Privacy & cookie statements

We obtain personal information from you when you enquire about our activities, register with us, buy items through our online shop, make a donation to us, or ask a question via our ‘Contact us’ section. We may also send out surveys. At all times we are mindful of privacy concerns. This involves being transparent about the purpose of data collection, ensuring the security of collected data, and respecting individuals rights.

The personal information we collect might include name, date of birth, email address, postal address, telephone number and credit/debit card details.

We also gather general information about the use of our websites, such as which pages users visit most often and which services, events or facilities are of most interest. We may also track which pages users visit when they click on links in Thames Hospice emails. We may use this information to personalise the way our websites are presented when users visit them, to make improvements to our websites and to ensure we provide the best service for users. Wherever possible we use aggregated or anonymous information that does not identify individual visitors to our websites.

We will use your personal information:

• To provide you with the services, products or information you have requested.
• To create an account for you if you register with us.
• For administration purposes.
• To further our charitable aims, including for fundraising activities (fundraising and related research may include new prospect identification research and wealth screening).

As part of this, we may analyse and screen the personal information we collect to create a profile of your interests and preferences so that we can contact you in the most appropriate way and with the most relevant information. Technological advances mean that Artificial Intelligence may be used in the future to target our products and services. Where relevant, we may also assess your personal information for the purposes of fraud and credit risk reduction. We may also check or update the address that we hold for you using publicly available information.

Your personal information and details of the enquiries received are stored on a secure database. If for any reason you wish to have your personal details removed from our records, please contact us using the contact details below. We promise never to sell your data.

You have a choice about whether you want to receive information about our work and fundraising activities. We will not use your personal information for marketing purposes if you have indicated that you do not wish to be contacted. You can change your marketing preferences at any time by contacting us or using our online form.

All of our online forms are protected by encryption. We also use a secure server when you make a donation or payment via our websites. We take appropriate measures to ensure that the personal information disclosed to us is kept secure, accurate and up to date and kept only for so long as is necessary for the purposes for which it is used.

We will never sell your data. We may pass your information to our service providers e.g. mailing companies to post our newsletter, agents e.g. data services to clean our data: and associated organisations e.g. suppliers for the purpose of completing tasks, such as mailing you or updating your personal information and providing services to you. Where we use service providers we will make sure there are appropriate controls in place, and they must always sign a confidentiality agreement where your data is kept securely, only used for the purpose of the Thames Hospice project for which they have been appointed and destroyed thereafter.

Our websites may include links to websites run by other organisations. Thames Hospice is not responsible for the privacy practices of these other websites so you should read their privacy policies carefully.

If your personal details change, please help us to keep your information up to date by notifying us at supportercare@thameshospice.org.uk - or phone us on 01753 842121. Alternatively, you can update your details by filling out this form .

We may change the terms of this privacy statement from time to time. If we do so, we will post the changes here, so please check from time to time. By continuing to use our websites you will be deemed to have accepted such changes.

If you subscribe to our mailing list you will be automatically be subscribed to receive email updates. You will only receive information that you have opted in to receive.

Depending on your preferences, we may contact you for the following reasons:

• Newsletters
• Fundraising campaigns
• Fundraising events
• In memory events
• Thames Hospice lottery or raffle

We currently use DotDigital for our email marketing as our email broadcast platform. DotDigital may store their data in the US although they comply with the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework and the Swiss – U.S. Privacy Shield Framework. They do share data with third parties.

We transfer all contacts to our own database, Donorfy which is UK hosted. This system is kept updated with your marketing preferences.

You can change your email marketing preferences at any time, by clicking ‘unsubscribe’ on any of our emails or by contacting supporter care at: supportercare@thameshospice.org.uk

As we get to know you, we will collect the following types of information:

• Name, title/s and full postal address
• Bank, credit card and payment details
• Contact details such as email addresses, social media links and telephone numbers
• Your date of birth
• Information relating to events you may organise such as the event date, the donation collection method, records of the money raised
• How you heard about us
• What kind of connection you have with our charity
• Why you have decided to donate to us - we will never make this question mandatory, and fully understand if you are not comfortable telling us
• Your motivations
• Your feedback from our services or dealings with us
• Contact notes relating to your involvement with the charity or are considering having with our cause

How much of this information we collect depends on the type of relationship you have with us and the information we build in the course of your relationship with us. 

We do not store personal information that you share with us unless there is a clear and valid reason for doing so.

We will use your information to:

• Provide you with the services, products or information you asked for
• Administer your contact details and give you the opportunity to change your preferences as well as amend errors and update your data
• Manage donations (including processing Gift Aid)
• Support your fundraising activities
• If you have signed up to an event, to send you information to help maximise your fundraising
• Help with your activities online
• Keep a record of your relationship with us (including your feedback)
• Ensure we know how you prefer to be contacted
• Understand how we can improve our services, products or information
• Screen and analyse our supporters against a demographic database for the purpose of segmentation, so that we can efficiently and cost-effectively fundraise, and ensure the most suitable level of marketing is carried out across our entire supporter base
• Flag your data record – for example if you request to be removed from certain mailing lists, opt out of any specific data processing, or if you have special requirements
• Conduct surveys so that we can be sure our customer care and services are maintained to a high standard

We may also use your personal information to detect and reduce fraud and credit risk, or for due diligence purposes.

We need to keep the details of financial transactions for seven years after the financial year of a donor’s last gift, in the event of a tax or banking enquiry. We will only contact you to thank you. If you say that you would like to hear from us, you will be added to our email subscriber list and will receive regular updates and fundraising asks. You can change your preferences on these updates at any time.

We may also use your personal information to detect and reduce fraud and credit risk, or for due diligence purposes.

We need to keep the details of financial transactions for seven years after the financial year of a donor’s last gift, in the event of a tax or banking enquiry.

If you get in touch with us via the ‘contact us’ form on our website, we may save the details you share with us on our database. This way, if you get in touch with us in future we can refer to our previous conversations. We will not contact you or share your details without asking for your consent.

You may come across Thames Hospice on Social Media through your own networks, or you may be presented with an advertisement from us. We target advertisements at audiences that look like they have an interest in Thames Hospice. We do this to inform, educate and engage new potential supporters.

Social Media is a hugely valuable tool for us and for the community that we serve, which is why we use the platforms.  Social Media companies, such as Facebook, however are commercial companies. We want to remind our users that information that shared on timelines, on our page or in private messages may be used or sold by Social Media companies for commercial purposes.

When you attend a Thames Hospice event, we will need your name, email address and in some cases your payment information. We will use this information solely for the purpose of administering the event.

We may ask you for your phone number from time to time, however you will always have a choice of whether you wish to provide it.

When you provide your phone number we will make it clear how it might be used.

Occasionally when recruiting new supporters on specific campaigns, we will ask for your phone number and when this is the case you will always have the option to not provide a phone number, and what your phone number is going to be used for will be made clear to you.

We use fundraising agencies to contact people by telephone, on our behalf about supporting Thames Hospice:

This may mean contacting people who are on our database where their phone number has been gathered in a way that makes it clear they might be contacted in this manner.

This may also mean the agency using data they have purchased from a data house. Where this is the case the data will be collected in accordance with GDPR and the Data Protection Act. This means when the data is gathered it will be made clear to you that you will receive marketing calls. This data would be gathered from members of the public through surveys where they have shown an interest in charities. Data is held securely. This type of data is held for a limited time only before being deleted.

Where we work with third parties we are careful to ensure they are reputable companies and put steps in place to protect personal data they may hold.

Thames Hospice has an Employee and Job Applicants Privacy Notice which you can read by clicking here.

Thames Hospice has a Volunteer Privacy Notice which you can read by clicking here.

Thames Hospice has a Patient and Patient Information privacy notice which you can read by clicking here.

By continuing to use our site you are consenting to our use of cookies.

A cookie is a small file that asks permission to be placed on your computer's hard drive. Once you agree, the file is added and the cookie helps analyse web traffic or lets you know when you visit a particular site. Cookies allow web applications to respond to you as an individual. The web application can tailor its operations to your needs, likes and dislikes by gathering and remembering information about your preferences.

We use traffic log cookies to identify which pages are being used. We use this data to determine the number of people using our site and to better understand how they find and use our web pages. With this information we can continually improve the information that we provide on our site and the processes for actions such as contacting us and donating. We can also use it to increase the number of new people finding our site. We only use this information for statistical analysis purposes and then the data is removed from the system.

Overall, cookies help us provide you with a better website, by enabling us to monitor which pages you find useful and which you do not. A cookie in no way gives us access to your computer or any information about you, other than the data you choose to share with us.

You can choose to accept or decline cookies. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually modify your browser setting to decline cookies if you prefer. This may prevent you from taking full advantage of the website.

One of the third party cookies used on our site are known as 'performance cookies'. These take no personal information, but collect website usage statistics anonymously to help us monitor how our website performs.

We also use third party cookies, such as targeting cookies, for advertising purposes. These cookies record your visit to our website to enable us to serve you with advertisements on other sites that are relevant to you and your interests. They do not directly store personal information but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device.

A targeting cookie we use is the Facebook Pixel Code. The Facebook Pixel Code is implemented on every page or our website, and matches users anonymously using a unique Facebook ID, enabling us to target users with Thames Hospice advertisements on the Facebook site and app. For details on these cookies, please view the Facebook Cookie Policy provided at www.facebook.com/policies/cookies

Anything that is not directly on our website is not applicable to our Cookie Policy.

As an individual whose personal data is processed by Thames Hospice you have the following rights:

• The right to be informed – which is what this privacy notice is for
• The right to access the data we hold about you
• the right to object to direct marketing
• The right to object to processing carried out on the basis of legitimate interests
• The right to erasure (in some circumstances)
• The right of data portability
• The right to have your data rectified if its inaccurate
• The right to have your data restricted or blocked from processing

To exercise any of these rights, please contact our Data Protection Officer.

If you are not happy with the way we have handled your data, and are unable to resolve the issue with us personally, you can complain to the ICO

We use Google Analytics to track site user interaction. We have Google Analytics code installed on our site which creates one or more text files on your computer (called a “cookie”). The cookies contain an ID number which is used to uniquely identify your browser and track each site you visit that has Google Analytics enabled.

Google Analytics stores the following data:

• Time of visit, pages visited, and time spent on each page of the webpages
• Interactions with site-specific widgets
• Referring site details (such as the URL a user came through to arrive at this site)
• Type of web browser
• Type of operating system (OS)
• Flash version, JavaScript support, screen resolution, and screen colour processing ability
• Network location and IP address
• Document downloads
• Clicks on links leading to external websites
• Errors when users fill out forms
• Clicks on videos
• Scroll depth

Google also collects information about you from its Doubleclick tracking and profiling service, from ad-supported apps on your Android or iOS device, from your YouTube and Gmail activity and from your Google account. This data is put together and used to make inferences about your age, gender, interests, hobbies, shopping habits and living circumstances.

If you already have Google Analytics cookies, they will be updated with the latest information about your visit to the site.

As we cannot access any personal data about you ourselves, we are not the Data Controller for your Google Analytics or Doubleclick profile data. You would need to contact Google directly for this information.

You have the right to object to this tracking and to stop it happening. If you would like more detail about the methods used, please get in touch by contacting our Data Protection Officer.

If you are uncomfortable with this tracking, you can take the following actions:

• Use a tracking-blocker, such as Privacy Badger
• Clear cookies after every browsing session
• Install the Google Analytics opt-out extension

If you would like to know more about how Thames Hospice uses your information please contact the Thames Hospice Data Protection Officer.

By email.

Letter: Thames Hospice Data Protection Officer, Thames Hospice, Windsor Road, Maidenhead, SL6 2DN

For independent advice contact The Information Commissioner:

Helpline number 0303 1231113 or at www.ico.org.uk

[1] Thames Hospice and Thames Hospice Trading