Privacy Policy

Last updated: 22nd May 2018

Who we are
We are Planning Aid Wales (registered in England and Wales, number 02526875). Our place of business is Planning Aid Wales First Floor, 174 Whitchurch Road, Heath, Cardiff CF14 3NB. You can write to us or email our Data Protection Officer about any questions or concerns regarding this notice at: [email protected], or call us at: 02920 625 009.

Our data protection compliance
Planning Aid Wales is committed to protecting your privacy. We have adopted this privacy policy to explain how any personal information you choose to provide to us will be processed and used.

We will continue to comply with the provisions of the Data Protection Act 1998 (“DPA”) until and including 24 May 2018, after which we will comply with the General Data Protection Regulation ((EU) 2016/679) (“GDPR”) unless and until the GDPR is no longer directly applicable in the UK, together with any national implementing laws, regulations and secondary legislation as amended or updated from time to time in the UK, and any successor legislation to the GDPR and the DPA (together “Data Protection legislation”).
Under Data Protection legislation, we have a legal duty to protect any personal information we collect from you. We maintain strict human, operational and technological security policies and procedures to safeguard your personal data, and to assist you in exercising your rights with respect to managing your personal data.

Personal information collected by Planning Aid Wales
We only collect personal information that is needed, adequate to manage your case, or your participation in our training courses or events, and relevant for the specific purpose. The types of information we may collect from you include:
• Your name and address
• Your telephone number and email address (including work email addresses)
• Financial payment information
• Age/gender
• Details of health related matters, disability, ethnic background or other sensitive data when relevant.
• Signature

How we collect your personal information
We collect, process and use personal information in a number of different ways depending on who has provided the information and for what purposes: Typical contacts we receive are requests for planning information and advice via our helpline service, bookings to attend our events, requests to be added to our mailing lists and general business contacts.
We will give you the opportunity to tell us if you do or do not want to receive information from us about our products or services (as applicable). You can normally do this by ticking the appropriate box on our website, application form or contract

People who contact us
We may record personal information provided to us by telephone, email, in person or otherwise in writing or electronically. We will only use your information for the purposes that you provided it to us, and always in compliance with Data Protection legislation.

People who visit and use our website
Our website may invite you to sign up for certain features, such as newsletters, email updates, demo requests and other general interactive features. Where you provide information for these purposes, we will use your information to provide the relevant service or feature that you have requested and to manage your preferences.
We may also gather statistics to help us monitor various areas of our work. These may include the number of enquiries received, the types of enquiry and the ethnicity of people seeking our assistance and the number of participants and their reflections on our events. We use these statistics for the legitimate interest of ensuring our services continue to be provided to those people who most need them.

Planning Aid Wales does not store any personal information about individuals who visit our website, unless you voluntarily choose to give us your personal details by email, or you ask for further information about any of our services, or have been provided a username and password.

Interactions on social media
We may also interact with you on social media. If you submit any personal information to us via social media facilities controlled by us (e.g. our Facebook page or Twitter feed), we shall administer it according to this Privacy Policy. You will have the ability to unsubscribe from any repeat communications at any time.

How we may share your personal data
We do not pass on your personal details to any third party, unless we have contacted you beforehand and you have given us your permission to do so, or the disclosure is required by law.
Information relevant to managing your case is shared only between our Administrator, Case Manager and/or the planning professional dealing with your case, and all data is held on a secure database to which only approved Planning Aid Wales staff have access.
We employ companies and individuals to perform functions on our behalf and we may disclose your personal information to these parties for the purposes of, for example, delivering packages, sending postal mail and email, and providing information technology services. Those parties only have access to personal information needed to perform their functions, and may not use it for other purposes.
Further, they must process the personal information in accordance with this Privacy Policy and as permitted by Data Protection legislation.

Cookies
A ‘cookie’ is a small text file that a website places on your computer to allow you to personalise or customise current and future visits to that site. For example, we use cookies to remember accessibility settings and preferences that you may choose to make at our website. Cookies can also be used to gather information about people visiting websites.
We use cookies to store information about which parts of the site your browser downloaded and when it visited. We do this to find out how people move around the site so that we can improve our service to you.

These cookies do not contain any personal information about you, and they cannot be used to identify an individual user. A cookie cannot read data from your hard disk or read cookie files that may have been created from other sites. You can choose whether to accept cookies by changing the settings of your browser. Typically, by accessing the browser’s help feature you can obtain information on how to prevent your browser from accepting all cookies or to notify you when a cookie is being sent. If you choose not to accept these cookies, your experience at our website and other websites may be diminished and some features may not work as intended.

Log files
Log files also allow us to record visitors’ use of the site. We use this information to improve our service to you.
Log files do not contain any personal information about you.

IP addresses
Every computer connected to the Internet is provided with a domain name (e.g. earthlink.net) and an IP address (e.g. 65.15.36.78). When a visitor requests a page from within the Planning Aid Wales website, our web servers automatically identify and log the HTTP request that is made to our web server. This information reveals nothing personal about you. In fact, the only information that we automatically gather and log is as follows:
The IP address of the site that may have referred you
Your IP address
The web page that you may have linked to us from, if any
The product identifier for version and make of browser (e.g. Internet Explorer 5.0)
The operating system platform that you may be running (e.g. Macintosh or Windows)
Search words or terms that are passed from a search engine (e.g. Google, Yahoo, or Lycos)

Usernames
Staff and volunteers of Planning Aid Wales can choose to become registered users who can access sections of the website that are not available to the public. When such a registered user is logged in while browsing the site, it is possible to link the above information about site usage to their name and contact details. Access to your information and contacting Planning Aid Wales

If you wish to see our records of any correspondence you have sent to us, or if you have a query or complaint about this privacy policy or about the website, you can contact us by email via the contacts page.

Transfer of personal information outside of the European Economic Area (EEA)
We do not transfer any personal data outside of the EEA.

Automated decision-making and profiling
We do not use your personal information to perform any automated decision-making or for profiling purposes.

How long we may keep your personal data
For those seeking advice from Planning Aid Wales, we keep a record of email messages we receive for six months, after which it is erased. We retain personal information relating to case management for three years and erase the files at that time. We retain records of other interactions via social media and email contacts for six months, after which it is erased. We will keep contact information for newsletter subscribers, once opted-in, until the user unsubscribes. Newsletter users will be given the option to update their details or unsubscribe with every email we send.

Your data protection rights
You are guaranteed certain rights with regard to your personal information. If you wish to exercise your rights, or if you have any questions or concerns about the handling of your personal information, you can write to us at:
Planning Aid Wales
First Floor
174 Whitchurch Road
Heath
Cardiff
CF14 3NB

Alternatively you can email our Data Protection Officer at: [email protected] or
call us at: 02920 625 009

Withdrawing consent
When we first obtain personal information from you, or when you take a new service or product from us, we will give you the opportunity to tell us if you do or do not want to receive information from us about our products or services (as applicable). You can normally do this by ticking the appropriate box on our website, application form or contract. If you ask us to provide you with information and you change your mind at any time, you can also let us know by emailing our Data Protection Officer at the address above.
You have the right not to consent to share your personal information with Planning Aid Wales. Withdrawal of your consent will not affect any processing we have carried out in respect of your personal information prior to you withdrawing your consent. If you decide that you do not wish to share your personal information with us, we may be unable to provide our services to you.

Accessing your personal information

You have the right to access a copy of your personal information that we have collected and stored. You can request this by contacting our Data Protection Officer.
Correcting your personal information
We aim to keep the Personal information we hold about you accurate and up to date. If you believe any of the personal information we hold regarding you is incorrect, you can request that we correct your information and we will amend it.

Restricting your personal information or objecting to continued use

You can ask us to cease using your personal information or object to us continuing to use it. This does not affect any use that was carried out before we receive your request.

Requesting for your personal information to be deleted
You can also request that we delete any or all of your personal information. We do not have to comply with your request if it would result in us being out of compliance with other legal obligations that we have, but if that were the case we will always inform you at the time of your request.
Requesting for your personal information to be transferred
If you wish us to transfer any or all of your personal information that we hold to a third party, you can ask us to do this and we will transmit your information in a commonly used electronic format.

Making a complaint
If you are unhappy with how we have used your personal information, you have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). You can do this by going to their website at ico.org.uk and clicking the “Report a Concern” link, and following the steps on the page.

Changes to this Privacy Policy Notice
If this privacy policy changes in any way, we will place an updated version on this page. Regularly reviewing this page ensures you are always aware of what information we collect, how we use it and under what circumstances, if any, we will share it with other parties.

Copyright 2018 © Planning Aid Wales All Rights Reserved

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