Privacy Policy

Privacy Policy

Serbia’s Forgotten Paws takes your privacy seriously. We are committed to protecting your personal information. This policy sets out how we use the information that you provide us with in order to help improve the lives of the street dogs in Serbia.

Serbia’s Forgotten Paws

We are a registered charity (Reg. No. 1156501) who seek to improve the lives and find loving forever homes for the lovely street dogs in Serbian shelters.

We keep our promises, and that includes treating your personal details with care.

Who We Are

By Serbia’s Forgotten Paws (the data controller):

The charity, Serbia’s Forgotten Paws (Reg. No. 1156501);

Our Data protection officer can be contacted on 07725 401437

Your Data

We collect information from the public in a number of ways. For example, we ask for contact information when a dog is adopted or you engage with one of our campaigns. This may include information such as your name, email address and phone number. We only use this information to keep a record of our communications with you and to provide and improve our services to you.

If you are a financial supporter of Serbia’s Forgotten Paws, by becoming a member, sponsoring a dog or donating to us we will ask for information that enables us to administer your donation. This will normally include information such as your name, contact details such as address, email or telephone number and your payment details and Gift Aid status.

If you have given us your consent, we will contact you with information and updates on our work, products (such as raffles and catalogues), services (such as Dog School) and how you can support us, (such as fundraising). This may be by post, email, telephone or text message, depending on your preferences. We will also continue to ask about your marketing preferences, to ensure that you are still happy to be contacted by us and by which means.

What the Law says about protection of personal information

The Law on Data Protection is derived from various pieces of legislation (can be found in a number of places). These include the Data Protection Act and the incoming General Data Protection Regulation (the ‘GDPR’) which will become enforceable in May 2018. The GDPR states that personal data (information relating to a person that can be individually identified) can only be processed if there is a legal ground to do so. Activities like collecting, storing and using personal information would fall into the GDPR’s definition of processing. The GDPR provides six legal grounds (reasons) under which personal information can be processed (used) in a way that is lawful. For the processing to be permitted by law (lawful), at least one of the legal grounds must apply.

The four legal grounds that are most relevant to Serbia’s Forgetten Paws use of your personal information are:

  • Consent
  • Legitimate Interest
  • Contract
  • Legal Obligation

How the law applies to Serbia’s Forgotten Paws use of personal information

Serbia’s Forgotten Paws will only process (use) your personal information if we have:

  • asked you and have a record of your express and recent consent for us to do so;
  • a ‘Legitimate Interest’ to do so in order to support our charitable purposes. Our use will be fair and balanced and never unduly have an impact on your rights.;
  • a contract with you that we can only fulfil by using your personal information, e.g. to send you an item that you have requested;
  • a legal obligation to use or disclose information about you, e.g. we are required by law to keep records of gifts that are given to us with Gift Aid for 4 years; and we are compelled to disclose information relating to incidents involving dangerous dogs for insurance purposes under the Dangerous Dogs Act.

In extreme situations, such as an accident or medical emergency, we may share your personal details with the emergency services if it is essential for the preservation of life (yours or another persons’) for us to do so. This is the ‘vital interest’ ground for using your personal information. After the emergency, we will always try to inform you about how we had to use your information in that extreme situation.

We will not unduly prioritise our interests as a charity over your interests as an individual. We will always balance our interests with your rights. We will only use personal information in a way and for a purpose that you would reasonably expect in accordance with this Policy.

Serbia’s Forgotten Paws will not rent, swap or sell your personal information to other organisations for them to use in their own marketing activities.

Consent

Serbia’s Forgotten Paws will always ask for your consent before we communicate with you for certain purposes. For example, we will only email or phone you about our fundraising activities if we have an accurate record of your recent and freely given consent to do so.

You can withdraw your consent at any time by phoning us on 07725 401437 or emailing info@forgotten-paws.com.

There are times when it is not practical to obtain and record consent. At those times, we will only process personal information if that processing would meet another legal ground e.g. Legitimate Interests, in which case we would only process in accordance with the law’s strict rules on legitimate interest processing.

What is Legitimate Interest

This legal ground for processing means that organisations can process your personal information if they 1. have a genuine and legitimate reason for doing so and 2. That use does not harm any of your rights and interests as an individual.

Serbia’s Forgotten Paws Legitimate Interest

We do not unduly prioritise our legitimate business interests as a charity over your interests as an individual. We always respect your rights. Which is why we carry out a balancing exercise of the rights of the charity with the rights of our supporters.

What we have a Legitimate Interest to do

We believe that Serbia’s Forgotten Paws supporters are connected to our mission and want to know how they can continue to help us to achieve our charitable aims. Unless you tell us not to, we think you are content for us to process (keep and use) your personal information for the following lengths of time. As of May 2018, we promise not to keep your personal information for longer than we specify below. This is not the length of time that we will continue to contact you – this could be a shorter period of time (see below for an explanation on our personalised approach to communications).

Serbia’s Forgotten Paws Adopter

These are supporters that rehomed a dog from Serbia’s Forgotten Paws and on average a dog in the UK lives to the age of 16 years old. We think that you and the dog you rehomed from us would like to remain in contact with us throughout their lifetime and we will therefore keep your personal information to allow for this.

Financial Supporters of Serbia’s Forgotten Paws

These are supporters that help or have helped us with financial gifts. A supporter’s pattern of giving can often change over time. We have found that our financial supporter’s cycle of giving is on average 6½ years. We believe that supporters of our mission never stop believing in the importance of improving the lives of dogs, but we do stop using the personal information of these supporters after 6½ years from the time of the last donation.

Demonstrated an interest in Serbia’s Forgotten Paws

These are supporters of our mission, who have demonstrated an interest in our cause by contacting us for more information, e.g. to find out more about one of our products, services or campaigns. We think someone that has reached out to us to find out more about Serbia’s Forgotten Paws and what we do, would like us to provide that information; perhaps a little more information; and even some support in fulfilling their initial query or request. To support this, we keep your personal information for a period of 2 years.

Supporters demonstrate their support in a number of ways and so could be in more than one, or even all, of the above categories. We will review and refresh these categories and the timescales on a rolling basis to ensure that as times and needs change we continue to do the very best by our supporters.

It is always your choice. If you don’t think this is quite right for you, you can tell us to change your communication preferences and our use of your information. You can do this at any time by phoning 07725 401437 or emailing info@forgotten-paws.com

Legitimate Interest to process your information

We aim to be clear about what information we collect, to enable you to make meaningful choices about how it is used.

When it is necessary we will contact you for administrative purposes, e.g. to contact you regarding a payment. We will also hold the minimum personal information required to support our ability to respect your preferences for communication with us.

To help you to understand when and why Serbia’s Forgotten Paws would use Legitimate Interest to process your personal information we provide the following examples:

  • To enhance, modify, personalise and improve our services and communications for the benefit of our supporters.
  • To improve security of our websites and systems.
  • To prevent fraud when transacting on our website.
  • To process your donations.
  • To fulfil dog adoption. To take payment and arrange the adoption we need to collect personal information, including your payment details, your full name, delivery address and contact details.
  • To analyse your personal information to ensure that our communications are relevant to you.

The above list of examples are on the basis that the processing will not be done if it harms your rights and interests as an individual, or if you tell us that you’d like us to stop. You can do this at any time by phoning 07725 401437 or emailing info@forgotten-paws.com.

Data Analysis

In order to communicate with you more effectively, better understand your preferences and ability to support our work, we may analyse your data.

We like to find out about your personal motivation for supporting Serbia’s Forgotten Paws and your experiences as a supporter. This helps us to give you the information about products and services most relevant to you. In some instances, we may carry out research and/or analysis of the personal information that you have provided to us and add publicly available information (such as public records or social media) to help us tailor our communications to you, this may include wealth screening. We do this to create a fuller picture of our supporters, to improve our service and to manage our contact with you in an appropriate and cost-effective way. This information could include things like your interests, preferences and the level of any potential donations.

Data Sharing

In some circumstances it is necessary for Serbia’s Forgotten Paws to give relevant staff at our service providers access to your personal information. This access is only granted to the extent necessary for them to perform their services for us. We require all service providers to comply with strict rules to protect the information you have given us.

Changes to your data

From time to time we may contact you to ensure that the information you have provided us with remains accurate and up to date. In some circumstances we may use external data lists to avoid misdirecting our communications with you, this includes FPS and TPS.

Should you wish to change your preferences you can do this by writing to us at 30 Herbs End, Farnborough, Hampshire, GU14 9YD, by phone on 07725 401437 or by email addressed to info@forgotten-paws.com.

Like all organisations, we comply with requests for the disclosure of personal information where this is required or permitted by law . This could include requests from law enforcement or tax agencies. In these circumstances, the request must be submitted in writing and in accordance with the relevant legal requirements.

If you believe your privacy rights have been violated, you may file a complaint with us or with the Information Commissioner's office https://ico.org.uk/

This information was last updated in July 2018. From time to time, we will make changes to the information on this page. The amended information will apply from the date it is posted on the site and will govern the way in which we collect and use personal information from then on.