Privacy Policy

At St Albans for Refugees (StAR), we’re committed to protecting and respecting your privacy. This Policy explains when and why we collect personal information about people who visit our website, how we use it, the conditions under which we may disclose it to others and how we keep it secure. We may change this Policy from time to time so please check this page occasionally to ensure that you’re happy with any changes. By using our website, you’re agreeing to be bound by this Policy.

Any questions regarding this Policy and our privacy practices should be sent by email to enquiries@stalbansforrefugees.org or by writing to St Albans for Refugees, Berkeley House, Barnet Road, London Colney, Herts AL2 1BG. Alternatively, you can telephone 07493 695351.

Who are we?

We’re St Albans for Refugees (StAR). StAR is a registered charity (no. 1167679) and company limited by guarantee (no. 09899830). The registered address is c/o Needham Accountancy, Berkeley House, Barnet Road, London Colney, Herts AL2 1BG.

How do we collect information from you?

We obtain information about you when you use our website, for example, when you contact us about our appeals and services or to make a donation.

What type of information is collected from you?

The personal information we collect might include your name, address, email address, IP address, and information regarding what pages are accessed and when. If you make a donation online  your card information is not held by us; it is collected by our third party payment processors, who specialise in the secure online capture and processing of credit/debit card transactions, as explained below.

How is your information used?

We may use your information to:

•process a donation that you have made;

•process orders that you have submitted;

•to carry out our obligations arising from any contracts entered into by you and us;

•dealing with entries into a competition;

•seek your views or comments on the services we provide;

•notify you of changes to our services;

•send you communications which you have requested and that may be of interest to you. These may include information about campaigns, appeals, other fundraising activities, promotions of our associated companies goods and services;

•process a grant or job application.

We review our retention periods for personal information on a regular basis. We are legally required to hold some types of information to fulfil our statutory obligations (for example the collection of Gift Aid). We will hold your personal information on our systems for as long as is necessary for the relevant activity, or as long as is set out in any relevant contract you hold with us.

Who has access to your information?

We will not sell or rent your information to third parties. We will not share your information with third parties for marketing purposes.

Third Party Service Providers working on our behalf: We may pass your information to our third party service providers, agents subcontractors and other associated organisations for the purposes of completing tasks and providing services to you on our behalf (for example to process donations and send you mailings). However, when we use third party service providers, we disclose only the personal information that is necessary to deliver the service and we have a contract in place that requires them to keep your information secure and not to use it for their own direct marketing purposes. Please be reassured that we will not release your information to third parties beyond the StAR for them to use for their own direct marketing purposes, unless you have requested us to do so, or we are required to do so by law, for example, by a court order or for the purposes of prevention of fraud or other crime.

Third Party Product Providers we work in association with:

When you are using our secure online donation pages, your donation is processed by a third party payment processor, who specialises in the secure online capture and processing of credit/debit card transactions. If you have any questions regarding secure transactions, please contact us.

We may transfer your personal information to a third party if we’re under a duty to disclose or share your personal data in order to comply with any legal obligation or to enforce or apply our terms of use or to protect the rights, property or safety of our supporters and customers. However, we will take steps with the aim of ensuring that your privacy rights continue to be protected.

Your choices

You have a choice about whether or not you wish to receive information from us. If you do not want to receive direct communications from us about the vital work we do for refugees then you can select your choices by ticking the relevant boxes situated on the form on which we collect your information.

We will not contact you for marketing purposes by email, phone or text message unless you have given your prior consent. We will not contact you for marketing purposes.

How you can access and update your information

The accuracy of your information is important to us. We’re working on ways to make it easier for you to review and correct the information that we hold about you. In the meantime, if you change email address, or any of the other information we hold is inaccurate or out of date, please email us at: enquiries@stalbansforrefugees.org or by writing to St Albans for Refugees, Berkeley House, Barnet Road, London Colney, Herts AL2 1BG. Alternatively, you can telephone 07493 695351.

You have the right to ask for a copy of the information StAR holds about you (we may charge £10 for information requests to cover our costs in providing you with details of the information we hold about you).

Security precautions in place to protect the loss, misuse or alteration of your information

When you give us personal information, we take steps to ensure that it’s treated securely. Any sensitive information  is encrypted and protected with the following software – Bitlocker on Windows 10 Pro combined with Predator USB Key software.

Non-sensitive details (your email address etc.) are transmitted normally over the Internet, and this can never be guaranteed to be 100% secure. As a result, while we strive to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee the security of any information you transmit to us, and you do so at your own risk. Once we receive your information, we make our best effort to ensure its security on our systems.

Profiling

We will not analyse your personal information to create a profile of your interests and preferences. We will not use your information to market to you. 

Use of 'cookies'

Like many other websites, the StAR website uses cookies. 'Cookies' are small pieces of information sent by an organisation to your computer and stored on your hard drive to allow that website to recognise you when you visit. They collect statistical data about your browsing actions and patterns and do not identify you as an individual. For example, we use cookies to store your country preference. This helps us to improve our website and deliver a better more personalised service.

It is possible to switch off cookies by setting your browser preferences. For more information on how to switch off cookies on your computer, visit our full cookies policy. Turning cookies of may result in a loss of functionality when using our website.

Links to other websites

Our website may contain links to other websites run by other organisations. This privacy policy applies only to our website‚ so we encourage you to read the privacy statements on the other websites you visit. We cannot be responsible for the privacy policies and practices of other sites even if you access them using links from our website.

In addition, if you linked to our website from a third party site, we cannot be responsible for the privacy policies and practices of the owners and operators of that third party site and recommend that you check the policy of that third party site.

16 or Under

We are concerned to protect the privacy of children aged 16 or under. If you are aged 16 or under‚ please get your parent/guardian's permission beforehand whenever you provide us with personal information.

Transferring your information outside of Europe

As part of the services offered to you through this website, the information which you provide to us may be transferred to countries outside the European Union (“EU”). By way of example, this may happen if any of our servers are from time to time located in a country outside of the EU. These countries may not have similar data protection laws to the UK. By submitting your personal data, you’re agreeing to this transfer, storing or processing. If we transfer your information outside of the EU in this way, we will take steps to ensure that appropriate security measures are taken with the aim of ensuring that your privacy rights continue to be protected as outlined in this Policy.

If you use our services while you are outside the EU, your information may be transferred outside the EU in order to provide you with those services.

Review of this Policy

We keep this Policy under regular review. This Policy was last updated in May 2018.

St Albans for Refugees is a registered charity (1167679) and a not for profit company limited by guarantee (company no. 09899830).