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Data Protection & Privacy

What is this policy for?

This policy is for the organisation Abortion Support Network (ASN), the website www.asn.org.uk and refers to ASN’s storage and processing of data.

On this page:

Data protection and privacy statement

This statement applies to Abortion Support Network and summarises how we obtain, use, manage and process data. This statement applies to our practices in relation to our website, marketing and communications (including fundraising) and our support of clients (clients are defined as those people who contact us seeking advice and/or financial support to access an abortion). Volunteers, employees and contracted staff are addressed in their contracts/agreements.

If you have any questions about this privacy statement, data protection or your data, please contact [email protected]

Who we are

Abortion Support Network (ASN) was established in October 2009 to provide financial assistance, accommodation and confidential, non-judgmental information and practical support to women who may be forced to travel from Ireland, Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man, Malta and Gibraltar to access a safe and legal abortion. We do this through a helpline service which people needing support can contact via telephone, email, text message and our website.

Contacting us

General email: [email protected]

Data protection and privacy: [email protected]

Our postal address: Union House, 111 New Union Street, Coventry CV1 2NT

General statement

Abortion Support Network fully respects your privacy and we will not collect any information about you without your explicit permission, or another clear, lawful basis for collecting that data.

Any and all personal information that you share will be treated with the highest standards of confidentiality, respect and security, in accordance with recognised international standards and good practice.

EU data protection law applies and we work to ensure that we comply with current legislation and guidance.

Collection and use of personal information – clients

If you contact ASN because you need to travel for an abortion you can be assured that we will not share your details with anyone else unless it is an essential part of arranging your grant, or is necessary to keep you safe.

We will keep your contact details (phone number and/or email address, first name) so that we can keep in touch with you and support you as well as possible. We keep this information in a secure database that is only accessible by those members of our team who are supporting you.

We will delete all contact information and potentially identifying data within a defined period following our last contact with you. Data is deleted on an annual basis.

We may use information you disclose to us in our marketing and communications to help raise funds to help more clients in the future. This will always be anonymised and no identifying features will be used.

Client data is not regularly shared with third parties unless we arrange a grant for you and share data with the clinic or arrange travel or accommodation.

If you would like to share your experience of needing an abortion and how ASN helped you (i.e. to press) please contact [email protected] to let us know. We can talk to you about how that might work and how it can be done anonymously if that is what you prefer.

Collection and use of personal information – supporters

Abortion Support Network uses personal data of supporters and donors for various reasons that are directly related to our fundraising to support women and pregnant people who come to us seeking advice and/or financial support.

You can opt out of the use of your data at any time by contacting us:  [email protected]

Newsletter

ASN sends a regular newsletter to supporters and donors who have chosen to receive it, to keep you up to date about our impact and activity, and how we are using the funds donated by individuals to support our clients.

This newsletter is written by the ASN team and sent using a third party, Mailchimp. This means that your email address will be shared with Mailchimp as a necessary third party. Mailchimp complies with the same international standards as ASN in its processing of your data and keeps track of when you opted-in to the newsletter and whether you opt out.

You can unsubscribe from the e-newsletter by clicking the link in any of the emails.

Fundraising campaigns

We usually conduct our fundraising campaigns online, using email and social media, based on our supporter database.

You can opt out of hearing about a particular fundraising campaign, but still continue to hear from ASN about our activities and future fundraising appeals.

If we have your address and telephone number we may use them in the course of a fundraising appeal. You can opt out of this.

Gift Aid

If you are a UK-tax payer and eligible for Gift Aid we will ask you for your address so we can claim back an extra 25p for every £1 donated.

Thanking you

We are forever grateful to those who donate to us, without whom we wouldn’t be able to do what we do, which is why we will thank you, usually by email.

Community and challenge fundraisers

If you organise an event to raise funds for ASN, or take part in some sort of challenge (e.g. a run, mountain climb etc) we will contact you to offer you support and to thank you for fundraising for ASN. We will usually do this via email.

Communication by post and telephone

If we have your postal address and/or telephone number we may use these to communicate with you, either to thank you for your support or to ask you to support us.

Profiling

If you have given us your email address we may use it to match you against statistical profiles in Facebook or other services in a practice known as remarketing so you will be more likely to see information about ASN in your Facebook Timeline, and so people who share your characteristics on those platforms will be more likely to see our fundraising calls to action as well. You can opt out by emailing [email protected]

Conducting surveys of donors and supporters

We survey our donors and supporters to find out more about your motivations, and how we could better support you. We will send this survey link to the email address we have for you.

Use of third parties

We outsource the fulfilment of some things to services which specialise in them, giving a better service to you, and making life easier for us, as we can’t be experts in everything.

For example:

  • Mailchimp – for sending emails
  • Donorfy – the database we use to keep track of our supporters and give a better service
  • Payment processing services – GoCardless, PayPal, Stripe

Data sharing with third parties

To achieve our fundraising goals and manage relationships with our supporters we often share personal data such as names, email addresses and addresses with third parties.

This sharing is always undertaken for specific purposes, under strict contractual controls and in line with appropriate information security standards.

Transfers outside the EU/EEA

Some of the third party services/suppliers we use are based outside the EU/EEA. Data transfers to these parties are conducted in line with relevant Data Protection rules.

Privacy Shield or Model Contract Clauses are the basis for transfers to entities in the United States. Transfers of this kind are reviewed regularly.

Retention of data – supporters and clients

The durations of time for which we retain client, donor and supporter data are reviewed annually.

Use of Cookies

The ASN website (www.asn.org.uk) uses cookies to better user experience while visiting the website. Where applicable this website uses a cookie control system allowing the user on their first visit to the website to allow or disallow the use of cookies on their computer / device. This complies with recent legislation requirements for websites to obtain explicit consent from users before leaving behind or reading files such as cookies on a user’s computer / device.

Cookies are small files saved to the user’s computer hard drive that track, save and store information about the user’s interactions and usage of the website. This allows the website, through its server to provide the users with a tailored experience within this website.

Users are advised that if they wish to deny the use and saving of cookies from this website on to their computers hard drive they should take necessary steps within their web browser’s security settings to block all cookies from this website and its external serving vendors.

This website uses tracking software to monitor its visitors to better understand how they use it. This software is provided by Google Analytics which uses cookies to track visitor usage. The software will save a cookie to your computer’s hard drive in order to track and monitor your engagement and usage of the website but will not store, save or collect personal information. You can read Google’s privacy policy here for further information: http://www.google.com/privacy.html.

Other cookies may be stored to your computer’s hard drive by external vendors when this website uses referral programs, sponsored links or adverts. Such cookies are used for conversion and referral tracking and typically expire after 30 days, though some may take longer. No personal information is stored, saved or collected.

Social media platforms

Communication, engagement and actions taken through external social media platforms that this website and its owners participate on are custom to the terms and conditions as well as the privacy policies held with each social media platform respectively.

Users are advised to use social media platforms wisely and communicate / engage upon them with due care and caution in regard to their own privacy and personal details. Neither this website nor its owners will ever ask for personal or sensitive information through social media platforms and encourage users wishing to discuss sensitive details to contact them through primary communication channels such as by telephone or email.

This website may use social sharing buttons which help share web content directly from web pages to the social media platform in question. Users are advised before using such social sharing buttons that they do so at their own discretion and note that the social media platform may track and save your request to share a web page respectively through your social media platform account.

Shortened Links in Social Media

This website and its owners through their social media platform accounts may share web links to relevant web pages. By default some social media platforms shorten lengthy website addresses/URLs. An example is here: http://bit.ly/zyVUBo.

Users are advised to take caution and good judgement before clicking shortened URLs published on social media platforms by this website and its owners. Despite the best efforts to ensure only genuine URLS are published many social media platforms are prone to spam and hacking and therefore this website and its owners cannot be held liable for any damages or implications caused by visiting any shortened links.

Exercising your rights as a data subject – supporters and clients

As a Data Subject you have a variety of rights under EU law. These include:

  • The Right to be told if data about you is being processed, and for what purpose
  • The Right to receive a copy of all data ASN holds about you
  • The Right to object to your data being processed for a given purpose
  • The Right to object to your data being included in any form of data profiling
  • The right to have errors in the data we hold about you corrected
  • The right to have data about you deleted, except where we have a valid overriding reason for keeping it.

You can file a Subject Access Request by emailing [email protected]

Resources and further information