Privacy Policy

At Age Scotland, we’re committed to protecting and respecting your privacy.

This policy explains when and why we collect personal information about you, how we use it, the conditions under which we may disclose it to others, how we keep it safe and secure and your rights and choices in relation to your information.

Any questions regarding this Policy and our privacy practices should be sent by email to contact@agescotland.org.uk or in writing to FAO: Age Scotland Data Compliance Officer, Age Scotland, Causewayside House, 160 Causewayside, Edinburgh, EH9 1PR.

Who are we?

We’re Age Scotland, an independent charity dedicated to improving the lives of older people in Scotland within a charitable company limited by guarantee and registered in Scotland. Registered company number: 153343. Registered charity No: SC010100. The registered address is: Causewayside House, 160 Causewayside, Edinburgh EH9 1PR. Age Scotland is part of the “Age UK Network” which includes the Age UK Group and its National Partners (Age UK, Age NI and Age Cymru). We also work with our local brand partner Age Scotland Orkney.

How do we collect information from you?

We obtain information from you in the following ways:

What type of information is collected from you?

The personal information we collect, store and use might include:

• your name and contact details (including postal address, email address and telephone number);
• your date of birth;
• information about your activities on our website and about the device used to access it, for instance your IP address and geographical location;
• your bank or credit card details. If you make a donation online or make a purchase, your card information is not held by us, it is collected by our third party payment processors, who specialise in the secure online capture and processing of credit/debit card transactions;
• information as to whether you are a UK taxpayer so we can claim gift aid; and any other personal information shared with us.

Data protection laws recognise certain categories of personal information as sensitive and therefore requiring greater protection, for example information about your health, ethnicity and religion.

We do not usually collect sensitive data about you unless there is a clear and valid reason for doing so and data protection laws allow us to. For example, we may ask for your health information if you are taking part in one of our running events.

Where appropriate, we will make it clear why we are collecting this type of information and what it will be used for.

How and why is your information used?

We may use your information for a number of different purposes, which may include:

• providing you with the services, products or information you asked for.
• processing orders that you have submitted;
• carrying out our obligations under any contracts entered into between you and us;
• keeping a record of your relationship with us;
• conducting analysis and market research to better understand how we can improve our services, products or information;
• checking for updated contact details against third party sources so we can stay in touch if you move (see the section on ‘Keeping your information up to date’ below);
• dealing with entries into a competition;
• seeking your views or comments on the services we provide;
• notifying you of changes to our services;
• sending you communications which you have requested and that may be of interest to you. These may include information about campaigns, fundraising appeals and activities and promotions of goods and services; and
• processing grant or job applications.

How long is your information kept for?

We keep your information for no longer than is necessary for the purposes it was collected for. The length of time we retain your personal information for is determined by operational and legal considerations. For example, we are legally required to hold some types of information to fulfil our statutory and regulatory obligations (e.g. health/safety and tax/accounting purposes).

We review our retention periods on a regular basis.

Who has access to your information? 

We do not sell or rent your information to third parties.

We do not share your information with third parties for marketing purposes.

However, we may disclose your information to third parties in order to achieve the other purposes set out in this policy. These third parties may include:

Lawful Processing

Data protection law requires us to rely on one or more lawful grounds to process your personal information. We consider the following grounds to be relevant:

Fundraising and Marketing Communications

We may use your contact details to provide you with information about the vital work we do for older people, our fundraising appeals and opportunities to support us, as well as the products and services you can buy, if we think it may be of interest to you.

Email/text/Phone

We will only send you marketing and fundraising communications by email, text and telephone if you have explicitly provided your prior consent. You may opt out of our marketing communications at any time by clicking the unsubscribe link at the end of our marketing emails.

Post

We may send you marketing and fundraising communications by post unless you have told us that you would prefer not to hear from us.

Your choices

You have a choice about whether or not you wish to receive information from us. If you do not want to receive direct marketing communications from us about the vital work we do for older people and the exciting products and services you can buy, then you can select your choices by ticking the relevant boxes situated on the form used to collect your information.

We’re committed to putting you in control of your data so you’re free to change your marketing preferences (including to tell us that you don’t want to be contacted for marketing purposes) at any time using: contact@agescotland.org.uk, or by telephone: 0333 32 32 400, or post: FAO: Age Scotland Data Compliance Officer, Age Scotland, Causewayside House, 160 Causewayside, Edinburgh, EH9 1PR.

We will not use your personal information for marketing purposes if you have indicated that you do not wish to be contacted and will retain your details on a suppression list to help ensure that we do not continue to contact you. However, we may still need to contact you for administrative purposes like where we are processing a donation or thanking you for your participation in an event.

Building Profiles

We may analyse your personal information to create a profile of your interests and preferences so that we can tailor and target our communications in a way that is timely and relevant to you. We may make use of additional information about you when it is available from external sources to help us do this effectively. This allows us to be more focused, efficient and cost effective with our resources and also reduces the risk of someone receiving information they may find inappropriate or irrelevant.

We’re committed to putting you in control of your data so you’re free to opt out of your information being used in this way at any time by contacting contact@agescotland.org.uk

We may also use your personal information to detect and reduce fraud and credit risk.

Your Rights

Under UK data protection law, you have certain rights over the personal information that we hold about you. Here is a summary of the rights that we think apply:

If you want to exercise any of the above rights, please email us at contact@agescotland.org.uk or write to FAO: Age Scotland Data Compliance Officer, Age Scotland, Causewayside House, 160 Causewayside, Edinburgh, EH9 1PR. We will endeavour to respond fully to all requests within one month of receipt of your request, however if we are unable to do so we will contact you with reasons for the delay.

Please note that exceptions apply to a number of these rights, and not all rights will be applicable in all circumstances. For more details we recommend you consult the guidance published by the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office. 

Keeping your information safe

When you give us personal information, we take steps to ensure that appropriate technical and organisational controls are in place to protect it.

Any sensitive information (such as credit or debit card details) is encrypted and protected with the following software: 128 Bit encryption on SSL. When you are on a secure page, a lock icon will appear on the bottom of web browsers such as Microsoft Internet Explorer.

Non-sensitive details (your email address etc.) are transmitted normally over the internet, and this can never be guaranteed to be 100% secure. As a result, while we strive to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee the security of any information you transmit to us, and you do so at your own risk. Once we receive your information, we make our best effort to ensure its security on our systems. Where we have given (or where you have chosen) a password which enables you to access certain parts of our website, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential. We ask you not to share your password with anyone.

Use of 'cookies'

Like many other websites, this website uses cookies. 'Cookies' are small pieces of information sent by an organisation to your computer and stored on your hard drive to allow that website to recognise you when you visit. For example, we use cookies to store your country preference. This helps us to deliver a more personalised service when you browse our website and improves our services.

It is possible to switch off cookies by setting your browser preferences. For more information on how to switch off cookies on your computer, visit our full cookies policy. Turning cookies off may result in a loss of functionality when using our website.

Links to other websites

Our website may contain links to other websites run by other organisations. This policy applies only to our website‚ so we encourage you to read the privacy statements on the other websites you visit. We cannot be responsible for the privacy policies and practices of other websites even if you access those using links from our website.

In addition, if you linked to our website from a third party site, we cannot be responsible for the privacy policies and practices of the owners and operators of that third party site and recommend that you check the privacy policy of that third party site.