Updated 21 March 2024

We want you to feel assured that any information you give us is held securely and safely, whether you are working for us, supporting us through membership, campaigning, donations, volunteering, fundraising or events.

‘We’ or ‘us’ means the Cheshire Branch of the Campaign to Protect Rural England (also known as CPRE Cheshire), registered charity number 248304.

The policies seek to cover the key areas relating to the personal data we hold except for in the case of volunteers. You can see our privacy policy for volunteers here.

However, in the interests of clarity it is not an exhaustive list of all our policies and practices in these areas.

The policies will change from time to time, as we keep up to date with legislation and regulation and to remain aligned with any relevant changes in our programmes and operations. If material changes are made, we will notify you by placing a prominent notice on the website. You can keep up to date by visiting these pages.

Getting in touch

You have the right to ask for a copy of the information we hold about you and to have any inaccuracies in your information corrected. You also have the right to ask us to delete any personal information we hold about you. In some cases, we may be unable to delete data, such as if it is required for tax or Gift Aid purposes. In these cases, we will ensure that you are removed from future communications and processing. We are committed to ensuring you receive only those communications you choose.

You can access your personal data held by us or request to receive your information in part or its entirety in machine readable format.

For all questions, concerns or complaints regarding our privacy policy or the processing of your personal information, contact:

Data Protection Lead
CPRE Cheshire

Victoria Buildings
Lewin Street
Middlewich
CW10 9AT

Tel: 01606 835046
Email: info@cprecheshire.org.uk

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) gives full details of how to make a complaint at https://ico.org.uk/for-the-public/how-to-make-a-data-protection-complaint/

If you contact us with a straightforward request or complaint relating to your rights under data protection law, we will respond within one calendar month of receipt or within one calendar month of receiving any documents we need from you to be able to deal with your request or complaint. If your request or complaint is complex or you make several requests, the response time may be up to three months.

If you are not happy with our response, you can complain to the ICO using the online form on their website at https://ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint/data-protection-complaints/personal-information-complaint/

The ICO also provide advice via online chat and by phone on 0303 123 1113 (local rate). Their postal address is: Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow SK9 5AF.

Cookie consent

By using our website, joining or donating to us, you agree that, unless you have set your computer’s browser to reject them, we can place the types of cookies set out below on your device and use that data in accordance with this policy.

For more information about how we use cookies on this site, please see our cookie policy below.

Why and how we collect your data

As a member

If you join CPRE, you join both national CPRE and your local group. Membership records including any privacy preferences are maintained by the national CPRE office. We therefore receive personal details from the national office so we can communicate with you. You can read the national CPRE privacy policy here.

If you contact us directly

We hold personal data provided in the course of people contacting us in relation to our services and  activities.

When we are working with a third party

We may work with third party organisations such as event organisers, event booking websites, email software and fundraising websites. These independent third parties will typically share personal data with us if necessary for the purpose of carrying out the shared activity or if you have given them permission to do so in order that we can contact you.

When your information is available publicly

We may use information that we already have about you in combination with information available publicly or information available from external sources. This includes the use of profiling and screening techniques.

Public information includes that held by Companies House, the Land Registry website or published in articles and newspapers. It includes, for example, geographic and demographic information.

Such information allows us to better understand you and your interests. It ensures communications are relevant and timely, and helps us to improve the experience for our supporters.

It also allows us to target our resources effectively, which supporters consistently tell us is a key priority for them. It helps us to make appropriate requests to supporters who may be able and willing to give more time or resources than they already do. Importantly, it enables us to raise more funds, sooner, and more cost-effectively, than we otherwise would.

In some situations, we may update our supporters, clients and volunteers’ personal information using partners, for example, to check we have a valid and deliverable postal address, or to check if you are registered with the Telephone Preference Service (TPS) or Fundraising Preference Service (FPS).

Depending on your computer/phone/tablet settings or the privacy policies for social media and messaging services like Facebook or Twitter, you might give us permission to access information from those accounts or services.

You can opt out of your data being used in any of the above-mentioned ways at any time by contacting national CPRE at supportercare@cpre.org.uk or calling 020 7981 2870.

What data we collect

Personal information is any data that can be used to identify you. It can include any of the data below but is not limited to such data.

Data protection law recognises that there are sensitive categories of personal information, such as health information, racial or ethnic origin, or religious beliefs or other beliefs. We would only collect sensitive personal information where there is a clear need to do so such as health information to enable participation in a challenge event. Before we collect any sensitive personal information, we will make it clear what information we are collecting and the purpose we are collecting it for.

Information we collect may include:

• name
• address
• email address
• telephone number
• contact preferences
• bank account details for setting up a regular direct debit
• credit card details for processing credit card payments
• employer details for processing a payroll gift
• taxpayer status for claiming Gift Aid
• National Insurance number
• marital status
• health history
• date of birth, age, and/or gender

We do not use cookies to collect this type of information.

We may also collect and process information about your interactions with us, including details about our contacts with you through email, SMS (i.e. mobile phone texts), post, on the phone or in person. This might include the date, time, and method of contact, details about donations you make to us, events or activities that you register for or attend or any request we make to you for support.

We may also collect and record other relevant information you share with us about yourself, such as your interests or your affiliations with other charities, community or campaign groups, your council or planning team.

Children’s data

We are committed to protecting the privacy of children and young people who volunteer with us, fundraise for us, attend events organised by us or engage on our website. Where necessary we will obtain the consent of a parent or guardian in order to collect and use personal data of children.

If you are a child and would like to get involved with CPRE, please obtain your parent or guardian’s consent before sending any personal information to any website or CPRE. Where we have activities for those under 18 we will ask your age. Please ensure you speak to your parent or guardian before taking part in these activities.

How we use your data

We use personal data in the course of processing membership subscriptions, donations and other payments and in telling you about and running our services and activities. We may also occasionally invite supporters to participate in research.

To do this, we communicate through a variety of channels such as our website, postal, email and telephone appeals, and postal and email newsletters and information publications.

We may also contact you by email, phone or text for marketing purposes such as campaign updates, membership renewal requests and occasional appeals and invitations to take part in fundraising events or raffles and other gaming opportunities. If we do this, we will ensure you have given the relevant consent.

We may send relevant marketing material by post. The law allows us to use personal data for this purpose where it is necessary for a legitimate business interest of the organisation – as long as its use is fair and balanced and does not unduly impact the rights of the individual concerned. To reduce the amount of post you receive from us or stop receiving postal marketing at all, contact National CPRE at supportercare@cpre.org.uk or call 020 7981 2870.

If you are a member of CPRE and ask not to receive post, we will stop sending information such as Countryside Voices magazine or local CPRE updates. However, there are some documents we must by law continue to post to you. These include membership documents such as voting papers and AGM notifications, and membership renewal notices.

Data sharing within the CPRE network

We are a separate organisation operating as part of the national CPRE network, which includes 42 local groups and the national CPRE charity. When you join CPRE, you join the national charity and are also allocated a local group according to where you live. Alternatively, you can choose a different group.

National CPRE keeps you up to date with national news, events and invites you to their Annual General Meeting. They share the details of relevant members with us so we can keep you informed of Cheshire CPRE news, events and volunteer opportunities and invite you to our Annual General Meeting.

We may share membership data with other parts of the CPRE network where needed as part of providing activities or services. If you have any interactions with other local CPRE groups, the individual group’s privacy policy will apply.

You can choose not to receive certain communications from us at any time by contacting National CPRE supporter care team at supportercare@cpre.org.uk or calling 020 7981 2870.

Data sharing with third parties outside the CPRE network

We do not share, sell or swap your information with any organisations outside the CPRE network for their own marketing purposes.

We may share your information with third parties whom we have contracted to fulfil specific services for us. This will include organisations such as mail fulfilment houses and email software providers. In such cases, we have a legally binding agreement with the organisation to ensure these organisations can only use the data provided for the specific purposes agreed and that they have in place strict security measures to protect your personal information. Sometimes we may use systems set up by National CPRE, in which case the agreement will be with National CPRE unless otherwise stated.

We may disclose your personal information if we are requested or required to do so by a regulator (such as the Charity Commission) or law enforcement body. We may also do so to enforce or apply our rights (including in relation to our website or other applicable terms and conditions) or to protect CPRE Cheshire (for example in cases of suspected fraud or defamation), or to comply with any other applicable legal obligation.

Where you have agreed to receive email marketing communications from us, we may provide your email address or mobile phone number in an encrypted format to social media companies, such as Meta (formerly Facebook) or X (formerly Twitter) and digital advertising networks. This is so we can show our advertising to you on those social media platforms and other websites and to other people with interests similar to yours.

You can opt out of your data being used to display advertising to you by emailing National CPRE supportercare@cpre.org.uk or calling 020 7981 2870. However, this will not prevent our advertisements being shown to you randomly or based on cookie data. It may also mean that you stop receiving more general marketing communications from us.

Keeping your personal information safe

We take appropriate physical, electronic and managerial measures to ensure that we keep your information secure, accurate and up to date.

Although we use appropriate security measures once we have received your personal information, the transmission of information over the internet is never completely secure. We do our best to protect personal information, but we cannot guarantee the security of information transmitted to our website, so any transmission is at the user’s own risk. However, any payment card details (such as credit or debit cards) we receive on our website are passed securely to our payment processing provider according to the Payment Card Industry Security Standards.

How long we will keep your data

We remove personal data from our systems in line with our data retention policy. The length of time each category of data will be retained will vary on how long we need to process it, the reason it is collected, and in line with any statutory requirements.

After this point the data will either be deleted or made anonymous. In certain situations, for example where a supporter has kindly pledged a legacy to CPRE Cheshire, we will keep the relevant personal details until we have completed the legacy administration and have no further need to communicate with the family.