• Transparency Policy

This policy tells you about the information we may collect from you when you use our website. In collecting this information we are required, by law, to provide you with information about us, about why and how we use your data, and about the rights you have over your data.

What personal data we collect and why we collect it
We are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy. We collect certain information or data about you when you use www.va-er.org.uk

We collect:

• questions, queries or feedback you leave, including your email address if you contact va-er.org.uk:
• your email address and subscription preferences when you sign up to our email alerts, and how you use our emails – for example whether you open them and which links you click on
• your IP address
• information on how you use the site, using cookies

This data can be viewed by authorised people in VAER, to:

• improve the site by monitoring how you use it
• gather feedback to improve our services, for example our email alerts
• respond to any feedback you send us, if you’ve asked us to
• allow you to access services
• provide you with information about our services if you want it

If you upload images to the website, you should avoid uploading images with embedded location data (EXIF GPS) included. Visitors to the website can download and extract any location data from images on the website.

Contact forms

Cookies
A cookie is a small file of letters and numbers that we may store on your browser or the hard drive of your computer or device. They cannot be used to identify you personally.

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users of the Site. This helps us to provide you with a good experience when you browse the Site and also allows us to improve the Site.

For example:

enabling a service to recognise your device so you don’t have to give the same information several times during one task
recognising that you may already have given a username and password so you don’t need to do it for every web page requested; and
measuring how many people are using services, so they can be made easier to use and there’s enough capacity to ensure they are fast
The Site uses the following types of cookies:

Session cookies – this type of cookie allows websites to link the actions of a user during a browser session so that the website is able to store certain information whilst the user is browsing the site.
Third party cookies – these are cookies that are not set by East Ren Community Hub but are instead set by a third party. The third party cookies on the site are set by Google Analytics. Google Analytics sets cookies to help us accurately estimate the number of visitors to the site and volumes of usage. This is to ensure that the service is available when you want it and fast.
For more information on the cookies set by Google Analytics please refer to the Google Analytics website: https://developers.google.com/analytics/resources/concepts/gaConceptsCookies

For more information on the cookies set by Facebook please refer to the Facebook website:
https://en-gb.facebook.com/policies/cookies/

Legal Basis
VAER collects and uses patrons’ personal data because is it necessary for:

• the pursuit of our legitimate interests (as set out below);
• the purposes of complying with our duties and exercising our rights under a contract for the sale of products and services to a patron; or
  complying with our legal obligations
• In general, we only rely on consent as a legal basis for processing in relation to sending direct marketing communications to patrons via email or text message.

Patrons have the right to withdraw consent at any time. Where consent is the only legal basis for processing, we will cease to process data after consent is withdrawn.

• selling and supplying products and services to our patrons;
• protecting patrons, employees and other individuals and maintaining their safety, health and welfare;
• promoting, marketing and advertising our products and services;
• sending promotional communications which are relevant and tailored to individual patrons;
• understanding our patrons’ behaviour, activities, preferences, and needs;
• improving existing products and services and developing new products and services;
• complying with our legal and regulatory obligations;
• preventing, investigating and detecting crime, fraud or anti-social behaviour and prosecuting offenders, including working with law enforcement agencies;
• handling patron contacts, queries, complaints or disputes;
• managing insurance claims by patrons;
• protecting VAER, its employees and patrons, by taking appropriate legal action against third parties who have committed criminal acts or are in breach of legal obligations to VAER;
• effectively handling any legal claims or regulatory enforcement actions taken against VAER;

and fulfilling our duties to our patrons, colleagues, and other stakeholders.

Your Rights

You have the right to be informed that processing of your personal information is being undertaken.
You have the right to access the personal information that we hold about you in many circumstances. This is sometimes called a ‘Subject Access Request’. If we agree that we are obliged to provide personal information to you, we will provide it to you free of charge.
Before providing personal information to you or another person on your behalf, we may ask for proof of identity and sufficient information about your interactions with us that we can locate your personal information.
If any of the personal information we hold about you is inaccurate or out of date, you may ask us to correct it.
You have the right to object to us processing your personal information if we are not entitled to use it any more, to have your information deleted if we are keeping it too long or have its processing restricted in certain circumstances.
If you’ve signed up for email alerts, you can unsubscribe or change your settings at any time.
You have the right not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing, including profiling, which results in legal effects, i.e. automated decisions based upon your personal preferences or interests
Where data processing is carried out by automated means you have the right to receive your personal data in a structured, commonly used and machine readable format.
If you would like to exercise these rights, please contact us as set out below.

Keeping your data secure
The information which we collect about you will be stored on a secure server based within the European Economic Area (EEA). Sending information over the internet is generally not completely secure, and we can’t guarantee the security of your data while it’s in transit.

Any data you send is at your own risk.

We have strict procedures and security features in place to keep your data secure once we receive it.

Disclosing your information
We may pass on your personal information to law enforcement officials, a court or regulatory body when required to do so by law.

We won’t share your information with any other organisations for marketing, or commercial purposes, and we don’t pass on your details to other websites.

How long do we keep your information

Our legitimate interests

The normal legal basis for processing patron data, is that it is necessary for the legitimate interests of VAER, including:

• Any data you send is at your own risk.
• We have strict procedures and security features in place to keep your data secure once we receive it.
• Disclosing your information.
• We may pass on your personal information to law enforcement officials, a court or regulatory body when required to do so by law.
• We won’t share your information with any other organisations for marketing, or commercial purposes, and we don’t pass on your details to other websites.

We will retain a record of your personal information. This is done in order to provide you with a high quality and consistent service across our services. We will always retain your personal information in accordance with law and regulation and never retain your information for longer than is necessary/ or for other essential purposes such as complying with our legal obligations. Because these needs can vary for different data types in the context of different services, actual retention periods can vary significantly.

Please see our data retention policy.

Links to other websites

va-er.org.uk contains links to other websites.

This privacy policy only applies to va-er.org.uk and doesn’t cover other websites we link to. These websites have their own terms and conditions and privacy policies.

Following a link to another website:
If you go to another website from this one, read the privacy policy on that website to find out what it does with your information.

Contact Details

Voluntary Action East Renfrewshire SCIO
60 Busby Rd, 
Clarkston,
G76 7AT

Tel: 0141 876 9555

Email: [email protected]

Policy Change
This policy was last updated in May 2024