This privacy policy sets out how Link Education International (Link) processes and protects your personal information. We are committed to ensuring that your privacy and personal data are protected and processed fairly, in accordance with this statement and in line with UK legislation, including The Data Protection Act 1998 (UK), General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) (EU) and The Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations (PECR) 2013.
The most up-to-date privacy policy will always be published on our website, and our newsletter recipients will be informed of any material changes. If you ever have any queries or concerns about this policy or how Link is handling your personal data, please don’t hesitate to get in touch. You can do so by emailing us at info@linkeducation.org.uk, or writing to us at Link Education International, Dolphin House, 4 Hunter Square, Edinburgh, EH1 1QW.
How and why we collect your personal data
We collect personal information you provide us with when you donate to Link, sign up to our mailing list, or otherwise get in touch with us. Fundraising is essential for us to deliver our life-changing programmes and in order to make our fundraising as efficient as possible we use different kinds of this data to improve our service to you or tailor messages to make them more relevant to you and your interests. This is done on the basis of “legitimate interest”, meaning we believe we have a genuine reason to process your personal data and balance any potential impact this may have on your individual rights.
Find out more how Link will collect and process your information:
If you join our mailing list:
When you join our mailing list, we will save your name and email address to send you newsletters, updates and occasional fundraising campaign emails. You can opt-out of these emails at any time by clicking the unsubscribe button or dropping us an email, and we will only ever send you these emails with your explicit consent.
We may tailor emails to make them more relevant to you using information you have freely provided us with (such as using your donation history to send you fundraising appeals for similar programmes).
If you donate to Link, or fundraise for us:
When you make a donation to Link, whether that is a one-off donation or you sign up to give regularly via direct debit, we will collect and process your data to allow us to process the transaction, to store in our financial and donor records, and to send you our thanks for your gift. We may also use it to claim Gift Aid if you wish us to. This information may include your name, postal address, phone number, email address, gift amount, employer details and taxpayer status (depending on the method you choose to give). Donations made via our website are processed securely by our partner, Blackbaud Merchant Services, who will process the necessary financial information to send your donation to Link. Link will never store or process your credit card or bank account details.
Some donors choose to give via other third parties, such as CAF. We encourage these donors to check third party privacy policies to ensure they understand how their data will be processed and stored. If you have consented to that third party sharing your details with us, we will store these in our secure database and process them as above.
If you give us a way to contact you when you donate, we may get in touch to thank you, or to help us properly process your donation (such as to confirm how you wish your donation to be allocated or to resolve any issues with the financial transaction). We will never send you any marketing communications without your express consent – if you choose to join our mailing list when you give then we will process your details as above.
If you apply to work or volunteer with us:
If you apply to work or volunteer with Link, we will only use the information you give us to review your application and to monitor recruitment statistics. All applicants are asked to complete an equal opportunities form which is processed anonymously and according to our Equal Opportunities policy (copies available on request). If we need to share any information that you have given us with anyone else (such as by requesting references or a DBS check) we will inform you first. If you application is successful, we will retain the information as part of your personnel file. If you are unsuccessful, all personal data will be destroyed six months after the post has been filled.
If you browse our website:
Like many websites, Link Education International uses cookies to collect information. When you visit our website you will be asked for your consent for Link to anonymously track your activity anonymously via a pop-up banner. If you opt in, we may collect anonymised data about your visit, such as which pages you viewed and how you interacted with the website. This data is collected in order for Link to better understand our visitors and continuously improve their experience.
For more information, please see the Cookies Policy below.
Our website may contain links to other websites of interest. We cannot be responsible for the privacy policies and practices of other sites even if you access them using links from our website, and so encourage you to review their individual privacy and cookies policies.
How do we look after your data?
We take great care over the security of your data, and take steps to keep it up to date and ensure it is only held for as long as we need it. All data we collect is stored in our secure database. In order to prevent unauthorised access or disclosure, we have put in place suitable physical, electronic and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure the information we collect.
We review the data we store periodically to ensure it is as accurate as possible, and not retained past reasonable expectation. We retain data as follows:
- We will retain your name and contact information for as long as you wish to receive our newsletter or updates. If you ask us to remove you from our mailing list we will retain your email address in order to add it to a suppression list.
- We will retain financial/donations records for a period of 6 years, as per our legal obligations to HMRC, and responsibility to adhere to our transparency and know your donor processes. This includes your name, postal address, and donation amount.
Know your Rights
You have various rights with regards to how we control and process your personal data, including the right to request we delete it or to restrict how we process it. For more information on these rights, visit the ICO website.
If you are ever unhappy with how we have processed your data, or believe us to have acted unlawfully, you should write to us in the first instance detailing your concerns. We will respond within 28 calendar days. If you are unsatisfied with our response, you can make a complaint to the ICO. Full details on how best to do this are on their website here: https://ico.org.uk/concerns or you can call 0303 123 1113.
Sharing or transferring your data
We will never sell, lease or distribute your personal information to third parties unless we have your permission or are required by law to do so. We will never share our mailing lists with any other charities or organisations.
If you choose to Gift Aid your donation we must share your name, address, and donation amount and date with HMRC in order to claim the funding. This will also be clarified when you ‘tick the box’ or otherwise opt to gift aid your donation.
Cookies Policy
Like most websites Link Education International uses cookies, which are small data files placed on your computer (or other devices) as you browse our website. They are used to “remember” when your computer accesses our website, which can both make it easier to visit the site again and make the site more useful to you.
Some of these cookies are essential to the function of our website and cannot be turned off – these keep you safe when signing up to our mailing list or making a donation.
All remaining cookies help us to understand how you use the site so we can improve it. These cookies are provided by Google Analytics. You can choose to reject these cookies at any time by configuring your browser, and will be prompted to either accept or reject them when first entering our website.
Our mailing list uses performance cookies to help us understand how you interact with our emails. If you would prefer not to share this data with us, you can set your email client to receive plain text emails from us.
If you would like to learn more about how cookies work and how to better control them on your device, you might like to visit www.allaboutcookies.org, or to review the settings in your website browser to control which kinds of cookies you allow.