Privacy Policy

Here we describe how your personal information is gathered, processed and used by PAS. We will make every effort to ensure that our activities keep within the spirit of our Privacy Policy. Please note that by visiting and using pas.org.uk, you are accepting the practices described in this Privacy Statement.

What information do we gather?

Whether you are a volunteer or someone who wishes to use our planning advice service or wishes to donate, we may collect some information on you. This may include:

• Full name
• Date of birth
• E-mail address
• Bank details
• Your IP address
• The web page that you may have linked to us from, if any
• The operating system platform that you may be running (e.g. Macintosh or Windows)

Please rest assured that there is nothing special about the information just described, and that the practice of collecting this data has been generally standardised by virtually every organisation on the Internet today.

How we use your data

Your personal data may be used for marketing purposes (i.e. to communicate with you, to promote PAS and to help with fundraising), administrative purposes (i.e. receiving donations, maintaining our databases), and internal research and analysis.

We only ever use your personal data with your explicit consent, or when it is necessary to:

• Enter into, or perform, a contract with you
• Comply with a legal duty
• Protect your vital interests
• For our own (or a third party’s) lawful interest, provided your rights don’t override these.

How we protect your data

PAS uses reasonable precautions to keep the information disclosed to us secure. This includes having an exclusive server, password protected databases and records, and keeping hard copies of personal data in a locked cabinet. PAS reserves the right to transfer information in connection with the sale of all or part of PAS capital stock or assets to any third party. Furthermore, we are not responsible for any breach of security or for any actions of any third parties that receive the information.

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 received data protection training and we have a set of detailed data protection procedures which personnel are required to follow when handling personal data.

We will only use and store information for so long as it is required for the purposes it was collected for. How long information will be stored, depends on the information in question and what it is being used for. For example, if you ask us not to send you marketing e-mails, we will stop storing you e-mails for marketing purposes (though we’ll keep a record of your preference not to be e-mailed.)

Why we keep your data

There are several reasons why we ask for and keep data. Some of them are the following:

• To administer services PAS is providing to you
• To record and contact you regarding payments you make to PAS
• To provide you with information about and to administer events
• To manage your communication preferences
• To conduct surveys, research, and gather feedback
• To comply with applicable laws and regulations, and requests from statutory agencies
• To examine visitor traffic

What about cookies?

Cookies are small pieces of data that are transferred to your computer’s hard drive through your web browser from you web server. A cookie cannot read data from your hard disk or read cookie files that may have been created by other sites. The PAS website utilizes cookies as a means of providing personalization features to our visitors. For example, we utilize cookies to remember setting that you may have made at our website. You can choose whether to accept cookies by changing the settings of your browser. Typically, by accessing the browser’s help feature you can obtain information on how to prevent your browser from accepting all cookies or to notify you when a cookie is being sent. If you choose not to accept these cookies, your experience at our website and any other website may be diminished and some features may not work as intended.

Keeping you in control

We want to ensure that you remain in control of your personal data. Part of that is making sure you understand you legal rights, which are as follows:

• The right to confirmation as to whether or not we have your personal data and, if we do, to obtain a copy of the personal information we hold (this is known as subject access).
• The right to have your data erased (though this will not apply where it is necessary for us to continue to use the data for a lawful reason).
• The right to object to your data being used for marketing or profiling.
• Where technically feasible, you have the right to personal data you have provided to us which we process automatically on the basis of your consent or the performance of a contract. This information will be provided in a common electronic format.

Please keep in mind that there are exceptions to the rights above and, though we will always try to respond to your satisfaction, there may be situations where we are unable to do so.

Consent

In addition, PAS will not send you e-mail that you have not agreed to receive. You have the option of unsubscribing from our mailing list at any time, thereby disabling any further such e-mail communication from being sent to you. If you wish to have specific communications with a member of the PAS staff, you will be required to provide specific information that will be routed to the appropriate contact within PAS.

Complaints

If you wish to file a complaint, please contact office@pas.org.uk, and we will get in touch with you as soon as possible to rectify any issues.

If you are not happy with our response, or you believe that your data protection or privacy rights have been infringed, you can complain to the UK Information Commissioner’s Office which regulates and enforces data protection law in the UK. Details on how to do this can be found at www.ico.org.uk.

Click here if you wish to read our full privacy policy.