Privacy Policy

World Villages for Children UK

The content on this website is maintained by World Villages for Children UK, registered charity number 1058973 and based at Kings Buildings, 16 Smith Square, London, SW1P 3HQ.

World Villages for Children fundraises for the programmes of the Sisters of Mary, to transform the lives of children living in poverty around the world through the provision of education. World Villages for Children UK are committed to fundraising in an honest and transparent way, and to following the standards and principles of the Fundraising Regulator’s code in all our fundraising. We are reliant on the goodwill and generosity of our donors to fund our work and every donation we receive helps us to provide the chance for another child to benefit from the care of the Sisters of Mary programmes. We are registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) registration number Z7542289 and we are registered with the Fundraising Regulator, DMA and NCVO.

This privacy notice sets out how we collect and use the personal information you provide to us whether this is via direct interaction with us online, in person or via phone, mobile, email, letter or other communication or indirectly where your information may be shared with us via fundraising sites or third parties.  It explains why we collect your personal information and how we strive to protect the privacy of all our donors and supporters. If you have any requests concerning your personal information or any queries with regard to these practices please contact The Database Officer at enquiries@worldvillages.org.uk. Please note that all the data we capture will be used and held in accordance with the requirements of the General Data Protection Regulations 2018.

What information is collected and how we use it:

Information that you give us directly

At World Villages for Children, we take the privacy of our donors very seriously. Personal information of donors acquired by World Villages for Children is never sold, rented or exchanged.

The information we collect from you is personal data and may include your name, postal address, email address, telephone number, mobile telephone number, bank account details, other payment card information and details of whether you are taxpayer so that we can claim Gift Aid on any donations you make.

We collect information directly from donors when you register with us as a supporter by sending us a donation in the post or when you interact with us via our social media or website and use the online donation forms. When you subscribe to our online mailing list and provide your email address and or postal address we will use this information to update you and to provide information on how you can support us in our work, consistent with what you have consented to in the case of emails.

If the postal contact information you provide to us is incomplete or contains errors, we may use services such as those provided by the Royal Mail to correct your address details to enable us to send you information about our work and how you can support us.

If you contact us via the ‘contact us’ page on the website, we will only use your details for administrative purposes to help you with your enquiry.

Information that you give us indirectly

Your personal data (name, postal and email address, Gift Aid status), may be shared with us by other parties, such as fundraising sites like JustGiving, if you are fundraising for us. You should review each organisation’s privacy policy if you have questions about how it processes your personal data.

You may have given other organisations permission to share your data – this might for example occur when you buy a product or service from a third party. The personal data we receive from other organisations depends on your settings or the responses you have provided to them but personal identifiable data is limited to name and postal address.

Our website may indirectly collect information on you via the use of cookies. Cookies are used to enhance your online experience and ensure our website is working in the way it should. Cookies are small files that are sent to your computer or mobile phone web browser which contain information that allows users to navigate the site and ensure it functions correctly. The cookies used by World Villages are safe and secure and are commonly used on all websites and include google cookies like google analytics which collect anonymous information on the number of visitors to our site and which search engine is being used, these help us to better tailor our online content.

Use of cookies makes web-surfing easier and your browser is probably set to accept cookies. You can detect cookies in use on our website by using plugins like www.ghostery.com and if you would prefer not to receive cookies, you can alter the configuration of your browser to refuse cookies. However, if you disable cookies from your browser you will experience issues while trying to view or interact with this site. For more general information about cookies visit www.allaboutcookies.org.

Links to Other Websites

Our site contains links to other websites belonging to third parties and we sometimes choose to participate in social networking websites including but not limited to YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. We may also include content from websites like these on our website. These sites are outside our control and are not covered by this Privacy Notice. Please note that when you click on one of these links, you are entering another web site for which World Villages for Children has no responsibility. The operators of these sites may collect information from you that will be used by them in accordance with their privacy notice, which may differ from ours. You should ensure you have read and understood the other website’s privacy notice in addition to our own.

Sensitive/special categories of Data

Data protection law recognises that certain categories of personal information are more sensitive. These special categories of data cover health information, race and ethnicity, religious or philosophical beliefs or political opinions. We do not collect sensitive information about our donors.

How we use your personal Data

We will use your data for the purpose of processing any donation you make; to set up direct debits, standing orders or one-off payments, to further our legitimate charitable aims by inviting you to get more involved in our work or to thank you for your support and send you information on how your donations are being used.  

We will collect, hold and process your information in a manner which protects your interests at all times ensuring compliance with industry standards for security of payment card processing (PCI DSS), and bank standards for processing of direct debits via BACS.

We will only pass elements of your information to third parties who are within World Villages for Children UK or an agent acting on our behalf and only as is necessary for the purpose. We will require that any such third party must similarly process your personal information securely in accordance with industry standards, this Privacy Notice and in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulations 2018 (GDPR) and we will ensure that they do this.

We rely on legitimate interests for the purpose of lawfully processing your data for direct marketing in order to pursue our charitable mission and to ask for your support. Where necessary we conduct privacy impact assessments prior to the new processing of personal data to protect the rights and freedoms of our data subjects. We will not send fundraising information or requests to you by email or other electronic means where you have not specifically opted in to these formats beforehand.

Safety and Storage of personal data

We will retain the data we hold concerning you, including information relating to your donation history, for the minimum periods necessary per our data retention policy and depending on the nature of the information and the needs of the authorities (accounting, HMRC). We hold donor correspondence for a period of 4 years, documentation required for accounting purposes for a period of 7 years and records which may require review by HMRC are retained for a period of 10 years following the final donation.

We take reasonable and appropriate technical, organisational, and physical security measures in accordance with applicable laws to ensure that your personal data is adequately protected against accidental or unlawful destruction, damage, loss or alteration, unauthorised or unlawful access, disclosure or misuse, and all other unlawful forms of processing of your personal data in our possession.

Securing personal data is an important aspect of protecting privacy. We apply policies, standards, and security controls at the level appropriate to the risk level and the services provided.

Security measures include the following:

  • Physical safeguards: We monitor the physical security and control access to our facility, and apply secure destruction to media containing your personal data.
  • Technology safeguards: We use best practice network and information security technology such as anti-virus and endpoint protection software, and data loss prevention, and we monitor our systems to ensure that they maintain compliance with our security policies and evolving security risks. World Villages for Children is ‘Cyber Essentials Certified’ which means that we fully comply with the ‘Cyber Essentials Scheme’ aimed at keeping your data safe and secure. For more details on this please contact us at enquiries@worldvillages.org.uk or follow this link to the Cyber Essentials website
  • Organisational safeguards: We conduct regular and targeted training and awareness programmes on security and privacy to make sure that our employees and contractors understand the importance of protecting your personal data and that they learn and maintain the necessary knowledge and skills to protect it in practice. Our organisational policies and standards also guide our handling of your personal data. Particular care is given to security and privacy of financial and personal information.  Access is controlled through a number of user identification and authentication methods both internally and via remote access.

Disclosure of Personal Data

We will disclose personal data to authorities without your consent where we are required to do so under the law. We may also disclose your data to partners we contract with to provide services on our behalf, this includes services such as sending mail appeals, processing donations, or collecting, storing, or processing data. We select our third-party service providers with care. We provide each of our partners with the information that is necessary to provide the relevant service, and we have an agreement or terms in place with each that requires them to operate with the same care regarding data protection as we do.

Because of technical considerations, the personal data you provide to us may be transferred to countries outside the European Economic Area (EEA), which are not subject to the same data protection regulations as those in the UK. We meet our obligations under the GDPR by ensuring that such data sets have the same protection as if they were being held within the EEA. We ensure that any third parties processing your data outside the EEA either benefit from an adequacy determination for GDPR purposes or, where appropriate, we have entered into a Data Processing Agreement with the third party that contains appropriate safeguards using model European Union clauses.

Your Rights

The Data Protection Act and the General Data Protection Regulation give you certain rights over your data and how we use it. You have the right to:

  • Request a copy of the data we hold about you and details of what we do with that data (known as a subject access request)
  • Update or amend the data we hold about you if it is wrong
  • Change your communication preferences at any time
  • Withdraw your consent to use of your personal data where we are relying on consent as the lawful basis for processing it
  • Ask us to remove your personal data from our records
  • Ask us to restrict the processing of your personal data
  • Obtain a portable copy of certain personal data where this is processed automatically
  • Object to the processing of your data for marketing purposes
  • Raise a concern or complaint about the way in which your data is being used
  • Ask us to explain any automated processing we carry out and the impact of this on you

If you wish to exercise any of these rights, please contact us in any of the ways shown in the ‘Contacting Us’ section later in this privacy notice.

We may ask for reasonable proof of your identity before providing you with data or carrying out any of the above actions.

You may opt out of receiving communications from us at any time by using the response form or envelope sent with our correspondence, by emailing enquiries@worldvillages.org.uk, ringing 0207 629 3050 or writing to The Database Officer at World Villages for Children, Kings Buildings, 16 Smith Square, London, SW1P 3HQ. You may alter your communication preferences at any point or change the method we use to contact you by additionally emailing us at enquiries@worldvillages.org.uk

Personal data of people under 18

We encourage adults with parental responsibility to get involved in their children’s online usage and to be aware of their activities and to ensure they only give personal data to us where they have your consent to do so.

Vulnerable Donors

World Villages for Children follows the Chartered Institute of Fundraising (CIoF) and Fundraising Regulator guidelines and Code of Fundraising practice in its fundraising and will not contact donors for fundraising purposes where the donor has been notified to us either directly or via an acknowledged representative as vulnerable i.e. has difficulty in making an informed decision about the choices offered to them. Nor will World Villages for Children accept donations where it becomes apparent during the course of interaction that the donor may be vulnerable.

Photographic Policy

It is our policy to use photographs taken in our schools and kindergartens to illustrate the work done by World Villages for Children and demonstrate how donor funds are utilised.

All children aged 11-18 appearing in our videos and photos have given their express permission for the use of their image. For our younger children, permission has been provided by their parents and/or guardians for use of their image.

Further use of any of these images requires the express consent of World Villages for Children (see the Contacting Us section)

Changes to this Privacy Notice

This privacy notice may be subject to periodic update. See the latest version online at www.worldvillages.org.uk or write to us for a copy at World Villages for Children, Kings Buildings, 16 Smith Square, London, SW1P 3HQ. This privacy notice was last updated in September 2021.

Contacting Us

If you have any questions about this Privacy Notice, our practices, or your dealings with us, please email us on enquiries@worldvillages.org.uk, call us at 0207 629 3050, or contact us by post at our office address which is World Villages for Children, Kings Buildings, 16 Smith Square, London, SW1P 3HQ.

Complaints policy

We are committed to providing a high quality and accessible service to our donors and to continually improve how we work by listening and responding to your comments and complaints.

World Villages for Children abides by the Code of Fundraising Practice which represents the standards expected of all fundraising organisations. If something goes wrong, we want to hear about it so that we can deal with the situation as soon as possible and put measures in place to stop it happening again.

You can call us on 0207 629 3050 and one of our team will be willing to help. Our phone lines are open from Monday to Friday from 9 am to 5.30 pm or outside of these hours you can leave us a message with your contact number and we will call you back. Or you can email us at enquiries@worldvillages.org.uk. Or you can write to us at World Villages for Children, Kings Buildings, 16 Smith Square, London, SW1P 3HQ. Please include your name, address and contact telephone number or email so that we can get in touch with you.

We will acknowledge receipt of your complaint within 5 working days and endeavour to respond fully to all complaints within fifteen working days but wherever possible we will deal with it more quickly, if we think it will take longer we will let you know.

We treat all comments and complaints as an opportunity to improve and ensure that mistakes don’t happen again.

If you are not happy with the way in which we have processed or dealt with your personal data, you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office. Further details about reporting a concern can be found here.