CROWD PLATFORM PRIVACY AND COOKIES NOTICE

Compassion UK is a leading children’s charity, registered in England and Wales (1077216) and Scotland (SC045059). We are also a company limited by guarantee, registered in England and Wales (03719092).

This website, ‘Crowd Out Poverty’, is an initiative supported and delivered by Compassion UK. Up to three people can join together to support a child though combined financial support.

In this Privacy Notice, when we refer to “Compassion UK”, “Compassion”, “we”, “us” or “our” we mean Compassion UK Christian Child Development and its global partners. When we refer to “you” or “your”, we mean visitors to our website, our supporters including those who have joined a group to support a child.

Compassion UK is committed to respecting your privacy and ensuring the personal information you have entrusted to us is held securely and processed in accordance with all applicable data protection and privacy laws.

Select the links to read more:

 

HOW WE COLLECT PERSONAL INFORMATION

We collect personal information directly from you when you engage with us through our website, in all your communications with us and when you make a donation.

From time to time we obtain information from other sources to check the accuracy of the contact details we hold or to help personalise our fundraising requests. This includes publicly available sources, social media (depending on your privacy settings), and third-party research organisations that provide us with generally publicly available information about you.

 

THE PERSONAL INFORMATION WE COLLECT

  • Personal identifiers such as your title, name and year of birth;
  • Contact details including postal address, postcode, email and telephone number;
  • Financial information such as your bank details and details of debit or credit cards used to make donations. When you make a donation to us online, Compassion UK ensures that this is done securely and in accordance with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard.;
  • Whether you are a UK tax payer;
  • Letters you write to the child you support;
  • Posts you make on the platform;
  • Records of your contact with us;
  • Passwords and answers to security questions for use of the platform;
  • Information about your computer (for example, your IP address, operating system and browser type), or your interaction with our platform.

 

WHY WE COLLECT YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

  • For the administration of the CROWD child support programme.
  • The benefits of becoming a supporter through our CROWD initiative include; sending you information about the child you support; their registered project; other relevant life events; child letters; responding to your queries and acknowledging the gifts you give. We may also send you notifications about the child’s birthday so that you can send a birthday message and/or gift to them. During the festive season, we may issue a reminder to send a Christmas message so that it can be hand-delivered in time. There are instances when children depart the programme for a number of reasons. We will promptly notify you and (in almost all circumstances) give you the opportunity to write a final letter. Within one month of the child you support departing, we will offer you another child to continue your support with. During this time, when we are linking you with another child, monthly donations you make will be allocated to our Unsponsored Child Fund, which is used to support children waiting for support. Please note that once allocated, the funds are non-refundable.
  • To process the monthly donations you make to support a child and any other donations.
  • To reclaim tax on Gift Aid donations, if applicable.
  • To verify that you are over 18 and if not, obtain permission from your parent/guardian to process your information or accept any regular donations.
  • When you visit our website, we may gather information about which pages you visit to help us improve and provide you with the best service.
  • To keep you informed about our work, we will ask for your permission to contact you by email or text for marketing purposes. We may call or send you information by post unless your number is registered with the Telephone Preference Service (TPS) or Mail Preference Service (MPS). You can change your mind at any time.
  • To enable us to contact you with relevant and the most appropriate information.

 

THE LEGAL BASIS FOR PROCESSING YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

Our legal basis for using your personal data in the ways described above is usually in the legitimate interest of processing your information for a purpose you would reasonably expect when using our platform. We have pre-determined that it is necessary and proportionate to process your information in this way for this purpose and balanced this with your rights and interests.

In specific circumstances we process your data where we are required to do so as a legal requirement.

In other circumstances we rely on your permission to process your personal data, giving you choice and control over the use of your personal data for specific purposes.

 

SPONSORSHIP RATE

At Compassion UK, we are passionate about ensuring we are good stewards of the resources God has given us. To help us meet the rising costs of the programme, Compassion UK may increase the child sponsorship rate after completing intensive scrutiny, to ensure that we are making a difference in the lives of the children we serve. We will notify you of any changes to the sponsorship rate before processing.

 

WHO WE SHARE YOUR INFORMATION WITH

We may disclose some of your personal data with other registered members of your CROWD group on the platform, limited to what is necessary to administrate the sponsorship experience and coordinate the group. All members of the group will be required to agree to a Statement of Expected Conduct for participating in the CROWD platform.

We may also disclose your personal data to our trusted suppliers and their sub-contractors to operate the platform, process donations and to provide products and services you have requested from us.

Compassion UK is a global partner of Compassion International which works in 29 countries outside the UK and European Economic Area (EEA). We share your information with Compassion International which is necessary to fulfil the sponsorship experience.

We monitor information security compliance and have written contracts which obligate our partners or suppliers to process your personal information only on our instructions and in accordance with applicable data protection and privacy laws.

Compassion UK and any of its global partner entities may be under a duty to disclose your personal information where required in order to comply with any legal obligation.

 

HOW LONG WE KEEP YOUR DATA

Compassion UK will only keep your personal information for the period it is required and in accordance with our data retention schedule.

In the event that you exercise your right to erasure, we will ensure you are informed about what data we are legally required to retain and for how long.

 

YOUR INFORMATION RIGHTS AND CHOICES

You have the right:

  • To request to obtain copies of the personal information Compassion UK holds about you. You can make a request verbally or in writing. If you make your request verbally, we will ask that you also follow up in writing so that we can have a record of your request.
  • To correct or update your personal information processed by Compassion UK which you think is inaccurate or incomplete.
  • To ask Compassion UK to erase your personal information in certain circumstances.
  • To ask Compassion UK to restrict or limit the way we use your personal information.
  • To object to the use of your personal information in certain circumstances where Compassion UK has no legitimate reason for continued use.
  • To object to the use of your personal information for marketing purposes.
  • To ask Compassion UK to transfer the information you have given us from one organisation to another or give it to you.
  • To choose whether or not to receive marketing communication from us by email, text or telephone.
  • To know about the cookies Compassion UK uses, so that you can decide whether to give us permission to store a cookie on your device. Please see the Cookies section for more information.

 

REPORTING CONCERNS OR COMPLIMENTS

Please contact our Data Protection Officer at crowd@compassionuk.org  if you wish to raise a concern about Compassion UK’s handling of your personal information, or compliment what you think we have done well.

You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office about how we manage your data.

 

CHANGES TO THIS PRIVACY NOTICE

Compassion UK will review our privacy notice regularly. The terms of this notice may be updated at any time for example, in the event of changes in law and how we operate. Please do check this website from time to time. If there are any significant changes in the way we process your personal information, we will provide a prominent notice on our website or send a notification. This notice was last updated in May 2024.

Thank you from everyone at Compassion UK for your amazing support through the CROWD initiative.

 

COOKIES

Cookies are small text files that are placed on your computer by websites that you visit. Compassion UK uses cookies to enable our website to function effectively, to improve your experience, to provide social media features, to determine and improve the effectiveness of our website and marketing campaigns.

When you visit any website, it may store or retrieve information on your browser, mostly in the form of cookies. This information might be about you, your preferences or your device and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to. The information does not usually directly identify you, but it can give you a more personalised web experience. Because we respect your right to privacy, you can choose not to allow some types of cookies. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings. However, blocking some types of cookies may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer.

Here is a brief overview of the types of cookies we use on the CROWD Platform website, which consist of four categories:

Strictly Necessary Cookies

These cookies are necessary for the website to function and cannot be switched off in our systems. They are usually only set in response to actions made by you which amount to a request for services, such as setting your privacy preferences, logging in or filling in forms. For example, we place a cookie on your computer to track activity and status when you log into your My CROWD area on the website. This expires when you exit the browser.

You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not then work. These cookies do not store any personally identifiable information.

Performance Cookies

These cookies allow us to count visits and traffic sources so we can measure and improve the performance of our site. They help us to know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site.

For example, we use Google Analytics cookies to collect information about how visitors use a website to help us to continually improve. This helps us to understand: which pages people visit on the site, which internet browsers are being used, what is popular on our website, which pages on the website are visited before people donate or support a child.

We use cookies from trusted third parties, for example Meta Pixels, to measure the effectiveness of paid advertising to ensure the money we spend is used effectively

Functional Cookies

These cookies enable the website to provide enhanced functionality and personalisation. They may be set by us to store information such as whether cookies have been accepted or by third party providers whose services we have added to our pages. For example, cookies from Stripe enable payment on the website without storing any payment information on a server.  Functional cookies are also used to screen browsers and devices to identify malicious traffic and add a necessary layer of security.

If you do not allow these cookies then some or all of these services may not function properly.

Targeting Cookies

These cookies are used by our advertising partners to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. For example, cookies from TikTok and Meta are used to measure the success and effectiveness of our paid advertising campaigns. These cookies help us understand how users interact with our ads and whether this increases the likelihood of engagement with us. The cookies also help to exclude users who have already visited our site having seen our adverts.  If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less personalised advertising.

How to manage your cookie settings

You can change your cookie preferences at any time by using the consent-preferences privacy widget available on this website to reset your preferences.

Many web browsers such as Internet Explorer, Google Chrome or Safari, will allow some control over cookies through their settings. To manage your cookie settings, please refer to your browser software. For more information about cookies and how to delete them, visit www.aboutcookies.org or www.allaboutcookies.org