We collect information in the following ways (this is more fully described in What information we collect):
- When you give it to us directly
You may give us your information in order to sign up for one of our events, when you contact us to ask about our activities, to tell us your story, order products and services from us, seek assistance, make a donation to us, fundraise on our behalf, apply for a job or otherwise give us personal information.
When you support us, and your information is collected or processed by an organisation (eg. a professional fundraising agency or a data processing company) working on our behalf, we will be responsible for your information. - When you give permission to other parties to share it with us
Your information may be shared with us by independent event organisers, for example the London Marathon or fundraising sites like Just Giving or Virgin Money Giving. These independent third parties will only do so with your consent when you have indicated that you wish to hear from us.
You should check their privacy policies when you provide your information to understand fully how they will process your information. We may also obtain information about you from a family member or a friend who contacts us on your behalf, or if a volunteer or fundraiser passes on your details to us. - When your information is available publicly or from other external sources
We may combine information that we already have about you with information available publicly or information available from external sources, such as Experian, to gain a better understanding of you and to improve our fundraising methods, products, and services. Such information could be for example, socio-demographic and lifestyle information and information about previous donations you have made. Details of the profiling we do is set out in Building profiles and targeting communications.
The information we get from other external sources may depend on your privacy settings or the responses you give, so you should regularly check them. For example, you may have provided permission for a company or other organisation to share your data with third parties including charities. This could be when you buy a product or service, register for an online competition or sign up with a comparison site.
Depending on your settings or the privacy policies for social media and messaging services like Facebook, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, Instagram, YouTube, Google+ or Twitter, you might give us permission to access information from those accounts or services.
We may also obtain information about you where it is publicly available and found in places such as Companies House, Land Registry website and information that is published in articles and newspapers.
To understand how we use information about the communications devices you use, such as IP address (the location of the computer on the internet) and cookies, please see How we use cookies.