Privacy Policy
GUIDE DOGS SHOP@The Guide Dogs for the Blind Association (Trading Company) Ltd.
Guide Dogs is a working name of The Guide Dogs for the Blind Association.
Registered Office: Hillfields, Burghfield Common, Reading, Berkshire RG7 3YG. A company limited by guarantee registered in England and Wales (291646) and a charity registered in England and Wales (209617) and Scotland (SC038979)
Tel: 0118 983 5555 Email: guidedogs@guidedogs.org.uk
Website: www.guidedogs.org.uk
Guide Dogs also operates Guide Dogs Shop@The Guide Dogs for the Blind Association (Trading Company) Ltd (291646) its privacy policy can be found on the website.
Guide Dogs e-commerce website is operated and managed by GUIDE DOGS SHOP@The Guide Dogs for the Blind Association (Trading Company) Ltd. who use Shopify a recognised e-commerce platform to take and process your orders.
For data protection purposes Shopify are a Data Processor and will not use your personal details for their own marketing purposes. However, to help protect our customers Shopify does monitor credit card activity for risk and fraud screening.
Guide Dogs Data Protection Officer is Phillippa T.Caine.
If you have any questions regarding our Privacy Policy, please write to her at:
Guide Dogs
Hillfields
Burghfield Common
Reading
Berkshire RG7 3YG
Or email us
The Data Protection Act
Under the Data Protection Act 2018, we have a legal duty to protect any information we collect from you. We use appropriate technologies to safeguard your data; and keep strict security standards to prevent any unauthorised access to it.
At Guide Dogs we are committed to both protecting & respecting your privacy and we take data protection very seriously.
We will never exchange or sell your information to another organization for their own marketing purposes. We know that this is important to you, and want to reassure you that you are always in control of how we use your personal information with regards to marketing and fundraising activities.
However, we do need to collect and use your personal information for carefully considered and legitimate business purposes, which help Guide Dogs raise funds effectively and deliver our life-changing services.
We will use your personal information to process your order.
We may sometimes contact you with offers from companies that benefit Guide Dogs and may be of interest to you.
We will only exchange your details where we have a duty to share your information with third parties, regulatory or law enforcement agencies if we believe in good faith that we are required by law to disclose it in connection with the crime, the collection of taxes or duties, in order to comply with any applicable law or order of a court of competent jurisdiction, or in connection with legal proceedings.
By submitting your details to us, you are agreeing to allow us to share your details with the Trading Company (Guide Dogs Shop) and other organisations that may fulfil your order or answer any query related to your order.
What information do we collect?
Information Requests
We use contact information from web forms and emails to send you information or materials that you have requested. Your contact information is also used to contact you when necessary, for example, to fulfil a query.
Orders and Donations
From time to time, our site may use an order or donation form for you to request information, products, services and make donations.
We collect your contact information (email address, telephone number etc) and financial information (account or credit card numbers) this information is used to fulfil orders. Your contact information is also used to get in touch with you when necessary, for example to be able to fulfil an order. Financial information that is collected is kept secure using encryption.
Analysis, Targeting & Segmentation
We only want to send you communications that are interesting to you to make sure we are being as efficient as we can.
Therefore, we may use your contact details and information on how you have supported us to identify your interests, along with publicly sourced data and information from data analytics companies to help us tailor and personalise our communications.
Guide Dogs uses postcode-based segmentation tools to help us understand the demographic make-up of a geographical area. This allows us to get a better understanding of the types of people who live in different areas of the country and is useful for planning purposes; to target and tailor our marketing communications and to make most efficient use of fundraising activities. to help us tailor our communications to individuals.
Cookies and IP addresses
We measure visits to our websites in order improve their usability. The data we measure may contain personal information (an IP address and/or cookies). We do not link your IP addresses to individuals. Your IP addresses are used for internal research and promotion purposes and are not provided to third parties. Cookies issued by us only contain a unique number and therefore contain no personal data. We do not link cookies to individuals other than to recognize repeat visits.
(IP address definition - An IP address is a series of numbers that identify computers on the internet. IP addresses can theoretically be linked to an individual. Such linking requires additional information (particularly from the internet provider who issued the IP address or from the visitor themselves). For that reason IP addresses are considered personal data. )
(Cookie definition - A cookie is a small file that is stored on the computer of a visitor when they visit a website. If they visit the website again, the cookie shows that it is a repeat visit. Because the visitor is recognized though the cookie, cookies are considered personal data. In addition, cookies may contain personal data themselves.)
Cookies on Guide Dogs websites.
We employ a number of cookies across our websites in order to enhance the user experience, and ensure that we are able to provide the relevant content that our visitors expect.
You can change the settings on your browser to prevent cookies being stored on your computer or mobile device without your explicit consent. Your browser "help" section will normally provide details on how to manage the cookie settings.
You can also learn more about tailored online ads and your choices to opt out of them.
My cookie settings aren't saving
In order for cookie preferences to be stored on your device, Do Not Track browser settings must be disabled. On mobile devices you can find these in your settings as detailed below:
iPhone: Settings > Safari > 'Ask websites not to track me'
Android: Settings > Advanced > Privacy > Do Not Track On
Chrome: Settings > Advanced Settings > 'Send a "Do Not Track" request with your browsing traffic'
What will happen if I disable cookies?
If you disable cookies you may not be able to use all the interactive features of our website.
If you have any further questions about cookies then please contact customerservices@guidedogs.org.uk stating Guide Dogs Shop in the subject heading.
What happens when you follow a link to another site?
Our websites contain links to other websites. This privacy policy applies only to our sites, so you should always be aware when you are moving to another site and read the privacy statement of any site which collects personal information.
We do not pass on any personal information about you to any other site when you link to non-Guide Dogs websites.
Data Collected
We collect and use your personal information such as name, address details, email address, telephone numbers, IP address and information regarding what pages you have accessed on our website. We also collect information about the services you use, any purchases or financial transactions you make, or marketing contact preferences you give. We maintain a record of communications we send you and we may log any communications that you send us.
If you have kindly Gift Aided your donation to Guide Dog’s, we must record the fact you are a UK taxpayer and we must maintain a record of the amount of Gift Aid we have claimed.
Do we process ‘special category’ personal information?
Under data protection law, certain categories of personal information are recognised as ’special category’, this includes health information and ethnicity. In specific cases, we may collect special category personal data about you; we would only do this if there is a clear reason for doing so, such as where we need this information to ensure that we are able to provide appropriate services and facilities, to answer your questions and enquiries, to enable you to participate in an event (such as a marathon). We would also use this information on an anonymised basis to monitor compliance with our equal opportunities policy.
Your credit or debit card information
If you use your credit or debit card to donate to us or buy something online. we pass your card details securely to our payment processing partners and do not store the details on our website or databases.
Where does the information come from?
Most of the personal data we hold is given to us directly by our supporters, in the course of interacting with our services, websites, campaigning or fundraising activities.
Data Retention
In general terms, we remove identifiable personal data from our records seven years after the date of our last interaction. In most cases, this represents seven years after the last financial transaction. There are a few exceptions to this rule, such as if a supporter has kindly left Guide Dogs a gift in their Will, we will maintain our records of that pledge indefinitely to carry out legacy administration and communicate effectively with the families of people leaving us a legacy. If you are Guide Dogs client, we will retain your records for six years after you ceased to be a client.
Data Sharing
Guide Dogs will not share or sell your personal information to any other organisation for their own marketing purposes.
Data Protection Rights
Where Guide Dogs is using your personal information on the basis of your consent, you have the right to withdraw consent at any time. You also have the right to ask Guide Dogs to stop sending you direct marketing.
If you wish to change how we contact you or tell us that you do not want to receive our occasional direct mail, please contact our Supporter Care Team on Freephone 0800 953 0113 or email them at guidedogs@guidedogs.org.uk
Right to be Informed – You have the right to be told how your personal information will be used. This policy document, and shorter summary statements used on our communications, are intended to be a clear and transparent description of how your data may be used.
Right of Access – You can write to the Data Protection Officer asking what information we hold on you and to request a copy of that information. Currently the Data Protection Act 1998 gives us 40 days to respond. From May 2018 we will have 30 days to comply once we are satisfied you have rights to see the requested records and we have successfully confirmed your identity.
Right of Erasure – From May 2018, you have the right to be forgotten (i.e. to have your personally identifiable data deleted). In many cases we would recommend that we suppress you from future communications, rather than data deletion to ensure that we do not contact you in the future.
Right of Rectification – If you believe our records are inaccurate you have the right to ask for those records concerning you to be updated.
Right to Restrict Processing – In certain situations you have the right to ask for processing of your personal data to be restricted because there is some disagreement about its accuracy or legitimate usage.
Right to Data Portability – Where we are processing your personal data under your consent the law allows you to request data portability from one service provider to another. This right is largely seen as a way for people to transfer their personal data from one service provider to a competitor.
Right to Object - You have an absolute right to stop the processing of your personal data for direct marketing purposes
Right to object to automated decisions – In a situation where a data controller is using your personal data in a computerised model or algorithm to make decisions “that have a legal effect on you”, you have the right to object. This right is more applicable to mortgage or finance situations. Guide Dogs does not undertake complex computerised decision making that produce legal effects.
Information Security
We use cloud based systems to process our data and, as such, this data may be processed outside of the UK. We adopt the Information Commissioners approved measures when we process outside of the UK which means that all processing conducted in a location outside of the UK is carried out in accordance with UK Data Protection regulations. If you require further information, please contact our Data Protection Officer.
By submitting your personal data, you agree to this transfer, storing or processing. We will take all the steps necessary to ensure that your data is treated securely and in accordance with this privacy policy.
All information you give to us is stored on our secure servers. Any payment transactions will be encrypted. Where we have given you (or where you have chosen) a password which enables you to access certain parts of our site, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential. We ask you not to share a password with anyone.
Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. Although we will do our best to protect your personal data, we cannot guarantee the security of your data transmitted to our site; any transmission is at your own risk. Once we have received your information, we will use strict procedures and security features to try to prevent unauthorised access.
The information we hold will be accurate and up to date. You can check the information that we hold about you by e-mailing us on customerservices@guidedogs.org.uk or writing to the Data Protection Officer, Guide Dogs, Hillfields, Burghfield Common, Reading, Berkshire, RG7 3YG.
Users 17 and under
If you are aged 17 or under, please get your parent/guardian's permission beforehand whenever you provide personal information to the Guide Dogs website.
Social Media
We may participate in social media marketing, which enables us to display adverts to our existing supporters when they access certain social media platforms. We may provide your email address, mobile number and address to a given social media platform so they can determine whether you are a registered account holder with them. Our adverts may then appear when you access their platform. Your data is sent in an encrypted format that is deleted by the social media provider if your email does not match their records. Any social media provider that we work with will be under a contract with us and they will have to undertake not to use your information for any other purpose.
Notification of changes to this privacy policy
This privacy policy may change from time to time, for example to reflect new legal requirements. If it changes we will place an updated version on this page. Please review this page regularly to keep up to date with any changes to the Privacy Policy.
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.
October 2021