Voluntary Action Coventry (VAC) is a Charity Registered in England (No. 514518) and a Company Limited by Guarantee (No. 1752003). VAC manages and delivers the Healthwatch project.
This privacy notice is generic to VAC and should be read in conjunction with the privacy notice of the Healthwatch project:
This privacy notice covers what we do with any information we collect about you when accessing the VAC website.
VAC is registered as a data controller with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO).
Lawful basis for processing data
We use the following lawful bases for processing your data:
Based on our legitimate interests:
1. We collect basic contact information from the individuals we support, without which we would be unable to deliver our services.
2. To contact individuals about opportunities or events which are relevant to them as part of the support service we deliver (e.g. information about a relevant funding or volunteering opportunities)
Based on explicit consent:
1. To collect special categories of personal data such as health issues to ensure that we meet the needs of anyone who accesses our training
2. To send marketing communications where we ask for your consent
What we collect
We collect the data which we need in order to successfully deliver and report on our services:
- Names
- Addresses
- Email addresses
- Telephone numbers
We may also request special categories of personal data, for which we will always seek explicit consent.
From time to time we may also ask for you to voluntarily provide additional information as part of surveys, polls, feedback or competitions.
When you visit our website, we collect data about your visit using Google Analytics cookies.
How we use your information
Your information will only ever be used to help us deliver and report on our services.
Your data is stored on our VC Connect database, which is accessible to VAC staff and volunteers, and held securely on servers managed by Voluntary Action Sheffield.
Data sharing
We don't share any personal data with third party organisations unless absolutely necessary in order to fulfil an obligation to you (for example, we would need to provide your information to a third party in order to accredit a training course). Where we would need to share your personal data with a third party, we would always notify you first and give you the opportunity to ask us not to share the data.
VAC uses external services to perform some of its functions, such as those used to host our website, deliver our training or to send marketing emails. Some of these services are based outside of the European Economic Area (EEA).
We do use your information to help with the statistics in our reporting. Our reporting never includes personal data or anything that could identify a specific person, only anonymous statistical data which helps us to monitor and improve the performance of our services.
Data retention period
Personal data will be stored for up to 6 years after the last point of contact with you.
After that point we will retain anonymised data for the purposes of reporting.
You have the right to contact us at any point to erase or update your personal data. Please bear in mind that if we erase your personal data from our systems, we will no longer be able to offer you our support services.
Marketing
We would like to send you information about news, events and services relating to VAC and Sector Communications i.e. information sent from VAC about other organisations.
If you consent to receive marketing, you can opt out at any time by clicking the 'Unsubscribe' link at the bottom of our emails.
We will also communicate directly with you by phone or email about the activities you are doing as part of our services.
Access to your information
You have the right at any time to ask us what information we have about you, request amendments or updates to that information, or to ask us to delete information we hold on you.
You can submit an information request by completing our data request form below.
Cookies
Cookies are small text files placed on your computer by websites you visit to help track your behaviour on those sites. For example, we use Google Analytics tracking cookies to understand how you use our site, which allows us to improve the overall website experience.
You can configure your browser to block websites from accepting cookies and to delete any existing cookies that have already been downloaded. However, please note that blocking cookies may stop some features of our website from working correctly.
You can find out more about cookies on the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) website: https://ico.org.uk/for-the-public/online/cookies/
Other websites
Our website contains links to other websites. This privacy policy only applies to this website so when you link to other websites you should read their own privacy policies.
Changes to this privacy policy
We regularly review our privacy policies, and any updates will be made to this page. Please check back from time to time to ensure that you have read the most up-to-date version of this policy.
Policy last updated: December 2023
