Privacy Policy

1. Who are we? 

Herefordshire Wildlife Trust is the largest membership-based wildlife organisation in the area, dedicated to inspiring people about wildlife, acting as a wildlife champion, creating wildlife havens and encouraging sustainable living. 

The Trust covers the county of Herefordshire and works closely with neighbouring Wildlife Trusts in England and Wales. The Trust is supported by 7,300 local members and manages 60 nature reserves. 

We are a member of the Royal Society of Wildlife Trusts, a federation of 47 Wildlife Trusts covering the whole of the British Isles, with over 800,000 members and more than 2,300 nature reserves covering 90,000 hectares. 

2. Our commitment to your privacy   

We are committed to keeping the personal details of our members and supporters safe. This policy explains how and why we use your personal data, to ensure that you remain informed and in control of your information.  

Any references to Herefordshire Wildlife Trust, the Trust, or to ‘we’ or ‘us’ refer to: 

• Herefordshire Wildlife Trust. We are a registered charity in England and Wales, and our registered charity number is 220173 

• Herefordshire Wildlife Trust Limited, our charitable trading company; (registered company number 743899, VAT No. 205 9748 89). The company is a wholly owned subsidiary of Herefordshire Wildlife Trust, which trades only to raise funds for our charitable organisation.  

We use three key definitions to describe people mentioned in this policy. These are definitions used by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK’s independent body set up to uphold information rights (www.ico.org.uk)  

• ‘Data subject’: this is you, one of our loyal members and supporters. As the data subject, we respect your right to control your data. 

• ‘Data controller’: this is us, the Herefordshire Wildlife Trust. With your permission, we determine why and how your personal data is used (as outlined in this policy). 

• ‘Data processor’: this is a person, or organisation, who processes your data on our behalf, with your permission. For example, this might be a mailing house who sends your membership magazine to you, on our behalf (due to the size of our organisation, it’s more cost-effective to outsource ad-hoc and large-scale tasks like this).  

When we work with other organisations or individuals in this way, we always set up a written contract with them to protect your data. 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.   

We will never sell your personal data.  

Should you wish to find out more about the information we hold about you, or about our privacy policy, please contact us: 

Frances Weeks, Head of Communications and Fundraising 

Telephone: 01432 530088 

Email: enquiries@herefordshirewt.co.uk 

Queenswood Country Park, Dinmore Hill, Leominster, HR6 0PY. 

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

3. Why do we collect your personal data? 

We use your personal data to keep in touch with you.  

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’. Further information about why we collect your personal data is outlined below.  

a) To administer your Herefordshire Wildlife Trust membership  

We collect your personal data to administer your membership, which may involve: 

• Sending you your membership welcome pack when you first join us via email and post, and phone. 

• Processing your Direct Debit subscription payments, if you have set this donation process up with us  

• Sending you your membership renewal letter by post or email 

• Getting in touch should there ever be any issues processing your subscription payment 

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

b) To send you items purchased from our online shop, including event bookings 

We collect your personal data to send you: 

• items you have purchased from our online shop 

• information about events you have booked onto 

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

c) To send you information about our work and ask for your opinion 

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

This information is in addition to that outlined in sections a) and b) and is defined as ‘direct marketing’ by the ICO.  

1. Joint and family membership 

If you are a ‘joint’ or a ‘family’ member of our Wildlife Trust, we will address communications to all those listed on your membership. If you wish to update this at any point, please let us know.  

2. Gift membership 

If your Wildlife Trust membership was purchased as a gift, we will use the address provided by the purchaser by to send you information about our work in the post. This will include a ‘renewal letter or email’, which we will send you when your membership is due to expire, to see if you would like to continue supporting our charity.   

3. When your membership has ended  

Unless we hear from you otherwise, we will continue to send you information about our work after your membership has ended in accordance with your opt-in consent and in line with our data retention policy 

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 may tell us about in one of our Membership Surveys, helps us to send you relevant project updates. 

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

1. 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 email, post or telephone (if you are not registered with the Telephone Preference Service, and you have given us your telephone number).  

2. 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 (if you are registered with the Telephone Preference Service)  

We respect your right to update the way we get in touch with you about our work at any time.  

d) To enable you to volunteer with us  

If you are a Herefordshire Wildlife Trust volunteer, we collect your personal data so that we can keep in touch with you about, for example: 

• changes to planned volunteer work programmes that you may be taking part in  

• the positive impact you have on our work, by sending you our volunteer newsletter  

• dedicated volunteer thank-you events 

As defined by the ICO, the lawful basis for processing your data for these purposes is ‘contractual’ (where administering your volunteer record) and ‘legitimate interest’ (when sending you information about our work).  

 

4. What kind of personal data do we collect? How do we collect it? 

 

a) Basic information 

We 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. Occasionally we obtain information, such as your telephone number or other contact details, from external sources (only where you have given permission for such information to be shared).  

b) Getting to know you better 

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 

Sometimes we will collect other information about you such as your date of birth and gender. 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.  

Once again, most of the time we collect this data from you directly. Occasionally we also obtain data from external sources. For example, we may check against 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 want to make sure we use our resources as effectively as possible to help us engage with our supporters appropriately. In order to achieve this, we use profiling techniques or use third party wealth screening companies to provide us with general information about you. Wealth screening enables us to better target our conversations about fundraising and therefore generate funds cost effectively 

We may also collect demographic and consumption data generated through geodemographic tools (such as CACI Acorn). 

Such information is compiled using publicly available data about you, such as Companies House or the media, or information that you have already provided to us. 

If you do not wish your data to be collected in any of these ways, or have questions about them, please contact us. 

Frances Weeks , Head of Communications & Fundraising 

Telephone: 01432 530088 

Email: enquiries@herefordshirewt.co.uk  

Herefordshire Wildlife Trust, Queenswood Country Park & Arboretum, Dinmore Hill, Nr Leominster, Herefordshire, HR6 0PY 

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

Other ways in which we collect personal data to get to know you better include: 

1. Our website 

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 

For more information on our Cookies Policy, please click here (see annex 1).  

c) 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 collect the data from you directly. 

If you are a volunteer then we may collect extra information about you, for example: 

• references 

• criminal records checks 

• details of emergency contacts 

• medical conditions 

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

d) 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.  

If we have the permission of your parent or guardian, and you are a Wildlife Watch member, we will 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.   

For further information, please see our Safeguarding Vulnerable People policy.  

 

5. How do we store your data?  

a) Security 

All of the personal data we process is processed by our staff in the UK.  This will be done in accordance with guidance issued by the Information Commissioner’s Office. 

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 receive data protection training and we have a set of detailed data protection procedures which personnel are required to follow when handling personal data. 

b) Payment security 

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

If you use a credit card to donate, purchase a membership or purchase something online we will pass your credit card details securely to our online payment provider Stripe or PayPal. Other payment methods (e.g. ApplePay) are handled in a similar manner.  

Herefordshire Wildlife Trust complies with the payment card industry data security standard (PCI-DSS) published by the PCI Security Standards Council, and will never store card details. 

Of course, we cannot guarantee the security of your home computer or the internet, and any online communications (e.g. information provided by email or our website) are at the user’s own risk. 

c) CCTV 

Some of our premises have CCTV and you may be recorded when you visit them. CCTV is there to help provide security and to protect both you and Herefordshire Wildlife Trust. CCTV will only be viewed when necessary (e.g. to detect or prevent crime) and footage is only stored temporarily. Unless it is flagged for review CCTV will be recorded over. 

Herefordshire Wildlife Trust complies with the Information Commissioner’s Office CCTV Code of Practice, and we put up notices, so you know when CCTV is in use. 

d) Data retention policy 

We will only use and store information for as long as it is required for the purposes it was collected for. We continually review what information we hold and delete what is no longer required.  

For further information, please see our Data Retention Policy, which can be found on our website alongside this Privacy Policy 

 

 

6. Your rights 

 

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

1. 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.  

2. 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.  

3. The right to rectification 

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

4. The right to erase 

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

5. The right to restrict processing 

You can ask us to stop using your personal data.  

6. The right to data portability 

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

7. The right to object 

You can ask to be excluded from marketing activity.  

8. 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.   

For more information on your individual rights, please see the Information Commissioner’s Office. 

 

7. Making a complaint 

Herefordshire Wildlife Trust want to exceed your expectation in everything we do. However, we know that there may be times when we do not meet our own high standards. When this happens, we want to hear about it, in order to deal with the situation as quickly as possible and put measures in place to stop it happening again. 

We take complaints very seriously and we treat them as an opportunity to develop our approach. This is why we are always very grateful to hear from people who are willing to take the time to help us improve. 

Our policy is: 

• To provide a fair complaints procedure that is clear and easy to use for anyone wishing to make a complaint. 

• To publicise the existence of our complaints procedure so that people know how to contact us to make a complaint. 

• To make sure everyone in our organisation knows what to do if a complaint is received. 

• To make sure all complaints are investigated fairly and in a timely way. 

• To make sure that complaints are, wherever possible, resolved and that relationships are repaired. 

• To learn from complaints and feedback to help us to improve what we do. 

Confidentiality 
All complaint information will be handled sensitively, in line with relevant data protection requirements. 

Responsibility 
Overall responsibility for this policy and its implementation lies with Frances Weeks, Head of Communications & Fundraising. 

For further information on how to make a complaint, please see click here.  

Information Commissioner’s Office 

For further assistance with complaints regarding your data, please contact the Information Commissioner’s Office, whose remit covers the UK. 

Information Commissioner’s Office 
Wycliffe House 
Water Lane 
Wilmslow 
SK9 5AF 
Telephone: 0303 123 1113 
Email: casework@ico.org.uk  

 

8. Leaving our website 

We are not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of any other websites linked to our website. If you have followed a link from this website to another website you may be supplying information to a third party. 

 

9. Get in touch 

Should you wish to find out more about the information we hold about you, or about our privacy policy, please contact us: 

 

Frances Weeks, Herefordshire Wildlife Trust 

Telephone: 01432 530088 

Email: enquiries@herefordshirewt.co.uk 

Queenswood Country Park, Dinmore Hill, Leominster, HR6 0PY 

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

 

We review this policy annually or more frequently if required.  

Last updated:  February 2024