Privacy Policy

Friends of Refugees London is committed to ensuring the privacy of everyone who visits our website. This includes everyone who registers to receive support, registers their interest in being a volunteer, or who supports our work in any other way.

When you provide us with your personal data, we make every effort to ensure the personal information you have provided is protected.

Please spend a little time reading through this to make sure you understand how we support your right to privacy. If anything is unclear, please get in touch with us and we will be happy to answer any questions you have.

Who are we?

We are Friends of Refugees London, and when it comes to your data we are officially called the ‘Data Controller’. We operate in London, United Kingdom. We are in the process of registering with the UK Charities Commission as a Charitable Incorporated Organisation (Foundation).

The person who oversees the data is called the Data Compliance Officer, and this person is Shaharazad Abuel-Ealeh, a Volunteer Trustee of Friends of Refugees London. You can contact her with any questions you have about your data: hello@friendsofrefugeeslondon.org.

What information do we collect?

We collect the following types of personal information:

Your name
Your email address
The postal code for where you live
Your telephone number, if you choose to provide this

Where relevant or applicable, we also record:

Your correspondence with us (for example, if you send additional information in your form or if you email us)
Your participation with us (for example, if you choose to volunteer or receive support)
Photographs or videos you share with us
Any username or password you have created to use some of the tools on our website
Any other information you have chosen to share with us.

We collect the data in the following ways:

Information you fill in on the website
Telephone or face-to-face conversations with you
Communication with us on social media
Publicly available sources, like Companies House or the Charity Commission website.

How do we use personal information?

Your personal data helps us to ensure your interaction with us is empowering and well-supported. Examples of how we use your information include:

Providing you with the support you need or have requested where possible
Updating you on our work
Updating you on our policies, procedures, and legal obligations to you
Personalisation of content or your experience online
Keeping a record of your relationship with us
Improving our services to you and developing our work
Investigating complaints or other issues.

What legal basis do we have for using your personal data?

Friends of Refugees London needs a legal basis for using your personal data, under data protection laws which apply in different countries. We ask for your consent to use your data (for example, to allow us to send you responses and information).

Can I withdraw my consent?

Yes you can – and you can withdraw consent, unsubscribe from our mailing list, change your preferences for receiving our emails, change your personal details, or request to transfer your details whenever you like.

You can do this either by getting in touch with our Data Compliance Officer (hello@friendsofrefugeeslondon.org) or, if you just wish to unsubscribe from emails, clicking the link which is at the bottom of every message we send.

If you are a citizen of the European Union, European Economic Area, or of the State of California, you can also request your right to be forgotten: this means your data will be deleted.

We will update your records as quickly as possible but it may take up to 45 days for our systems to update and stop messages being sent to you.

When do we share personal data?

We do not share or sell any personal information to third-party organisations for marketing or fundraising purposes.

We only share your personal information with our data processors: these are the organisations which provide the software for us to safely and securely store and manage your data, and to communicate with you.

We share with the data processors so we can administer your relationship with us. The data processor cannot share or use your data for any other purpose, and we will always have contracts in place with any data processing company we work with.

Where do we store and process personal data?

Data is stored in the United Kingdom. This means your data is protected under the law of the United Kingdom and is compliant with the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

How do we secure personal data?

We use technical and organisational tools and processes to protect your data and prevent the loss, misuse or alteration of your personal information.

Unfortunately the transmission of data over the internet is not 100% secure. We do our best to protect your personal data, but we cannot guarantee the security of your data when it is transmitted to our website. However, once we receive your information, we use strict procedures and security features to prevent unauthorised access.

How long do we keep your personal data for?

We keep your personal data for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal or reporting requirements.

We decide how long is appropriate to keep personal data. We do this by considering the amount, nature and sensitivity of the personal data; the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data; the purposes for which we process your personal data, whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the legal requirements.

If you ask to receive no further contact from us, we will keep some basic information about you on our suppression list to avoid sending you more unwanted messages.

If you are a citizen of the European Union, European Economic Area, or of the State of California, and you request your right to be forgotten, your data will be deleted.

Use of automated decision-making and profiling

We use limited profiling and automated decision-making based on your interactions with us.

Firstly, we organise data based on which type of interaction you have with us:

Requests for support
Registration of interest as a volunteer
Contact through general email address.

These groups receive different types of communications from us.

If you choose to get involved with us, we will record this information and personalise content and communications to improve our support for your involvement.

How can I contact you?

You can get in touch with us at hello@friendsofrefugeeslondon.org

Use of cookies

Cookies are small text files placed on your computer by websites that you visit. They are widely used to make websites work more efficiently for visitors, and to provide information to the owners of the site.

Using cookies is a very common practice and helps us to give you the best experience possible on our website. Cookies are harmless and cannot be used to run programmes or deliver viruses to your computer.

We use cookies to:

Remember certain information about users so they don’t have to give the same information again
Measure how people use our websites so we can improve the way information is provided

You agree to our use of cookies by continuing to use our websites.

And finally, our disclaimer

Unfortunately, we cannot be responsible for any information you give in any public community areas of the website, or on websites that we link to from our platforms. This information can be viewed or collected by any third party – but you should always be wary of publishing any personal information in public community areas.

You should also read the privacy notices of any other websites that we link to from our site which you visit. This is so you can understand what information is collected from you and for what purpose. Friends of Refugees London cannot be held responsible for the policies of any third party website that we link to, and you access these websites at your own risk.