Privacy policy

We want everyone who supports us, or who comes to us for support, to feel confident and comfortable with how any personal information you share with us will be looked after or used. This Privacy Policy sets out how we collect, use and store your personal information, this means any information that identifies or could identify you. It explains how we comply with the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) and the PECR (Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations).

Hampton Trust’s Privacy Policy may change from time to time. This version was last updated in March 2024. Where we have made any changes to this Privacy Policy, we will make this clear on our website and contact you about any changes. We are committed to treating you with respect and openness.

Who we are

Here at Hampton Trust, we are committed to protecting your personal information and making every effort to ensure that your personal information is processed in a fair, open and transparent manner.

We are a “data controller” for the purposes of the Data Protection Act 1998 and the EU General Data Protection Regulation 2018 and the Data Protection & Electronic Communications Regulation 2019 (UK GDPR). This means that we are responsible for and control the processing of your personal information.

How we collect information about you

Interacting with us directly

This could be if an agency refers you to one of our services for help or if you contact us directly to access a question or access support. In this instance, you will be referred to as a Hampton Trust client. You may also contact us to make a donation, apply for a job or volunteering opportunity. In each of these scenarios you will be providing us with your personal information. This includes when you phone us, visit our website, email/write to us or in person.

Website visitor tracking

This website uses tracking software to monitor its visitors to better understand how they use it. The software will save a cookie to your computer’s hard drive in order to track and monitor your engagement and usage of the website, but will not store, save or collect personal information.

We gather general information which might include which pages you visit most often, and which services or information is of most interest to you. We may also track which pages you visit when you click on links in emails from us. We also use “cookies” to help our site run effectively.

Downloads and media files

Any downloadable documents, files or media made available on this website are provided to users at their own risk. While all precautions have been undertaken to ensure only genuine downloads are available users are advised to verify their authenticity using third party anti-virus software or similar applications.

We accept no responsibility for third party downloads and downloads provided by external third party websites and advise users to verify their authenticity using third party anti-virus software or similar applications.

Embedded content

This website may contain embedded content via third party websites, such as YouTube or Vimeo. This content can have its own trackable events. You can read the privacy policy on their respective websites.

Contact and communication with us

Users contacting us through this website do so at their own discretion and provide any such personal details requested at their own risk. Your personal information is kept private and stored securely until a time it is no longer required or has no use. Where we have clearly stated and made you aware of the fact, and where you have given your express permission, we may use your details to send you products/services information through a mailing list system. This is done in accordance with the regulations named in ‘The policy’ above.

Email mailing list

We may operate an email mailing list programme, used to inform subscribers about services and/or news we supply/publish. Users can subscribe through an online automated process where they have given their explicit permission. Subscriber personal details are collected, processed, managed and stored in accordance with the regulations named above. Subscribers can unsubscribe at any time through an automated online service, or if not available, other means as detailed in the footer of sent marketing messages. The type and content of marketing messages subscribers receive, and if it may contain third party content, is clearly outlined at the point of subscription.

Email marketing messages may contain tracking beacons/tracked clickable links or similar server technologies in order to track subscriber activity within email marketing messages. Where used, such marketing messages may record a range of subscriber data relating to engagement, geographic, demographics and already stored subscriber data.

You can contact us to find out who our current provider is and you can read their privacy policy on their respective website.

External website links and third parties

Although we only look to include quality, safe and relevant external links, users are advised to adopt a policy of caution before clicking any external web links mentioned throughout this website.

Information we collect and why we use it

Personal information

If you are a service user, volunteer, or are making a donation, we collect details such as your name, date of birth, email address, postal address, telephone number and credit/debit card details (if you are making a donation), as well as information you provide in any communications between us. We will mainly use this information:

  • To process your donations and to verify any financial transactions
  • To provide information about your donation, 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 their donations
  • To provide the services that you have requested
  • 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, 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 Hampton Trust.

Sensitive personal information

If you share your personal experience or the experiences of a friend or relative, we may also collect this sensitive information. If you provide us with any sensitive personal information by telephone, email or by other means, we will treat that information with extra care and confidentiality and always in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

A special note about sensitive personal information we hold

Data Protection Law recognises that some categories of personal information are more sensitive. Sensitive personal information can include information about a person’s health, race, ethnic origin, political opinions, sex life, sexual orientation or religious beliefs.

We will only use this information for the purposes of dealing with your enquiry, quality monitoring or evaluating the services we provide. We will not pass on your details to anyone else without your express permission except in exceptional circumstances. The information you provide will remain confidential unless:

  • You consent to information being shared: You disclose information which indicates an existing or imminent risk, danger or harm to you, any child or vulnerable adult. In this case we have a legal obligation to inform Family Services or the Police (Children Act 1989, S.47)
  • You choose to disclose an intention to carry out act/acts that are likely to put others at serious risk or injury. This includes acts of terrorism.

We will always try and tell you when information is being shared unless it is not safe for you or your children or if we are unable to contact you. If we have to share information in this situation, we will only share relevant information that will improve you and/or your child[rens] safety. We will talk this situation through with a senior member of the team and will write on your case file what we have shared, why and who with. You have a right to access your file. Pease contact Hampton Trust directly who will advise you of the process.

Legal basis for using your information

There are 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 Hampton Trust to process your information to help us to achieve our vision of ensuring that everyone experiencing or fallen into crisis gets both support and respect.

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.

Sharing your information

The personal information we collect about you will mainly be used by our staff (and volunteers) at Hampton Trust so that they can support you. We will never sell 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.

Legal disclosure: We may disclose your information if required to do so by law (for example, to comply with applicable laws, regulations and codes of practice or in response to a valid request from a competent authority); or, in order to enforce our conditions and other agreements.

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 content or 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 are passed securely to our payment processing partner, according to the Payment Card Industry Security Standards.

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 fulfil statutory obligations.

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 us via email, post or telephone on info@hamptontrust.org.uk.

Chubut Suite, Ashurst Lodge, Southampton SO40 7AA
Telephone 023 8000 1061

You can also make a complaint to the data protection supervisory authority, the Information Commissioner’s Office, https://ico.org.uk/concerns

Access to your personal information

You have the right to request access to a copy of the personal information that we hold about you, and details on what we use, why we use it, who we share it with, how long we keep it for and whether it has been used for any automated decision making. You can make a request (free of charge) in writing, providing 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 this ground. 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.

Please note, In accordance with the Data Protection Act 2018, we may not be able to uphold all of these rights in all circumstances. Further details can be found in our policy documents.

Service improvement

As part of our service improvement, we produce general statistics to help us to monitor our performance and inform research that will help us understand more about our interventions and the best ways to improve the lives of people in our services.

To allow us to evaluate and improve the service we offer we may share some of the information which you give us with external agencies such as universities, local authority and government funding bodies. Before we do this, any personal information which can identify you, for example name and address, will be removed which means only anonymous information will be shared. When we share information in this way the identities of people in our services are never revealed and you cannot be identified from that information.

Monitoring

Your communications with our teams (including by telephone or email) may be monitored and/or recorded for training, quality control and compliance purposes to ensure that we continuously improve our customer service standards.

To find out more about this policy and how we look after your personal information, contact our office team on 023 8000 1061.