PAACT would like to inform everyone that we support how your personal information is shared with us and how it is used within our support group. This Privacy Policy sets out how we collect, use and store this information that identifies or could identify you.
PAACT’s Privacy Policy may be updated and changed in the future. When and if changes are made, PAACT will email or contact you about these.
Who are PAACT?
PAACT (Parents and Autistic Children Together) is a parent led voluntary support group committed to helping families who have children with an ASD (Autistic Spectrum Disorder) or an associated condition. We are committed to protecting your personal information and making every effort to ensure that your personal information is processed in a fair, open and transparent manner. We are a “data controller” for the purposes of the Data Protection Act 1998 and (from 25 May 2018) the EU General Data Protection Regulation 2016/679 (“Data Protection Law”). This means that we are responsible for, and control the processing of, your personal information.
For further information about our privacy practices, please contact our Data Protection Team by:
- Writing to PAACT Office at Unit 10 Allenby Trading Estate, Crofton Road, Lincoln, LN3 4NL
- Calling Gordon Forsyth on 07840 569368
- Emailing paact@paactsupport.com
How we collect information about you
Information is collected via membership forms, emails, our closed Facebook group, telephone calls, support groups, workshops, conferences and activities. The purpose for the collection of information is to provide and signpost to relevant information within the autism community support services in Lincolnshire. It is also used to keep you informed of PAACT’s activities, workshops and conferences which enables families to build friendships within the support group to prevent isolation and feeling alone.
Information we collect and why we use it
Personal Information
The personal information PAACT collects such as your name, postal address, email address, telephone numbers, along with information you provide in any communication between us. This information will have been provided through membership forms, attending a PAACT event or activity or directly contacting PAACT via phone, email or Facebook.
We will mainly use this information:
- To provide services and support that you have requested
- To update you with information, events and activities that we feel useful to yourselves
- To keep a record of your relationship with us
- Where you volunteer with us, to administer the volunteering arrangement.
Without this information, PAACT will not be able to provide exclusive activities and events for its members at subsided rates. It is also to pass on information from other support groups and services relating to Autism.
Also, we use this information:
- To participate in surveys or research
Sensitive Personal Information
If you share your personal experience or the experiences of a friend or relative, PAACT will treat this in the strictest of confidence unless it is deemed a safeguarding concern, in which we will inform you that we are obliged to refer our concerns to the relevant authorities.
A special note about the Sensitive Personal Information we hold
Data Protection Law recognises that some categories of personal information are more sensitive. Sensitive Personal Information can include information about a person’s health, race, ethnic origin, political opinions, sex life, sexual orientation or religious beliefs.
Lawful basis for using your information
In all cases, we will only use your personal information where PAACT has your consent. Consent is given by way of membership form, verbally, email or by social media.
Marketing
We will only contact you about our work and how you can support PAACT by email, social media and support group meetings. However, we will contact you via your postal address when sending out membership cards.
You can update your choices or stop us sending you these communications at any time by contacting paact@paactsupport.com
Sharing your Information
The personal information we collect about you will mainly be used by our volunteer committee members at PAACT so that they can support you.
PAACT will never sell or share your personal information with organisations so that they can contact you for any marketing activities.
Legal disclosure
We may disclose your information if required to do so by law (for example, to comply with applicable laws, regulations and codes of practice or in response to a valid request from a competent authority).
Keeping your information safe
PAACT take looking after your information very seriously. We have implemented appropriate physical, technical and organisational measures to protect the personal information we have under our control, both on and off-line, from improper access, use, alteration, destruction and loss.
Unfortunately, the transmission of information using the internet is not completely secure. Although we do our best to protect your personal information sent to us this way, we cannot guarantee the security of data transmitted to our site.
How long we hold your information for
We only keep it for as long as it is reasonable and necessary. This would be for the time span of the membership and for relevant PAACT activities, which may be to fulfil statutory obligations (e.g. Activity booking forms will be destroyed within one month of the activity).
Your rights
You have various rights in respect of the personal information we hold about you – these are set out in more detail below. If you wish to exercise any of these rights or make a complaint, you can do so by contacting our Data Protection team by writing to PAACT Office: Unit 10 Allenby Trading Estate, Crofton Road, Lincoln, LN3 4NL, telephoning on 07840 569368 or emailing paact@paactsupport.com.
You can also make a complaint to the data protection supervisory authority, the Information Commissioner’s Office, https://ico.org.uk/
- Access to your personal information: You have the right to request access to a copy of the personal information that we hold about you, along with information on what personal information we use, why we use it, who we share it with, how long we keep it for and whether it has been used for any automated decision making. You can make a request for access free of charge. Please make all requests for access in writing and provide us with evidence of your identity.
- Right to object: You can object to our processing of your personal information where there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal information for direct marketing purposes. Please contact us as noted above, providing details of your objection.
- Consent: If you have given us your consent to use personal information (for example, for marketing), you can withdraw your consent at any time.
- Rectification: You can ask us to change or complete any inaccurate or incomplete personal information held about you.
- Erasure: You can ask us to delete your personal information where it is no longer necessary for us to use it, you have withdrawn consent, or where we have no lawful basis for keeping it.
- Portability: You can ask us to provide you or a third party with some of the personal information that we hold about you in a structured, commonly used, electronic form, so it can be easily transferred.
- Restriction: You can ask us to restrict the personal information we use about you where you have asked for it to be erased or where you have objected to our use of it.
- No automated-decision making: Automated decision-making takes place when an electronic system uses personal information to decide without human intervention. You have the right not to be subject to automated decisions that will create legal effects or have a similar significant impact on you, unless you have given us your consent, it is necessary for a contract between you and us or is otherwise permitted by law. You also have certain rights to challenge decisions made about you. We do not currently carry out any automated decision-making.
Please note, some of these rights only apply in certain circumstances and we may not be able to fulfil every request.
To find out more about this Privacy Policy and how PAACT look after your personal information, contact our Data Protection Team at paact@paactsupport.com
PAACT would like to inform everyone that we support how your personal information is shared with us and how it is used within our support group. This Privacy Policy sets out how we collect, use and store this information that identifies or could identify you. PAACT’s Privacy Policy may be updated and changed in the future. When and if changes are made, PAACT will email or contact you about these