equality and Diversity information we may collect from you we may also collect information for monitoring the use of service such as your employment status and where you heard about our services.

3.    How we get the personal information and why we have it

We receive personal information directly from you and, in some instances, from others. We process it to deliver and improve the services that we offer our users.

3.1 Information you give us

Most of the personal information we process is provided to us directly by you.

We use the information that you have given us in order to

  • enable you to

    • create and publish a volunteer profile or

    • create and publish an organisation profile and role description to promote and recruit to volunteering opportunities on behalf of your organisation.

    • manage your organisation profile and contacts

    • carry out searches for volunteers or opportunities

    • apply for or recruit to volunteering opportunities

    • communicate and share information with other users

    • receive vital information regarding our service and your account such as updates to terms or changes to our service

    • subscribe to our newsletters or receive our opportunity or volunteer email alerts

  • enable us to

    • register you as a user and provide you with an account

    • ensure you meet the criteria we set for using our service

    • provide our services for organisations, and individuals who wish to volunteer

    • communicate with you in relation to our services (e.g., by phone, email, chat)

    • to make suggestions and recommendations to you about features, events or services that may interest you and that relate to skills-based volunteering, trusteeship or volunteering opportunities

    • continually improve our service

    • evaluate, report on and promote our impact

    • monitor and analyse equality and diversity within the use of our website.

    • handle complaints

    • carry out our obligations arising from any contracts and agreements entered into between you and us

    • protect Reach and others: to comply with the law; enforce or apply our terms and conditions, acceptable use policies and other agreements; or protect the rights, property or safety of Reach, our users or others.

3.2 Information we collect about you

We may also receive personal information indirectly, from the following sources in the following scenarios:

From other users; Other users and registered organisations who provide information via our website or in communication with us via email or telephone. We use this information in order to 

  • Record the number of volunteering placements undertaken as a result of our service

  • Protect Reach and others: to comply with the law; enforce or apply our terms and conditions, acceptable use policies and other agreements; or protect the rights, property or safety of Reach our users or others.

From automatic technologies or interactions; As you interact with our website, we will automatically collect personal data for example by using cookies, server logs and other similar tools and technologies. For example, we use third party providers of web analytics services (such as Google Analytics) to track and create reports on website traffic for us.

We use this information to provide you with a good experience when you browse our website and also allows us to improve our site. Specifically, in order to 

  • Provide, troubleshoot, and improve Reach Services. To provide functionality, analyse performance, fix errors, and improve usability, user experiences and relationships and the effectiveness of our Services.

  • Ensure that content from our site is presented in the most effective manner for you and your device.

  • Administer our site and for internal operations, including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, research, statistical and survey purposes.

  • Improve our site to ensure that content is presented in the most effective manner for you and for your computer.

  • Allow you to participate in interactive features of our service, when you choose to do so.

For detailed information on the cookies we use and the purposes for which we use them see our Cookie Policy

4.    Who your information is shared with

Information about our users is an important part of our business and we are not in the business of selling our users’ personal information to others. Women of Grace UK shares users’ personal information as described below.

4.1 We share your information with

  • Organisation Users – we may share your name with registered organisation to follow up on placement outcomes where you have made an application to that organisation.

  • Funding and business partners – we may disclose information about your volunteering applications or placement(s) to partner businesses where we have entered into an employer supported volunteering programme to help you, as their employee, find volunteering assignments.

  • Analytics and search engine providers that assist us in the improvement and optimisation of our site

  • Regulators and other authorities such as the ICO and the Charities Commission which will be provided in relation to our statutory reporting obligations, investigation of complaints or enforcement action

  • Third Party Service Providers – who provide the services that help us keep our business running such as email services, website hosting and support, payment and analytics services

  • Third parties to whom we may choose to sell, transfer or merge any part of our business or our assets will be provided with personal data of our users. If a change happens to our business, then the new owners may use your personal data in the same way as set out in this privacy policy

  • Professional advisors such as lawyers, accountants, auditors or insurers who provide professional services to us.

Please note that;

Publicly available information: information you provide as part of your public profile or organisation profile are publicly available and our website is indexed by other sites such as search engines like Google. Your CV (or equivalent, such as LinkedIn Profile link) are not part of your public profile. These are only shared with organisations when you choose to apply for a role with them. Previous placements made through our service may appear as part of your profile.

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 use aggregated data so that we can administer and improve our services, analyse trends, and monitor operations. We may pass some information to third parties for these purposes, but they will be in aggregate and anonymised formats. 

Equality, Diversity and Monitoring information you may provide is only ever shared in aggregated form. 

4.2 You can choose for us to share your information with

  • Other Women of Grace UK users – volunteer and organisation users share information with each other, via our website and messaging, when applications and enquiries are made. This includes work history information and contact information and any content included in the messages exchanged via our platform.

  • Social networks and other communication channels – where you have been engaged with us to develop a ‘case study’ or provided an attributed quote and where we have your explicit consent to do so.

5.    What Legal Basis we use to collect your information

The UK data protection laws require a legal basis for our use of personal information.  Our basis varies depending on the specific purpose for which we use personal information. We use:

  • Performing a contract – where, in order to perform our obligations under a contract with you or to take steps at your request to enter into a contract with us, it is necessary for us to process your personal data. This includes, for instance, our use of it to;

    • Review registrations for our service against our criteria

    • Enable you to apply for, or recruit to skills based and trustee volunteering opportunities.

  • Our legitimate business interests to enable you to register for a Reach account, for us to provide you with our services, and to communicate with you about them. This includes, for instance, our use of it to;

    • Manage our relationship with you for example notifying you of changes to terms or policies affecting you or to keep our records updates.

    • Invite you to feedback on our services in order for us to improve them.

    • Administer our business, for example in the provision of administration and IT services

    • Improve our website, services and user experiences and relationships

    • Protect our business and network security

    • Detect and prevent fraud and abuse in order to protect the security of our users, ourselves, or others.

  • Your consent when we ask for your consent to process your personal information for a specific purpose that we communicate to you. This includes, for instance, our use of it to

    • Enable you to subscribe to and receive our newsletter.

    • Develop case studies that promote the work and impact of our charity.

    • Store non-essential cookies on your device

    • To process special category data for the specified purposes laid out above

When you consent to our processing your personal information for a specified purpose, you may withdraw your consent at any time, and we will stop the processing of your data for that purpose.  You can unsubscribe at any time to by emailing ‘unsubscribe’ to support@womenofgrace.org.uk, by using the ‘unsubscribe’ link in our email footers or by changing your preferences in your Reach account dashboard.  

  • Compliance with a legal obligation when we use your personal information to comply with laws. and in relation to our statutory reporting obligations, investigation of complaints or enforcement action

Please note we may process your personal data for more than one lawful ground depending on the specific purpose for which we use your data. 

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.

6.    How we store your personal information 

6.1 Keeping it secure

Women of Grace UK will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that your Personal Data is treated securely and in accordance with this Privacy Policy. 

Reach aims to ensure that there are appropriate physical, technical and managerial controls in place to protect any Personal Data you may provide to us. All our staff and volunteers receive training on handling data securely and we limit access to your personal data to those employees, contractors and other third parties where there is a business need. Where we use external companies to collect or process data on your behalf, we check their data processing compliance statements.

Your personal data may be transferred to, and stored at, a destination outside the United Kingdom. Where this happens, we will endeavour to ensure that your personal data is processed in accordance with the appropriate security requirements in line with our legal responsibilities.

Where we transfer your personal data outside the UK this will be 

To a provider based in the European Economic Area or other listed country/territory covered by adequacy regulations; therefore recognised by the UK Government as providing an appropriate level of protection to the data protection rights of individuals or,

Where there is an appropriate safeguard in place permitted under the UK data protection laws, such as an agreement between us and the third party incorporating the Standard Contractual Clauses or if they have Binding Corporate Rules in place approved by the UK ICO. Access to web pages on our site is encrypted via SSL, meaning data exchanged between your browser and our site remains private. Our web servers are protected with malware antivirus protection. Although we will do our best to protect your data, we cannot guarantee the security of your data transmitted to our site.

Our site contains links to external websites.  If you follow a link to an external site, please   check their policies before you submit any Personal Data to these websites.

6.2 Retaining your information

We will only retain your personal data for as long as reasonably necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, regulatory, tax, accounting or reporting requirements. We may retain your personal data for a longer period in the event of a complaint or if we reasonably believe there is a prospect of litigation in respect to our relationship with you.

To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal, regulatory, tax, accounting or other requirements. For instance, unless we have an ongoing need to retain an individual’s personal data, we will anonymise a volunteer user’s record if it has not been used for a period of 3 years. 

If you opt-out of marketing, we will retain your Identity Data and Contact Data on our marketing opt-out list unless you specifically ask us not to.  We screen against this list before we send out marketing communications to ensure that we do not contact individuals who have opted out. 

In some circumstances we will anonymise your personal data (so that it can no longer be associated with you) for research or statistical purposes, in which case we may use this information indefinitely without further notice to you.

7.    Your data protection rights

Users can update their Personal Data at any time to ensure it is accurate, adequate and limited to what is necessary. This can be done by logging in to their account on the Reach website.

Under data protection law, you have, subject to certain exemptions, a number of rights, including:

  • Your right of access – You have the right to ask us for copies of your personal information.

  • Your right to rectification – You have the right to ask us to rectify personal information you think is inaccurate. You also have the right to ask us to complete information you think is incomplete.

  • Your right to erasure – You have the right to ask us to erase your personal information in certain circumstances.

  • Your right to restriction of processing – You have the right to ask us to restrict the processing of your personal information in certain circumstances.

  • Your right to object to processing – You have the right to object to the processing of your personal information in certain circumstances.

  • Your right to data portability – You have the right to ask that we transfer the personal information you gave us to another organisation, or to you, in certain circumstances.

  • Your right not to be subject to automated decision-making – You have the right not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing (including profiling) that produces legal effects concerning you, or similarly significantly affects you.

You are not required to pay any charge for exercising your rights. If you make a request, we have one month to respond to you. Please contact us at support@womenofgrace.org.uk  if you wish to make a request.

If you have any concerns about our use of your personal information, you can make a complaint to us at support@womenofgrace.org.uk You can also complain to the ICO if you are unhappy with how we have used your data.

ICO address: Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, SK9 5AF
Helpline number: 0303 123 1113
ICO website: https://www.ico.org.uk