Privacy policy

Our contact details

Name: People First (Self Advocacy) Ltd.
Address: 336 Brixton Road, London SW9 7AA
Phone Number: 020 7274 5484

Dated: May 2023
Next review: May 2024

Who are we?

People First (Self Advocacy) is a national user-led self-advocacy organisation, for and run by people with learning difficulties. We have both individual members and member self-advocacy organisations. Our member organisations are stand-alone self-advocacy organisations. They have their own identities and campaign priorities.

We are the only national user-led organisation run and led by people with learning difficulties.

People First takes its duty to protect the privacy of our members and website visitors very seriously, along with the personal data of subscribers to our newsletters, attendees at our events, and anyone else whose data we store. We aim to assure you that any personal information you provide will be handled with care and used responsibly, ensuring your confidence in our approach to privacy.

This privacy policy aims to provide you with a clear understanding of the personal information we gather, the methods we employ to collect it, the reasons for collecting it, how we utilise it, and the measures we take to ensure its security.

The type of personal information we collect:

We may currently collect and process the following information:

Personal identifiers, contacts and characteristics (e.g. name and contact details).
Demographic information for equalities monitoring (e.g. gender, ethnicity, sexuality, location).
Credit/debit card details if we need to make a payment to you or if you make a donation or a purchase.
Your personal health and social care experiences for projects, research and consultations. This data is anonymised unless otherwise agreed.
Your opinion and feedback in relation to any campaigns, surveys or questionnaires issued by People First that you complete, such as feedback on our charitable activities and events. This data is anonymised unless otherwise agreed.
Website user statistics and cookies. When you use the People First website, like most websites, we receive and store certain details. Cookies mean that a website will remember you and any preferences you have entered. It also helps us to understand how you use our website, and where we can make improvements.
Members’ videos, blogs or articles for publishing on our media such as our website, newsletters and YouTube channel which may contain personal information.

Why we collect personal information

Most of the personal information we process is provided to us directly by you for one of the following reasons:

To become a People First member or supporter, including to receive our newsletter
To register to attend one of our events (online or face-to-face)
To use our website
To feature an item e.g. blog in our newsletter and/or on our website
To complete a survey
To apply for a paid or unpaid role with us
To communicate with us
To make a payment or donation to us

We may use the information that you have given us to:

Send you member communications, which will or may include:

Newsletter (quarterly)
Triannual General Meeting (TGM) and members’ event invite (every three years)
Invitation to vote prior to the TGM
Post-TGM feedback survey
Members’ survey
Occasional email regarding e.g. important pieces of policy work, important announcements about People First or regional updates
Process and respond to requests, enquiries and complaints that we receive from you
Send statements, invoices and payment reminders to you, and collect payments from you
Keep our database up to date
Contact you if we need to obtain or provide additional information
Meet any statutory or regulatory compliance
Contact relevant authorities in the rare event of a safeguarding issue (see Safeguarding policy)

How we collect the personal information

We collect this information via systems including:

Our website membership form which passes the information through to our membership database (both via our software White Fuse)
Information emailed by you, received by us via Microsoft Outlook email
Surveys (both electronic and paper-based)
Event management system – White Fuse Website statistics
Payment mechanisms/financial systems
Focus groups and interviews (for projects, research and consultations)
Social media (rarely and only if necessary)

We may share this information with third parties, that is:

People First Associates and other third parties who may be contracted to do work for us on relevant projects
Our payment services provider only to the extent necessary for the purposes of processing payments, refunding such payments and dealing with complaints and queries relating to such payments and refunds
Relevant statutory bodies in the event of a safeguarding concern (see Safeguarding policy)

Your information will only be used for People First’s purposes and will never be passed on to third parties for marketing purposes.

Disclosing personal information

We will only disclose your personal information:

If required to do so by law;
In connection with any ongoing or prospective legal proceedings;
In order to establish, exercise or defend our legal rights (including providing information to others for the purposes of fraud prevention and reducing credit risk)
If we feel that you are at risk from harm (see Safeguarding policy)

Lawful basis for processing

Under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the lawful bases we rely on for processing this information are:

(a) Your consent. We will only process personal data after being given express permission by you, after having explained what we will use the personal information for. You are able to remove your consent at any time. You can do this by contacting us at [email protected] or by writing to us at our postal address.

(b) We have a contractual obligation. We sometimes enter into contractual working agreements with individuals which requires us to process personal data supplied by them.

(c) We have a legal obligation. This refers to our holding of data on our trustees, and employees’ taxation and pensions.

(d) We have a vital interest. If we are in contact with a member whose life we believe may be at risk, we reserve the right to share their data with appropriate organisations to try to mitigate this risk.

How we store your personal information

Membership data

Membership data is held securely via a secure, password-protected system called White Fuse. Only People First staff and software host administrators have access to this system.

Other personal data

We use Microsoft’s Office secure, password-protected, cloud-based suite of products which includes SharePoint and OneDrive where we store many of our documents. This is hosted on secure servers in the Microsoft environment.

Data for surveys is stored on SharePoint. Data for events is stored on White Fuse. These are password-protected, secure cloud software systems.

Our website is a password-protected, secure cloud software system hosted by White Fuse.

Only People First staff and software host administrators have access to these systems.

Financial data

All financial data is kept on secure password-protected systems, the access to which is limited to the Finance Manager, Director and one trustee for secondary signatory purposes where necessary on one bank account. If data needs to be sent to an external source, it will be password-protected or directly uploaded to the website (e.g. HMRC).

How we keep data up to date

Ensuring the accuracy of the information we hold about you is of utmost importance to us. To achieve this, we adopt both a reactive and proactive approach. We will promptly respond to your requests to modify or delete your data, while also sometimes contacting you directly on occasion to confirm the accuracy of your information.

How long we store your data for

We keep membership data until we receive a request from you to remove it or until we determine that the data is no longer valid e.g. by trying to contact members to confirm their information but being unable to reach them. In such cases, we delete the contact record from our database.

Other personal information we process for any reason is only kept for as long as is necessary for that purpose.

Your data protection rights

You have legal rights over your personal information under data protection law. You can see it, amend it, ask us to change the way we handle it or have it removed from our records completely. If you want to do any of these things, you can email [email protected] or write to us at our postal address and we will respond to you within two weeks at the very latest. You can unsubscribe from our newsletter and mailings by clicking Unsubscribe at the foot of the newsletter. However, this will not remove your data from our records. If you wish for all of your data to be removed, please email us at [email protected] or write to us via our postal address.

How to complain

If you have any concerns about our use of your personal information, you can make a complaint to us at [email protected] or call us on 020 7274 5484 or write to us at:

People First (Self Advocacy)
336 Brixton Road
London
SW97AA

If you are unhappy with how we have used your data, you can also complain to the ICO here:

The ICO’s address:
Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

Helpline number: 0303 123 1113

ICO website: www.ico.org.uk
Data protection registration

We are registered as a data controller with the UK Information Commissioner’s Office. Our data protection registration number is ZB184429.

This website is owned and operated by People First (Self Advocacy).

We are a registered charity in England (no.1057354) and a registered company limited by guarantee (no.03134827).

You can find out more about your rights under data protection legislation at www.ico.org.uk.