How we use information about governance participants

Definitions

1. Trustees

Trustees of a charity are the people who share ultimate responsibility for the Society’s governance and directing how it is managed and run.  The Trustees are also the directors of the charity and are referred to as ‘Directors’ in this privacy notice.

2. Subsidiary Company Directors

Company directors are responsible for the oversight and strategic direction of a company.  The Society has several subsidiary companies and references to ‘Directors’ in this privacy notice apply to the directors of those subsidiary companies. 

3. Responsible Person

The Society has appointed a Responsible Person to comply with company and charity law on the Isle of Man.  

4. External Members

External Members are appointed to a committee for their specific knowledge and skills.  The Society’s privacy notice for volunteers also applies to External Members.

How we use your information 

This Privacy Notice sets out the details of how and for what purposes Alzheimer’s Society processes personal information about governance participants and prospective governance participants.

What is personal data?

Personal data is information that identifies you, such as your date of birth or address. It can also be information that reveals something about you. For example, your self-declared ethnicity or sexuality, your opinions, or information about your health. 

We will respect your privacy and rights and only process information about you when there is a legitimate need or legal requirement to do so.

In order to play our part in creating a world without dementia, we must be excellent in all we do. That excellence depends on our people, and we need to recruit and retain the right people to make sure we meet our strategic vision.

Your personal data may be collected in a variety of ways. For example, through application forms, CVs; obtained from your passport or other identity documents such as your driving licence; from forms completed and biographical information and photograph supplied by you at the start of or during your period of involvement with the Society; from correspondence with you; or through interviews or meetings or events. 

As part of recruiting

When you apply for a role, we will use the information you provide us with as part of the recruitment process. We do this to make sure your skills and experience match those necessary for the role, and this processing is in our legitimate interest. Without this information, we will not be able to assess your suitability for the role and so may not recruit you into the position you would like to have. 

For Directors:

Some personal information is necessary for us to collect and process under our legal obligations. For example, we need to collect and retain certain information relating to our Directors as legal directors of the Society, and we need to provide proof of identity and residential address of legal directors under money laundering regulations and know your customer/business requirements. 

We may be required to undertake a criminal records check for Directors, which will provide us with details of unspent convictions, including in relation to safeguarding children and vulnerable adults pursuant to our legal obligations in this area. 

Depending on the role you apply for, if this is the case, it will be clearly stated in the role advertisement or role description. We will only ask you to do this if it is a legal requirement, or if we have a contractual obligation to the organisations that we deliver services on behalf of.

To help you undertake your role

We need your bank account details to reimburse expenses relating to Society activities you undertake in your role.

We also need your personal details for travel and accommodation arrangements.
Other information is required such as details about what required training you have completed for your role.

When processing your personal information in these ways we do so relying on it being in the Society’s legitimate interest.

To promote our work

When we explain our work, it makes a difference if we can use real-life stories and information. It helps to bring our work to life by showing the impact of dementia and how individuals are uniting together to take action.

For this purpose, we may take photographs or footage at Society events to use in future marketing materials. Where this is going to happen, you will be informed at the start of the event and given the opportunity to choose not to be photographed.

Where information is collected that clearly identifies you (for example, a picture where you are the focus of your story), we will explain beforehand that we’d like to do this and what it will be used for and ask you if you are happy for us to use it for these purposes.

You will be given regular opportunities to confirm you are still happy for your information to be used and we won’t use your information in any different way without your agreement. 

To analyse the effectiveness of our work

As a charity, it’s really important to us that we ensure we are spending our money and resources effectively and efficiently. For that reason, we may analyse the details you have provided us along with further information about you that we have obtained from public and/or private sources. 

In some instances, we may make use of additional factors such as demographic information and measures of wealth to help us better understand the persona of our supporters. We do this to help us understand why people are motivated to support Alzheimer's Society, and to help us create a fuller and better picture of our supporters. 

This enables us to communicate with our supporters more effectively and appropriately, and to reach out to individuals who may wish to give additional support with a further monetary gift or volunteer their time/services.

We may contact you and ask you to take part in market research opportunities or ask for feedback. Participation is completely voluntary, but it enables us to know what we are doing well, but equally what you feel we could be doing better. 

This will help us ensure what we are offering as opportunities for people to get involved is relevant, appropriate and helps us in achieving our goal of creating a word without dementia. You can opt out of being contacted about market research at any time by contacting us.

Sharing your information

We may share your personal information with third parties in order to obtain references from other organisations that you are involved with. For Directors this will include obtaining necessary criminal records checks from the Disclosure and Barring Service. 

For Directors and the Responsible Person, we may also share your personal information with third parties such as banks and other financial service providers required to perform due diligence under money laundering legislation. As part of ‘Know Your Business’ requirements we may also share information about you with relevant third parties.

For Directors, we sometimes need to share some information to evidence beneficial ownership. 
Similarly, sometimes we share information about you with third parties so that you can undertake your role, for example when booking travel or arranging hotel rooms for conferences. 

We will only share limited and relevant information with third parties. Through contractual arrangements, we will ensure that information provided will only be used for agreed purposes and that the third party will protect your information. 

The name, email address, photograph, biographical detail, and other interests of governance participants may be shared internally within the Society. Some of this information including names, photographs and biographical information may be put onto our external website and used in digital and hard copy Society and third-party materials used to promote our work. 

We believe making a difference to people living with or affected by dementia should be acknowledged and rewarded. We nominate people for awards or honours where they have made a significant difference, and we may share relevant information about them with bodies and organisations to support the nomination. For some external awards or honours the nominating organisation is asked not to inform the person being nominated.

We may also share information about you with some or all of the following third parties that process data on our behalf: 

• External legal advisors, insurance policy providers and loss adjustors 
• External auditors and other consultants and research companies 
• External wealth screening/prospect research companies 
• Regulators (e.g. Companies House, Charity Commission, and Channel Islands and Isle of Man equivalents)
• External service providers such as our electronic board packs provider

We will not share your information with any other organisations other than:

• If we are required to by law, for example to the police if we agree it is essential in the prevention or detection of a crime.
• If we feel it is in the vital interests of you or another person, for example in a medical emergency.
• Where it is in the public interest to do so, such as where there are any safeguarding concerns.
• With your consent to do so for a specific purpose
• If it is in our legitimate business interest to do so and your privacy rights do not outweigh those legitimate interests

Receiving information from third parties

We may receive information from third parties about you, including:

• references supplied to us such as from former employers or organisations you were a director for
• in response to a criminal records check where required for the role

When this is the case, or in any circumstance not covered by the list above, we will make sure you know it has happened and explain what kind of information the third party has given to us.

Storing your information

We have a retention schedule for securely holding and disposing of people’s information. We only keep your information for as long as it is needed and then dispose of it securely. The length of time we hold it for depends on the purpose we were collecting and using it.

For example, if you apply for a Director role but are unsuccessful, your information will be kept for six months after the end of the recruitment process.

If you are successful in an application, the records we keep of your interaction with us in your role will be kept for six years after you stop acting for the Society. Some information is kept for less time. Once the business need to keep information has passed, we will either dispose of it or anonymise the information so that you cannot be identified any more.

Where is your information held?

We hold most information on our central IT system which meets international security standards. Some information may be kept in a paper record format, but where possible we will transfer it to an electronic record and dispose of the paper version. 

When we use other organisations to help us operate, they may hold information outside the UK. However, where this is the case, we make sure that your rights are protected and do this through appropriate due diligence and contract management.

Security and confidentiality

We take care to ensure your information is secure when we use, store, and transmit it. It is only accessed by people who have been verified and authorised to do so. Every one of us who has access to your personal information is obliged to respect that it is confidential, and we deliver training to make sure this happens.

Your consent

If we are using your personal information on the basis of your agreement, you can withdraw your consent at any time, and we will stop using it.

Further rights

Please contact us at any time you want to:

• See what information we hold on you.
• Request a portable copy of your information.
• Ask for corrections to be made.
• Ask us to stop using your information in any way.
• Ask us to delete some or all of your data.

We’ll do our best to respect your wishes.

How to contact us

If you have any questions about how we are using your information, please contact us:

• by phone to Customer Care on 0330 333 0804
• in writing to Customer Care, Alzheimer’s Society, Suite 2, 1st Floor East Wing, Plumer House, Tailyour Road, Plymouth, PL6 5DH 
• by email to [email protected]

You can also use the online form for general enquiries.

For a copy of your personal information, to ask us to correct the information we hold about you, to stop using your information or to delete some or all of it, contact the Information Governance team at:

Information Governance Team
Alzheimer's Society
Suite 2
1st Floor East Wing
Plumer House
Tailyour Road
Plymouth
PL6 5DH

You can also email our team at [email protected]

Complaints

If you are unhappy with how we are processing your information, please contact us using the details outline above. If you are still unhappy after receiving our response, you can raise your concern with the Information Commissioner’s Office.

If you live outside the UK in the Isle of Man, please contact Isle of Man Information Commissioner.