Privacy policy

Wildlife Watch is the junior branch of The Wildlife Trusts and the UK’s leading environmental action club for kids. There are 150,000 Wildlife Watch members around and hundreds of local Watch groups where young people get stuck into environmental activities. Wildlife Watch is all part of the Wildlife Trusts movement. 

For more than a century, The Wildlife Trusts have been saving, protecting and standing up for wildlife and wild places, increasing people’s awareness and understanding of the natural world, and deepening people’s relationship with it. Each Wildlife Trust has been formed by groups of active and motivated people getting together to make a difference where they live and work.

We look after more than 2,300 nature reserves, covering 98,500 hectares, and operate more than 100 visitor and education centres in every part of the UK, on the Isles of Alderney and Man.

We work on land and sea, from mountain tops to the seabed, from the remotest wilderness to city streets. Wherever you are, our people, places and projects are never far away.

We work productively with more than 1,800 companies, with other environmental organisations, community groups, local authorities, national governments, schools, universities, lotteries, charitable trusts and foundations, fishermen, divers, farmers, landowners, politicians from across the political spectrum, and more.

There are 37 individual Trusts covering England, five in Wales and single Trusts covering each of Scotland, Northern Ireland and two Crown Dependencies. Wherever we work, we are accountable to people who live nearby.

The Trusts are supported in doing this by the central charity, RSWT (the Royal Society of Wildlife Trusts), the purpose of which is “to lead the movement’s development, to build trust and to represent the interests of the movement whenever a strong united voice is required”.

This policy applies to your interactions with the central charity, each Wildlife Trust has its own privacy policy (for further details, please visit the website of the Wildlife Trust concerned).

We are committed to keeping your personal details safe. This policy explains how and why we use your personal data, to ensure that you remain informed and in control of your information.

Any references to the Royal Society of Wildlife Trusts, or to ‘we’ or ‘us’ refer to:
• The Royal Society of Wildlife Trusts. We are a registered charity in England and Wales, and our registered charity number is 207238.
• Wildlife Trust Services Limited, our charitable trading company; (registered company number 02540956). The company is a wholly owned subsidiary of Royal Society of Wildlife Trusts, which trades only to raise funds for our charitable organisation.We use three key definitions to describe people mentioned in this policy. These are definitions enshrined in GDPR and used by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK’s independent body set up to uphold information rights (www.ico.org.uk)

• ‘Data subject’: this is you. As the data subject, we respect your right to control your data.
• ‘Data controller’: this is us, the Royal Society of Wildlife Trusts. With your permission, we determine why and how your personal data is used (as outlined in this policy).
• ‘Data processor’: this is an organisation that processes data on behalf of RSWT or at RSWT's discretion. RSWT takes full responsibility for what they do.

When we work with other organisations or individuals in this way, we always set up a written contract with them to protect your data. The third parties we work with at no point ‘own’ your data, so you will never hear from them independently and they will always delete your data from their systems when they have completed the task in hand. We always send your data to partner organisations securely, to minimise the risk of it being intercepted by unknown individuals and/or organisations.

We will never sell your personal data.

Should you wish to find out more about the information we hold about you, or about our privacy policy, please contact us:

Director of Marketing and Development
Telephone: 01636 670094
Email: enquiries@wildlifetrusts.org
The Kiln, Mather Road, Newark, NG24 1WT

Our office hours are Monday – Friday, 9am – 5pm.

We use your personal data to keep in touch with you.

We will only ever collect, store and use your personal data when we have an identified purpose and reason to do so. The ICO refers to this as a ‘lawful basis’. Further information about why we collect your personal data is outlined below.

a) To administer your donations

We collect your personal data to administer your donations, which may involve:
• Sending you a thank you letter
• Getting in touch should there ever be any issues processing your donation

The lawful basis for processing your data for these purposes may be ‘contractual’ or 'legitimate interest'.

b) To send you information about our work

We also collect your personal data so that we can send you information about our work that we feel will be of interest to you, this includes your Natural World magazine, fundraising appeals, campaigning opportunities, Wildlife Watch and other activities.

This information is in addition to that outlined in sections a) and b) and is interpreted as ‘direct marketing’ by the ICO.

Your personal data also helps us to get to know you better and to develop a ‘profile’ of you on our secure supporter database. This ‘profile’ enables us to send you the information listed above in a timely and relevant way, to suit you. For example, keeping track of the donations you make to our organisation helps us to send you information about fundraising appeals that we feel you would like to hear about.

As defined by the ICO, we use two different lawful bases for processing your data for ‘direct marketing’ purposes:

i) Legitimate interest
This is where we have identified a genuine and legitimate reason (see section 3c) for contacting you, which crucially does not override your rights or interests

We use legitimate interest to send you the information listed above by post or telephone (if you are not registered with the Telephone Preference Service, and you have given us your telephone number).

ii) Opt-in consent
This is where you have given us express permission to contact you by particular communication channels.

We use opt-in consent to send you the information listed above by email, text message (SMS) or telephone (if you are registered with the Telephone Preference Service)

We respect your right to update the way we get in touch with you about our work at any time.

c) If you have made a general enquiry, which we think is better handled by a local Trust, we will pass this enquiry on

As defined by the ICO, the lawful basis for processing your data for these purposes is ‘contractual’ (where administering your volunteer record) and ‘legitimate interest’ (when sending you information about our work).

a) Basic information
We will usually collect basic information about you, including your name, postal address, telephone number, email address and your bank details if you are supporting us financially. 

Most of the time, we collect this data from you directly. Sometimes this is in person; other times, it is over the telephone, in writing or through an email. Occasionally we obtain information, such as your telephone number or other contact details, from external sources (only where you have given permission for such information to be shared).

b) Getting to know you better
We also collect information about you that helps us to get to know you better. This may include:
• records of donations you’ve made
• your preferences of how you would like us to contact you
• records of events you’ve attended, or campaigns or activities that you’ve been involved in

Sometimes we will collect other information about you such as your date of birth and gender. When we do so, we will be very clear as to why we are collecting such information, and we will only do so with your specific consent and permission.

Once again, most of the time we collect this data from you directly.

We may also collect demographic and consumption data generated through geodemographic tools (such as CACI Acorn), as well as information related to your wealth. This may include information from public registers and other publicly available sources such as Companies House, newspapers and magazines. If you do not wish your data to be collected in any of these ways, or have questions about them, please contact us.

Director of Marketing and Development
Telephone: 01636 670094
Email: enquiries@wildlifetrusts.org
The Kiln, Mather Road, Newark, NG24 1WT

Our office hours are Monday – Friday, 9am – 5pm.

Other ways in which we collect personal data to get to know you better include:

i) Our website
Our website uses ‘cookies’ to help provide you with the best experience we can. Cookies are small text files that are placed on your computer or mobile phone when you browse websites.

Our cookies help us:
• Make our website work as you'd expect. For example we use them to create the spotting sheets.
• Remember your settings during and between visits
• Improve the speed/security of the site
• Allow you to share pages with social networks like Facebook
• Continuously improve our website for you

c) Sensitive personal data

We do not normally collect or store sensitive personal data, also known as special category data, (such as information relating to health, beliefs or political affiliation) about supporters. However, there are some situations where this will occur.

When we do so, we will be very clear as to why we are collecting such information. In most cases we will only collect such information with your specific consent and permission. In these situations, we collect the data from you directly. There are limited cases where permission is not required for processing special category data.

d) Children and young people 
In line with data protection law, we will not collect, store or process your personal details if you are under 13 years of age; unless we have the express permission from your parent or guardian to do so.

a) Security
All of the personal data we process is processed by our staff in the UK. However, for the purposes of IT hosting and maintenance your information may be situated outside of the European Economic Area (EEA). This will be done in accordance with guidance issued by the Information Commissioner’s Office.

Electronic data and databases are stored on secure computer systems and we control who has access to information (using both physical and electronic means). Our staff receive data protection training and we have a set of detailed data protection procedures which personnel are required to follow when handling personal data.

b) Payment security
All electronic Royal Society of Wildlife Trusts forms that request financial data will use the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol to encrypt the data between your browser and our servers.

If you use a credit card to donate, purchase a membership or purchase something online we will pass your credit card details securely to our payment provider (Stripe; PayPal). Other payment methods (e.g. ApplePay) are handled in a similar manner.

The Royal Society of Wildlife Trusts complies with the payment card industry data security standard (PCI-DSS) published by the PCI Security Standards Council, and will never store card details.

Of course, we cannot guarantee the security of your home computer or the internet, and any online communications (e.g. information provided by email or our website) are at the user’s own risk.

c) Data retention policy
We will only use and store information for as long as it is required for the purposes it was collected for. We continually review what information we hold, and delete what is no longer required.

We respect your right to control your data. Your rights include:

a) The right to be informed 
This privacy notice outlines how we capture, store and use your data. If you have any questions about any elements of this policy, please contact us.

b) The right of access
If you wish to obtain a record of the personal data we hold about you, through a Subject Access Request, we will respond within one month.

c) The right to rectification
If we have captured information about you that is inaccurate or incomplete, we will update it.

d) The right to erase
You can ask us to remove or randomise your personal details from our records.

e) The right to restrict processing
You can ask us to stop using your personal data.

f) The right to data portability
You can ask to obtain your personal data from us for your own purposes.

g) The right to object
You can ask to be excluded from marketing activity.

h) Rights in relation to automated decision making and profiling
We respect your right not to be subject to a decision that is based on automated processing.

For more information on your individual rights, please see the Information Commissioner’s Office.

The Royal Society of Wildlife Trusts want to exceed your expectation in everything we do. However, we know that there may be times when we do not meet our own high standards. When this happens, we want to hear about it, in order to deal with the situation as quickly as possible and put measures in place to stop it happening again.

We take complaints very seriously and we treat them as an opportunity to develop our approach. This is why we are always very grateful to hear from people who are willing to take the time to help us improve.

Our policy is:
• To provide a fair complaints procedure that is clear and easy to use for anyone wishing to make a complaint.
• To publicise the existence of our complaints procedure so that people know how to contact us to make a complaint.
• To make sure everyone in our organisation knows what to do if a complaint is received.
• To make sure all complaints are investigated fairly and in a timely way.
• To make sure that complaints are, wherever possible, resolved and that relationships are repaired.
• To learn from complaints and feedback to help us to improve what we do.

Confidentiality
All complaint information will be handled sensitively, in line with relevant data protection requirements.

Responsibility
Overall responsibility for this policy and its implementation lies with the Director of Marketing and Development

For further information on how to make a complaint, please click here.

Information Commissioner’s Office
For further assistance with complaints regarding your data, please contact the Information Commissioner’s Office, whose remit covers the UK.

Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
SK9 5AF

Telephone: 0303 123 1113
Email: casework@ico.org.uk

Our website uses cookies, as almost all websites do, to help provide you with the best experience we can. Cookies are small text files that are placed on your computer or mobile phone when you browse websites.

Our cookies help us:

• Make our website work as you'd expect
• Remember your settings during and between visits
• Improve the speed/security of the site
• Allow you to share pages with social networks like Facebook
• Continuously improve our website for you

We do NOT use cookies to:

• Collect any personally identifiable information (without your express permission)
• Collect any sensitive information (without your express permission)
• Pass personally identifiable data to third parties
• Pay sales commissions

You can learn more about all the cookies we use below.

 

Cookie provider: The Wildlife Trusts

Purpose: Used by the website to remember cookie preferences.

Cookies: cookie-agreed, MCPopupClosed

 

Cookie provider: Facebook

Purpose: Used by Facebook for sharing content, conversion tracking, optimisation, creating audiences for Facebook Ads and marketing.

Cookies: _fbp, fr

Provider policy: Facebook

 

Cookie provider: Paypal

Purpose: Used to support payment services.

Cookies: AKDC, LANG, X-PP-SILOVER, akavpau_ppsd, enforce_policy, nsid, ts, ts_c, tsrce, x-csrf-jwt, x-pp-s

Provider policy: Paypal

 

Cookie provider: Vimeo

Purpose: Used to embed videos from Vimeo using cookies that we consider essential to the video player experience. Does not use third-party analytics or advertising cookies.

Cookies: player, vuid

Provider policy: Vimeo

 

Cookie provider: Eventbrite

Purpose: Used to deliver event booking services and content tailored to the user’s interests.

Cookies: _ga, _gat, _gid, AS, csrftoken, eblang, G, janus_re, mgref, SP, SS, ebGAClientId, lux_uid, SERVERID

Provider policy: Eventbrite

 

Cookie provider: New Relic

Purpose: Anonymously maintains a user’s browsing session on the website to allow us to monitor and troubleshoot website performance.

Cookies: JSESSIONID

Provider policy: New Relic

 

Cookie provider: Engaging Networks

Purpose: Maintains a user’s browsing session on the website when participating with our online campaigning activities.

Cookies: en_sessionId

Provider policy: Engaging Networks

 

Cookie provider: Google

Purpose: Used to understand website usage including how users found and explored our site and how their experience can be enhanced. Google also provides campaign tracking, advertising and website functionality services.

Cookies: IDE, _ga, _gat, _gat_UA-xxxxxxx-xx, _gid

Provider policy: Google

 

Cookie provider: Stripe

Purpose: Used for making card transactions on the website. Provided by Stripe.com which allows online transactions without storing any credit card information.

Cookies: __stripe_mid, __stripe_sid

Provider policy: Stripe

 

Most web browsers allow some control of most cookies through the browser settings. To find out more about cookies, including how to see what cookies have been set and how to manage and delete them, visit www.allaboutcookies.org

To opt out of being tracked by Google Analytics across all websites visit http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout

We are not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of any other websites linked to our website. If you have followed a link from this website to another website you may be supplying information to a third party.

We will never sell your personal data. When sharing your data with us, if you have opted-in to receive further contact, we may get in touch with information about our partners, or third party products and services, but these communications will always come from The Wildlife Trusts. In some circumstances where we are using subcontractors or suppliers we may share your personal data so that they can carry out their contractual services. For example, if you order something from a Wildlife Trust shop that uses a third party delivery company, your name and address will be shared with them. Occasionally, where we partner with other organisations, we may also share information with them (for example our Wild About Gardens campaign which is a partnership campaign with The RHS). The Wildlife Trusts also share personal data with your local Wildlife Trust, but only where permission has been given when the data was gathered.

Should you wish to find out more about the information we hold about you, or about our privacy policy, please contact us:

Director of Marketing and Development
Telephone: 01636 670094
Email: enquiry@wildlifetrusts.org
The Kiln, Mather Road, Newark, NG24 1WT

Our office hours are Monday – Friday, 9am – 5pm.