We want everyone who contacts us at the Africa Centre to be confident and comfortable knowing that any personal information that you share with us will be looked after and used appropriately. This privacy policy sets out how we collect, use and store your personal information as well as our commitment to treat you with respect and openness.

 

Our Privacy Promise to you:

• We will keep your information secure and confidential
• You are in control of how we communicate with you – you can opt in or out or change your preferences at any time.
• We will not sell your data to a third party.
• We will not swap your data with a third party.
• We will train our staff to ensure that they know how to manage your information appropriately and in line with regulations.
• We pass information to trusted suppliers to do some specialist processing work (e.g. direct debit bureaux to process financial donations, mailing houses to print and post out fundraising appeals). All these companies comply with Data Protection laws and our agreements with them will ensure your data is protected.
• Any credit or debit card transactions with us are secure and encrypted and comply with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard.

 

Contents

1. Who we are
2. How we collect information about you
3. Information we collect and why we use it
4. Profiling: making our work more unique to you
5. Legal basis for using your information
6. Marketing
7. Sharing your Information
8. Keeping your information safe
9. How long we hold your information for
10. Your rights
11. Cookies
12. Changes to this privacy notice
13. Further Information
14. Complaints

 

1. Who we are

The Africa Centre is a UK registered charity (313510) and is dedicated to providing the African diaspora and all people with an interest in Africa a platform for experiencing events and engaging in discussions on culture, education, business or art. It also offers modern collaborative workspace for creative entrepreneurs and is an ideal venue for socialising and networking.

‘We’ or ‘us’ means the Africa Centre and we are responsible for, and control the processing of, your personal information.

For further information about privacy practices, please write to:

Data Protection Officer
The Africa Centre
66 Great Suffolk Street
London
SE1 0BL

Or email: info@africacentre.org.uk

You can also call us on 020 8004 6436

 

2. How we collect information about you

We will always strive to provide a clear, honest and transparent approach regarding how and when we may collect and use your personal data.

We may collect information about you whenever you interact with us directly. For example:

• when you contact the Africa Centre regarding our activities
• sign up to hear more information from us through our website
• register to attend one of our events
• if you send information about yourself to the Africa Centre
• when you engage with any of our social media platforms
• make a donation to us

We may also receive information about you when you interact with third parties with whom we work. For example:

• making a donation to us through a third-party website (e.g. Just Giving or Virgin Money Giving)
• registering to attend an event through Eventbrite and giving them permission to share your information with us

 

When you visit our website, we gather general information which might include which pages you visit most often and which opportunities, events or information is of most interest to you. We may also track which pages you visit when you clink on links in emails from us. We also use “cookies” to help our site run effectively. There are more details below – please see ‘cookies’.

We use this information to personalize the way our website is presented when you visit to make improvements and to ensure we provide the best service and experience for you. Where possible we use anonymous information which does not identify individual visitors to our website.

We may collect other information that is publically available. In order to tailor our communications with you to your background and interests we may collect information about you from publicly available sources or through third party subscription services or service providers.

 

3. Information we collect and why we use it

Personal information we collect may include details such as your name, date of birth, email address, postal address, telephone number and credit/debit card details (if you are making a purchase or donation), as well as information you provide in any communications between us.  You will have given us this information whilst making a donation, registering for an event or any of the other ways to interact with us.

We will mainly use this information:

• To process your donations or other payments, to claim Gift Aid on your donations and verify any financial transactions. We do not store customer credit card details.
• To provide the services or goods that you have requested.
• To update you with important administrative messages about your donation, an event or services or goods you have requested.
• To comply with the Charities (Protection and Social Investment) Act 2016 and follow the recommendations of the official regulator of charities, the Charity Commission, which require us to identify and verify the identity of supporters who make major gifts so we can assess any risks associated with accepting these donations.
• To keep a record of your relationship with us.
• Where you volunteer with us, to administer the volunteering arrangement.

If you do not provide this information, we will not be able to process your donation, sign you up for a particular event or provide goods and services you have requested.

We may also use your personal information:

• To contact you about our work and how you can support the Africa Centre (see section on ‘Marketing’ below for further information).
• To invite you to participate in surveys or research which will then be used to improve our services and offers.

 

4. Profiling: making our work more unique to you

We want to improve how we talk to you and the information we provide through our website, facilities, products and information. To do this we sometimes carry out an analysis so that we can better understand our supporters, your preferences and needs to provide a better experience for you.

We may carry out targeted fundraising activities based on the analysing of the information that we hold about you. We may also work with third party organisations who provide additional insight, this may include providing wealth screening information or general information about you that is publicly available.

This information can be appended to the information that you have provided which allows us to use our resources more effectively by better understanding the background of our supporters and making appropriate requests based on what may interest them and their capacity to give.

You can of course opt out of this activity at any time. To do this, email ‘info@africacentre.org.uk’ with the subject line ‘Please stop analysis of my data’ or by contacting our Data Protection Officer at the Africa Centre; 66 Great Suffolk Street, London SE1 0BL, or by phone on 020 8004 6436.

 

5. Legal basis for using your information

In some cases, we will only use your personal information where we have your consent or because we need to use it in order to fulfil a contract with you (for example, because you have requested further information from us on our website).

However, there are other lawful reasons that allow us to process your personal information and one of those is called ‘legitimate interests’. This means that the reason that we are processing information is because there is a legitimate interest for the Africa Centre to process your information to help us to achieve our vision of ensuring that we can continue to provide the African diaspora and all people with an interest in Africa a platform for experiencing events and engage in discussions on culture, education, business or art.

Whenever we process your Personal Information under the ‘legitimate interest’ lawful basis we make sure that we take into account your rights and interests and will not process your personal information if we feel that there is an imbalance.

Some examples of where we have a legitimate interest to process your Personal information are where we contact you about our work via post, use your personal information for data analytics, conducting research to better understand who our supporters are, improving our services, for our legal purposes (for example, dealing with complaints and claims), or for complying with guidance from the Charity Commission.

 

6. Marketing

We will only contact you about our work and how you can support the Africa Centre by phone or text message, if you have agreed for us to contact you in this manner.

However, if you have provided us with your postal address and/or email address, we may send you information about our work and how you can support the Africa Centre by post or email unless you have told us that you would prefer not to hear from us in that way.

You can update your choices or stop us sending you these communications at any time by contacting info@africacentre.org.uk or by clicking the unsubscribe link at the bottom of the relevant communication.

 

7. Sharing your Information

The personal information we collect about you will mainly be used by our staff at the Africa Centre so that they can support you.

We will never sell, swap or share your personal information with organisations so that they can contact you for any marketing activities. Nor do we sell any information about your web browsing activity.

We will only share your data for the following purposes:

• Third party suppliers: we may need to share your information with data hosting providers or service providers who help us to deliver our services, projects, or fundraising activities and appeals. These providers will only act under our instruction and are subject to pre-contract scrutiny and contractual obligations containing strict data protection clauses.
• Where legally required: we will comply with requests where disclosure is required by law, for example, we may disclose your personal information to the government for tax investigation purposes, or to law enforcement agencies for the prevention and detection of crime. We may also share your information with the emergency services if we reasonably think there is a risk of serious harm or abuse to you or someone else.

8. Keeping your information safe

We take looking after your information very seriously. We’ve implemented appropriate physical, technical and organisational measures to protect the personal information we have under our control, both on and off-line, from improper access, use, alteration, destruction and loss.

Unfortunately the transmission of information using the internet is not completely secure. Although we do our best to protect your personal information sent to us this way, we cannot guarantee the security of data transmitted to our site.

Our websites may contain links to other sites. While we try to link only to sites that share our high standards and respect for privacy, we are not responsible for the content or the privacy practices employed by other sites. Please be aware that advertisers or websites that have links on our site may collect personally identifiable information about you. This privacy statement does not cover the information practices of those websites or advertisers.

Any debit or credit card details which we receive on our website will be passed to our payment processing partner, according to the Payment Card Industry Security Standards.

 

9. How long we hold your information for

We only keep it as long as is reasonable and necessary for the relevant activity, which may be to fulfill statutory obligations (for example, the collection of Gift Aid), and in line with our Data Retention Policy.

 

10. Your rights

You have various rights in respect of the personal information we hold about you – these are set out in more detail below.  If you wish to exercise any of these rights or make a complaint, you can do so by contacting our Data Protection Officer at the Africa Centre; 66 Great Suffolk Street, London SE1 0BL by email info@africacentre.org.uk and by phone on 020 8004 6436. You can also make a complaint to the data protection supervisory authority, the Information Commissioner’s Office, https://ico.org.uk

• Access to your personal information: You have the right to request access to a copy of the personal information that we hold about you, along with information on what personal information we use, why we use it, if we share it and with whom, how long we keep it for and whether it has been used for any automated decision making. You can make a request for access free of charge.  Please make all requests for access in writing – either by post or by email -and provide us with evidence of your identity.
• Right to object: You can object to our processing of your personal information where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on these grounds. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal information for direct marketing purposes.  Please contact us as noted above, providing details of your objection.
• Consent: If you have given us your consent to use personal information (for example, for marketing), you can withdraw your consent at any time.
• Rectification: You can ask us to change or complete any inaccurate or incomplete personal information held about you.
• Erasure: You can ask us to delete your personal information where it is no longer necessary for us to use it, you have withdrawn consent, or where we have no lawful basis for keeping it.
• Portability: You can ask us to provide you or a third party with some of the personal information that we hold about you in a structured, commonly used, electronic form, so it can be easily transferred.
• Restriction: You can ask us to restrict the personal information we use about you where you have asked for it to be erased or where you have objected to our use of it.
• No automated-decision making:  Automated decision-making takes place when an electronic system uses personal information to make a decision without human intervention.  You have the right not to be subject to automated decisions that will create legal effects or have a similar significant impact on you, unless you have given us your consent, it is necessary for a contract between you and us or is otherwise permitted by law.  You also have certain rights to challenge decisions made about you.  We do not currently carry out any automated decision-making.
• Past relationships: If you are a previous employee, supplier, partner or  funder, we will keep your information and records of interaction, performance, financial transactions and complaints and/or grievances

Please note, some of these rights only apply in certain circumstances and we may not be able to fulfil every request.

 

11. Cookies

‘Cookie‘ is a name for a small file, usually of letters and numbers, which is downloaded onto your device, like your computer, mobile phone or tablet when you visit a website.

They let websites recognise your device, so that the sites can work more effectively, and also gather information about how you use the site. A cookie, by itself, can’t be used to identify you.

How do we use cookies?

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users of our website. This helps us to provide you with a good experience when you come to our website and also allows us to improve the user experience.

The cookies we use

We use the categorisation set out by the International Chamber of Commerce in their UK Cookie Guide.

We use all four categories of cookies:

• Strictly necessary cookies are essential for you to move around our website and to use its features.
• Performance cookies collect anonymous information about how you use our site, like which pages are visited most.
• Functionality cookies collect anonymous information that remember choices you make to improve your experience, like your text size or location. They may also be used to provide services you have asked for such as watching a video, commenting on a blog or information about our events in your area.
• Targeting or advertising cookies collect information about your browsing habits in order to make advertising relevant to you and your interests. As such if you visit the Africa Centre website you may then be more likely to see adverts about the Centre’s work on other websites as your browsing suggests that this is an area of interest.

No cookies, please

You can opt out of all our cookies (except the strictly necessary ones). Find out how to control and delete cookies in your browser.

But, if you choose to refuse all cookies, our website may not function for you as we would like it to.

If you have any questions about how we use cookies, please contact us.

 

12. Changes to this privacy notice

We keep our privacy notice under regular review. This privacy notice was last updated on 21^st May 2018.

 

13. Further Information

If you have any questions which you feel have not been covered by this Privacy Notice, please do not hesitate to email us or write to:

Data Protection Officer
The Africa Centre
66 Great Suffolk Street
London, SE1 0BL
info@africacentre.org.uk

 

14. Complaints

If you are unhappy with the way in which HMUK uses and processes your personal data you can complain to the Information Commissioners Office (the supervisory authority that enforces data protection regulations in the UK).

The ICO can be contacted on 0303 123 1113 or refer their website at https://ico.org.uk