Last updated February 2022

We take your privacy very seriously and will always do our best to protect your personal information. This Privacy Notice sets out how we collect, store, and use your personal data when you engage with the Global Deafblindness Resource Centre (deafblindness.info). It also explains how we’ll keep it safe and how you can remain in control of its use.

We know that there’s a lot of information here, but we want you to be fully informed.

Rest assured that we never sell or share your personal information with other organisations for their own marketing purposes.

If you would like to receive this Privacy Notice in a different format, (Easy Read, Audio, Large Print or Braille) please contact our Supporter Services Team:

  • Email: [email protected]
  • Post: Supporter Services Team, Sense, 101 Pentonville Road, London, N1 9LG, United Kingdom
  • Phone: 0300 330 9257

Contents

Who we are

The Global Deafblindness Resource Centre has been created by Sense International.

Sense International is a leading global charity supporting people with deafblindness in Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Kenya, Peru, Romania, Tanzania, and Uganda. We are a registered charity in England and Wales (1076497) and a company limited by guarantee (03742986).

Our work focuses on ensuring that people with deafblindness are able to access education, healthcare and the means to earn a living, so that they can thrive and live life to their full potential. We rely on the generosity of supporters to help us make progress towards our vision of a world in which all people with deafblindness can be equal and active members of society.

Sense International is part of the Sense “family”. Sense is a registered charity in England and Wales (289868) and a company limited by guarantee (01825301). Its formal name is Sense, The National Deafblind and Rubella Association. In this Privacy Notice, the terms ‘Sense’ or ‘we’ ‘us’ and ‘our’ can refer to Sense International or Sense.

Our registered address is 101 Pentonville Road, London, N1 9LG, United Kingdom. We share this address with Sense. Sense has offices, services and shops throughout England, Northern Ireland and Wales.

What personal data we collect

First things first, we want to let you know what personal data we collect through the Global Deafblindness Resource Centre, and how we collect it.

Information you give us

This is information about you that you give us by corresponding with us by post, phone, email or otherwise. It includes information you provide when you make an enquiry, offer feedback on resources, or use other social media functions on our site.

UK Data Protection law recognises that certain types of personal information are more sensitive. This is known as ‘sensitive’ or ‘special category’ personal information – this could be about someone’s disability, for example. We will not normally collect this information through the Global Deafblindness Resource Centre; however, if your enquiry means that we must request such information, we will explain why we are requesting it and how we intend to use it.

You can read about how we use your personal data in the What we do with your information section.

If you give us personal information about a third party (for example if you are asking for advice about a family member), we will need to confirm that you have their consent to do so.

When you use our website

Like most websites, we use ‘cookies’ to help us improve how we create, and how you use, our site. Cookies mean that a website will remember you and can give an overall view of visitor habits and volumes to our website. You can read about the cookies we use and how to manage them on our cookies page.

If you choose to submit feedback about a resource using the feedback function on our website, we will store that information securely and it will only be accessed by appropriate staff. Feedback can be given anonymously – there is no requirement to include any personal information with your comments. All feedback will be reviewed and deleted within a month of the date it was submitted.

What we do with your information

Rest assured, our intentions are always good. If you choose to share your information with us, we will use it to help us fulfil your requests. If you contact us, we will use your data to do things like:

  • Provide information, which you have requested.
  • Record any contact we have with you to help us ensure we provide you with the most appropriate communications.
  • Prevent or detect fraud or abuses of our website.
  • Analyse and report on the number and nature of contacts with the organisation.

We will only hold on to your personal data for as long as we need to, usually for as long as it takes us to respond to any request that you make.

Sharing your information

We will only use your information for the purposes for which it was obtained. Rest assured that we never sell or share your personal information with other organisations for their own marketing purposes.

But there are some rare situations where we do need to share your information including:

  • If we believe it is necessary to protect or defend our rights, property or the personal safety of our people or visitors to our premises or websites.
  • Where we are legally required to do so, e.g. by a law enforcement agency legitimately exercising a power, or if compelled by an order of the Court.

Also, if you provide feedback about your use of the Global Deafblindness Resource Centre, we may want to use some of the information that you give us to publicise the website. We would expect to use your comments anonymously, but if this is not the case, we would contact you for your consent.

We need a lawful basis to collect and use your personal data under UK data protection law. The law allows for six ways to process personal data (and additional ways for sensitive personal data). Two of these are relevant to the types of processing that we carry out in relation to the Global Deafblindness Resource Centre. This includes information that is processed on the basis of:

  1. A person’s consent (for example, to send you an email or call you by telephone).
  2. Sense’s legitimate interests (please see below for more information).

Personal data may be legally collected and used if it is necessary for a legitimate interest of the organisation using the data, and if its use is fair and does not adversely impact the interests, rights and freedoms of the individual concerned.

When we use your personal information, we will always consider if it is fair and balanced to do so and if it is within your reasonable expectations. We will balance your rights and our legitimate interests to ensure that we use your personal information in a reasonable way. Our legitimate interests include:

  • Charity Governance: including delivery of our charitable purposes, statutory and financial reporting and other regulatory compliance purposes, and intergroup transfers of data.
  • Administration and operational management: including responding to solicited enquiries, providing information and services, research, and data analytics.
  • Improvement of information relating to deafblindness: including responding to feedback submitted to the Global Deafblindness Resource Centre in order to provide relevant, appropriate, quality content.

How we look after your data

We ensure that there are appropriate technical controls in place to protect your personal details in accordance with current data protection legislation; this includes secure servers, firewalls and SSL encryption.

Unfortunately, no internet-based site, including email, is 100% secure, although we will do our best to protect your personal data at all times. This includes regular reviews of who has access to information that we hold to ensure that your information is only accessed by the appropriate members of staff, volunteers and/or contractors.

We may use external companies to collect or process personal data on our behalf. We do comprehensive checks on these companies before we work with them and then work closely with them for the duration of our working relationship.

Some of the suppliers for this website run their operations in the European Economic Area (EEA), and so are subject to similar data protection laws as companies based in the UK.

How long we keep your data

We keep your data for no longer than necessary for the purposes for which it was collected, taking into account guidance issued by the Information Commissioner’s Office in the UK.

The length of time that data will be kept depends on the reasons for which we are processing the data, and on the law or regulations that the information falls under.

All feedback about resources submitted using the feedback function on the website will be reviewed and deleted within a month of the date that it was submitted.

If you request to receive no further contact from us, although we will act on that, we will keep some basic information about you on a list to enable us to comply with your request.

Your rights

You have many rights under UK data protection legislation. If you wish to use any of these rights or discuss them further, please contact the Supporter Services Team whose details are given at the top of this notice and in the How to contact us section.

Your main rights are:

  • Transparency over how we use your personal information (right to be informed). This privacy notice, as well as any additional information that is given to you either at the time you provided your details, or later, is intended to provide you with this information.
  • Request a copy of the information we hold about you – this is sometimes called a data subject access request (right of access). We will supply any information you ask for that we hold about you as soon as possible, but this may take up to 30 days. We will not charge you for this other than in exceptional circumstances. You will normally be asked for proof of identity as we need to be sure we are only releasing your personal data to you.
  • Update or amend the information we hold about you if it is wrong (right of rectification).
  • Ask us to stop using your information (right to restrict processing). In certain situations, you have the right to ask for processing of your personal data to be restricted because there is some disagreement about its accuracy or legitimate usage.
  • Ask us to remove your personal information from our records (right to be ‘forgotten’) Note: where you have requested that we do not send you marketing materials, we will need to keep some limited information to ensure that you are not contacted in the future.
  • Withdraw your consent. Where we process your data based on your consent (for example, to send you marketing texts or emails), you can withdraw that consent at any time.
  • Object to the processing of your information for marketing purposes (right to object). You also have a right to object to us processing data where we are relying on it being within our legitimate interests to do so (for example, to send you direct marketing by post).
  • Obtain and reuse your personal data for your own purposes (right to data portability).
  • Not be subject to a decision when it is based on automated processing (automated decision making and profiling).

If you do not think that we have processed your data in accordance with this notice or would like to make a complaint, please contact our Supporter Services Team in the first instance.

If you are not satisfied with our response or believe we are not processing your personal data in accordance with the law, you may wish to contact the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) in the UK:

Information Commissioners Office (UK)
Helpline: 0303 123 113
Website: https://ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/

How to contact us

If at any time you’d like us to change the way we contact you, please contact our Supporter Services Team.

  • Email: [email protected]
  • Post: Supporter Services Team, Sense, 101 Pentonville Road, London, N1 9LG, United Kingdom
  • Phone: 0300 330 9257

Privacy notice updates

This Privacy Notice was last updated in March 2022.

It may be necessary for Sense International to occasionally make alterations to this privacy notice. If we make any significant changes to the way we treat your personal information we will make this clear on the Global Deafblindness Resource Centre website or perhaps by contacting you directly. Please do check the Global Deafblindness Resource Centre website from time to time for the latest version and let us know if you ever have any questions or concerns.

Please note that this privacy notice applies to the Global Deafblindness Resource Centre website only. The privacy notices for the Sense and Sense International websites differ from this privacy notice. If you access the Sense or Sense International websites independently or through links on the Global Deafblindness Resource Centre, you will need to review the privacy notices on these websites for further information about how your personal information is collected, stored, and used.