Privacy policy

Current data protection law identifies six legitimate ways to process personal data. Guide Dogs has assessed that the following are relevant to the purposes that we are processing personal information for as listed above.

• Information is processed on the basis of the ‘legitimate interests’ of Guide Dogs.
• Information is processed on the basis of consent.
• Information is processed on the basis of a contractual relationship.

Legitimate Interest
The law permits personal data to be collected and used if it is necessary for a legitimate business interest of the organisation, providing it is used in a fair, transparent way and does not unduly impact the rights of the individual concerned.

Consent
Guide Dogs will ask you for your consent to send you marketing and fundraising emails, and text messages or to telephone you. You can change your consent for these channels at any time by contacting our Supporter Experience Team on 0800 953 0113 or by emailing us.

Contractual Relationships
If you have signed a Volunteering Agreement or entered into a contract for provision of services with Guide Dogs then this is a Contractual Relationship, and you should refer to your terms and conditions.

What are Guide Dog’s Legitimate Interests?

• Governance
  
  Reporting Criminal Acts and compliance with law enforcement agencies
  
  Internal and external audit for financial or regulatory compliance purposes
  
  Statutory reporting
• Publicity & Income Generation
  
  Direct Marketing and other forms of marketing, publicity or advertisement
  
  Unsolicited commercial or non-commercial messages, including fundraising campaigns, income generation or charitable fundraising
  
  Personalisation used to tailor and enhance the customer experience in our digital and postal communications
  
  Analysis, targeting and segmentation to develop corporate strategy and improve communication efficiency
  
  Processing for research purposes (including marketing research)
• Operational Management
  
  Employee and Volunteer recording for recruitment, safety, performance management or workforce planning purposes.
  
  Provision and administration of staff benefits, such as pension
  
  Physical security, IT and network security
  
  Maintenance of suppression files
  
  Processing for historical, scientific or statistical purposes
• Financial Management & Control
  
  Processing of financial transactions and maintaining financial controls
  
  Prevention of fraud, misuse of services, or money laundering
  
  Enforcement of legal claims including debt collection via out of court procedures.
• Administrative 
  
  Responding to any enquiry from our supporters
  
  Delivery of requested products or information packs
  
  Thank you communications and receipts
  
  Administration of existing financial transactions
  
  Maintaining ‘Do not contact lists’ (suppressions)

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 always balance your rights as an individual against our legitimate interests.

We collect and use your personal information such as name, address details, email address, telephone numbers, date of birth, IP address and information regarding what pages you have accessed on our website. We also collect information about the services you use, any purchases or financial transactions you make, or marketing contact preferences you give. We maintain a record of communications we send you and we may log any communications that you send us.

If you have kindly Gift Aided your donation to Guide Dogs, we must record the fact you are a UK taxpayer, and we must maintain a record of the amount of Gift Aid we have claimed.

• Do we process ‘special category’ personal information?
  
  Under data protection law, certain categories of personal information are recognised as ’special category’, this includes health information and ethnicity. In specific cases, we may collect special category personal data about you; we would only do this if there is a clear reason for doing so, such as where we need this information to ensure that we are able to provide appropriate services and facilities, to answer your questions and enquiries, to enable you to participate in an event (such as a marathon). We would also use this information on an anonymised basis to monitor compliance with our equal opportunities policy.
• Your credit or debit card information
  
  If you use your credit or debit card to donate to us or buy something online. we pass your card details securely to our payment processing partners and do not store the details on our website or databases.
• Where does the information come from?
  
  Most of the personal data we hold is given to us directly by our supporters, clients and volunteers in the course of interacting with our services, websites, campaigning or fundraising activities. We may also receive your personal information when you donate to Guide Dogs through third party services such as Just Giving or Virgin Money Giving.In some circumstances, we might update our supporters’ information using other agencies for example Royal Mail postal address file. For our Direct Mail communications, we will use the Telephone or Mail Preference Services or The Fundraising Preference Service to ensure we do not contact people who do not wish to hear from us. Guide Dogs also uses the Mosaic postcode based segmentation tool from Experian Ltd to understand demographic make-up of geographical areas of the UK. This allows us to get a better understanding of the types of people who live in different areas of the country and is useful for planning purposes; to target and tailor our marketing communications and to make most efficient use of our fundraising activities.
• Data Retention
  
  In general terms, we remove identifiable personal data from our records seven years after the date of our last interaction. In most cases, this represents seven years after the last financial transaction. There are a few exceptions to this rule, such as if a supporter has kindly left Guide Dogs’ a gift in their Will we will maintain our records of that pledge indefinitely to carry out legacy administration and communicate effectively with the families of people leaving us a legacy. If you are Guide Dogs’ client, we will retain your records for six years after you ceased to be a client.
• Data Sharing
  
  Guide Dogs will not share or sell your personal information to any other organisation for their own marketing purposes.
• Data Protection Rights
  
  Where Guide Dogs is using your personal information on the basis of your consent, you have the right to withdraw consent at any time. You also have the right to ask Guide Dogs to stop sending you direct marketing. If you wish to change how we contact you or tell us that you do not want to receive our occasional direct mail, please contact our Supporter Experience Team on Freephone 0800 953 0113 or email them at guidedogs@guidedogs.org.uk.
  Right to be Informed – You have the right to be told how your personal information will be used. This policy document, and shorter summary statements used on our communications, are intended to be a clear and transparent description of how your data may be used.
  Right of Access – You can write to the Data Protection Officer asking what information we hold on you and to request a copy of that information. We will have 30 days to comply once we are satisfied you have rights to see the requested records and we have successfully confirmed your identity.
  Right of Erasure – From May 2018, you have the right to be forgotten (i.e. to have your personally identifiable data deleted). In many cases we would recommend that we suppress you from future communications, rather than data deletion to ensure that we do not contact you in the future.
  Right of Rectification – If you believe our records are inaccurate you have the right to ask for those records concerning you to be updated.
  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.
  Right to Data Portability – Where we are processing your personal data under your consent the law allows you to request data portability from one service provider to another. This right is largely seen as a way for people to transfer their personal data from one service provider to a competitor.
  Right to Object - You have an absolute right to stop the processing of your personal data for direct marketing purposes
  Right to object to automated decisions – In a situation where a data controller is using your personal data in a computerised model or algorithm to make decisions “that have a legal effect on you”, you have the right to object. This right is more applicable to mortgage or finance situations. Guide Dogs does not undertake complex computerised decision making that produce legal effects..

We may participate in social media marketing, which enables us to display adverts to our existing supporters when they access certain social media platforms. We may provide your email address, mobile number and address to a given social media platform so they can determine whether you are a registered account holder with them. Our adverts may then appear when you access their platform. Your data is sent in an encrypted format that is deleted by the social media provider if your email does not match their records. Any social media provider that we work with will be under a contract with us and they will have to undertake not to use your information for any other purpose.

These cookies allow us to count visits and traffic sources so we can measure and improve the performance of our site. They help us to know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. If you do not allow these cookies we will not know when you have visited our site, and will not be able to monitor its performance.

Domain: guidedogs.org.uk

• __adal_id is stored for 1 year, and is used by Adalyser to identify the device by assigning a unique ID.
• __adal_ca is stored for 5 months, and is used by Adalyser to identify which advertising campaign led you to our site.
• __adal_cw is stored for 6 days, and is used by Adalyser to help link conversion events to earlier visits.
• __adal_ses is stored for a few seconds, and is used by Adalyser to record session data.
• _clck is stored for 1 year, and is used by Microsoft Clarity to collect information about how visitors interact with the website, which helps in creating reports and improving the website.
• _clsk is stored for a few seconds, and is used by Microsoft Clarity to connect multiple pageviews by a user into a single session recording.
•  _ga, and _ga_* are stored for 1 year, and are used by Google Analytics to distinguish unique users by assigning a randomly generated number as a client identifier.
• _gcl* is stored for 2 months, and is used by Google Analytics to track conversions.
• QSI_SI_*_intercept is stored for a few seconds, and is used by Qualtrics to determine when a survey pop-up should occur.
• _uetvid is stored for 1 year, and is used by Microsoft Bing Ads to allow us to engage with a user that has previously visited the website.

Domain: clarity.ms

• CLID, and MUID are stored for 1 year, and are used by Microsoft Clarity to provide insights into user behaviour on the website.

These cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

*indicates various cookies that contain additional letters, numbers or characters in their name.

Domain: guidedogs.org.uk

• __adal is stored only while you are on the website, and is used by Adalyser to track session data.
• en_sessionID is stored for a few seconds, and is used by Engaging Networks to keep track of page sessions.
• _fbc, and _fbp are stored for 2 months, and are used by Facebook to deliver a series of advertisements.
• FPAU is stored for 2 months, and is used by Google to collect information about users and their activity on the website.
• FPGCLAW is stored only while you are on the website, and is used by Google to attribute affiliate traffic.
• FPGSID is stored for a few seconds, and is used by Google to identify activity on the website.
• ndp_session_id is stored for 1 month, is used by Next Data Platform to identify user's sessions.
• _tt_enable_cookie, ttcsid*, and _ttp are stored for 2 months, and are used by TikTok to collect data about behaviour and purchases on the website, and optimise advertising.
• _uetsid is stored for a few seconds, and is used by Microsoft Bing Ads to determine what advertisements should be shown that may be relevant to the visitor.

Domain: bing.com

• MSPTC, and MUID are stored for 1 year, and are used by Microsoft Bing Ads for unique identification to personalise advertising.

Domain: c.bing.com

• MR is stored for 6 days, and is used by Microsoft Bing Ads to determine a user's unique ID.
• SRM_B is stored for 1 year, and is used by Microsoft Bing Ads to track visits for retargeting.

Domain: c.clarity.ms

• ANONCHK is stored for a few seconds, and is used by Microsoft Clarity to provide insights into user behaviour and website performance.
• SM is stored only while you are on the website, and is used by Microsoft Clarity to provide insights into user behaviour and website performance.

Domain: doubleclick.net

• IDE is stored for 1 year, and is used by Doubleclick Google for real time advertisement bidding.
• receive-cookie-deprecation is stored for 5 months, and is used by Doubleclick Google for real time advertisement bidding.
• test_cookie is stored for a few seconds, and is used by DoubleClick Google for real time advertisement bidding.

Domain: google.com

• _GRECAPTCHA is stored for 5 months, and is used by Google to distinguish bot traffic.

Domain: linkedin.com

• bcookie is stored for 1 year, and is used by LinkedIn to recognise users across devices and sessions.
• li_gc is stored for 5 months, and is used by LinkedIn to store a user's consent preferences.
• lidc is stored for a few seconds, and is used by LinkedIn for session management.

Domain: pinterest.com

• ar_debug is stored for 1 year, and is used by Pinterest for attribution reporting.

Domain: qualtrics.com

• QSI_SI_*_intercept is stored for a few seconds, and is used by Qualtrics to determine if a survey pop up should occur.

Domain: t.co

• __cf_bm is stored for a few seconds, and is used by X/Twitter to monitor bot usage.
• muc_ads is stored for 1 year, and is used by X/Twitter to collect data on how links are shared.

Domain: twitter.com

• __cf_bm is stored for a few seconds, and is used by X/Twitter to monitor bot usage.
• guest_id, guest_id_ads, guest_id_marketing, and personalization_id are stored for 1 year, and are used by X/Twitter to collect data for tracking and targeting.

Domain: tiktok.com

• _ttp is stored for 1 year, and is used by TikTok to collect data about behaviour and purchases on the website, and optimise advertising.

  Domain: yahoo.com

• A3 is stored for 1 year, and is used by Yahoo for personalised advertising.

Domain: youtube.com

• VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE, VISITOR_PRIVACY_METADATA, and __Secure-ROLLOUT_TOKEN are stored for 5 months, and are used by YouTube to collect data regarding embedded video on the website.
• YSC is stored only while you are on the website, and is used by YouTube to collect data regarding embedded videos on the website.
• __Secure-YEC is stored for a few seconds, and is used by YouTube to aggregate profile data from other Google services.