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Privacy Policy

As we develop as an organisation, we may need to alter our privacy statement. If you have any questions about this statement, please email info@sane.org.uk

SANE: Who we are and what we do

SANE is a UK-wide charity working to improve quality of life for people affected by mental illness. SANE has three main objectives linked to our aims and outcomes.

  1. To raise awareness and combat stigma about mental illness, educating and campaigning to improve mental health services.
  2. To provide care and emotional support for people with mental health problems, their families and carers as well as information for other organisations and the public.
  3. To initiate research into the causes and treatments of serious mental illness such as schizophrenia and depression and the psychological and social impact of mental illness.

This pageis divided into key sections:


Using SANE services

We provide emotional support, guidance and information to anyone affected by mental illness, including families, friends and carers.

SANE services are confidential. We are committed to your privacy. You can read about community confidentiality and privacy in our Community Guidelines.

Calls

In order to provide excellent services, we do keep some basic information. We keep short records of calls, and keep demographic information if you share this with us.

You are under no obligation to share your real name, or any demographic information in order to use the service. Call records are kept for six years, at which point details of the call are destroyed.

Keeping basic call records allows us to support our callers, and means that you do not need to repeat everything each time. This allows us to offer you the best possible support and guidance each time we speak to you. Identifying information (such as phone numbers, if we have them) are kept separately from call details.

We keep all records made about callers to SANEline on a digital application provided by CharityLogic Inc. They have appropriate precautions in place to keep your data safe.

Information from reports on specific calls is never shared with external agencies except when we are required to do this in accordance with the law and/or our own safeguarding and confidentiality policies.

We record some statistical information on each call to SANEline to help monitor and improve our service. We never report specific people in these reports.

If you call the helpline, SANEline volunteers cannot see your phone number when you call. However, if you do not withhold your number when you call, our phone system does enable us to access your number.

We would only do this when obliged to share this information in line with our confidentiality or safeguarding policies. The decision that the required threshold has been met is made by two SANE staff, one of whom will always be a senior manager.

Email and Textcare Support

If you email us or request textcare, we keep details of the messages we send for six years. All information is kept on a secure system. Information is never shared with external agencies except when we are required to do so in accordance with the law or our own safeguarding/confidentiality policies.

We keep some anonymised statistical information to help monitor and improve our service. We never report any identifying information.

Community

Any information that you provide us with when registering for our online community is stored within our website and kept for as long as you are an active member. If you have not logged on to our community for six years we will remove your profile from our records.

We will only use the information you provide when you join the online community if:

  • You are acting in breach of the communities’ ground rules.
  • We are significantly concerned about you or your wellbeing.
  • You have given us permission to contact you regarding SANE and our activities.

Content of posts made on our online community are publicly visible. SANE will never share your personal details with external agencies except when we are required to do so in accordance with the law and/or our own safeguarding/confidentiality policies.

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Volunteering with SANE

To apply to volunteer with SANE, we require you to complete an application form, including personal data. If invited to a selection day we will keep your application on file. If unsuccessful we will remove your application form from our records and keep just a record of your name, date of application and the reason we did not invite you to a selection day.

We will keep volunteer files for six years after you leave SANE.

Your volunteer file will be kept securely and only accessed by those who have a legitimate interest in the file.

We ask for demographic information as part of your application to help us with equal opportunities monitoring. You are not required to give us this information, but by choosing to do so you consent to the processing of this information by us. 

We keep your personal information confidential, unless we are required to disclose it by law or because you have asked us to provide a reference for you.

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Donating to SANE

When you donate money to SANE, we may collect and process information about you including financial details, name, postal address, email address and telephone number. Depending on how you donate, this information may come to us via a third party.

We may use your information for purposes including:

  • To process donations you have made.
  • Updating you on our work if you have given permission for us to do so.
  • Administrative purposes eg contacting you about a donation you have made.
  • Internal record keeping eg complaint management.

If you donate via our website, the data is stored on a secure server. Information shared with us is securely protected and kept up to date. You can also donate to SANE via online providers such as JustGiving and Facebook Fundraising (separate privacy statements apply).

We work with a supplier to provide and administer a text donation service so that you can donate to SANE via your mobile phone on a one-off basis.

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Marketing communications

When you donate to SANE or become a member of our online community, we will ask you if we can stay in touch and keep you up to date with our fundraising activities and the work of the charity.  We will also ask you how you would like us to stay in touch – by mail, telephone, email or text message.

Mail: If you have given us your postal address, we may send you direct mail unless you have told us that you would prefer not to receive information in this way.

Telephone: If you have given us your telephone number, we may telephone you about our work unless you have told us that you prefer not to be contacted in this way.

Email and text: If we are contacting you by email or text, we will tell you how you can opt out of further communications and make it easy for you to do so.

We work with some third party suppliers to deliver fundraising challenge events, and as part of the registration process they collect your personal information. If as part of this process you have consented to receive contact from SANE, your details will be passed to us and we will contact you as referenced by the third party supplier.

SANE works with fundraising agencies, which provide data processing services eg a company that provides printing and postage services to send postal communications to our supporters. and a company that ensures the data we are using is clean and updated so that we are not contacting people in error.

When we work with these agencies we may share your personal information with them. We do not give these organisations any rights to use your personal information (or contact you) except in accordance with our instructions. We also require these third parties to comply with data protection legislation, and ensure appropriate safeguards are in place.

Where personal information is passed from SANE to our contracted suppliers, this is transferred securely and only used for the specific purpose outlined by our contract with them.

If you have made a Gift Aid declaration, we may disclose the information you have provided as part of the declaration to HMRC for the purpose of reclaiming Gift Aid on your donation(s).

We do not share or sell personal information to third parties for marketing purposes.

We will hold your personal information on our systems for as long as is necessary for the relevant activity. If you have indicated that you do not wish to be contacted, we will retain your details on a suppression list to help ensure that we do not continue to contact you.

Keeping your information up-to-date

If you have provided us with your personal details, and need to update this information or decide at a later date that you no longer want to receive information from us, please let us know by contacting us at:

  • Email: fundraising@sane.org.uk
  • Telephone: 0203 805 1759
  • Post: SANE, St Mark’s Studios, 14 Chillingworth Road, Islington, London, N7 8QJ

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Your rights

It is important that you understand your legal rights around your personal data and how we may use it. If you would like to discuss or exercise any of these rights, please do get in touch with our supporter contact team:

  • Email: info@sane.org.uk
  • Telephone: 0203 805 1790
  • Post: SANE, St Mark’s Studios, 14 Chillingworth Road, Islington, London, N7 8QJ

Right to be informed

This privacy policy ensures that you are informed about how we will process your personal data. You might also see messages on some of our forms (or otherwise when we collect personal data from you) that explain why we ask for specific pieces of information from you.

Right of access

You have the right to access a copy of your personal data and receive certain information about what the data is and how and why we are processing it. Please note that we will require you to prove your identity before we disclose any information. You will need to allow ten working days and a £10 charge to process this.

Right to rectification

If you feel that any of the information that we hold about you is incorrect, do let us know so that we can investigate this for you

Right to object

You have the right to object to the processing of your data. If you wish to complain, we would ask that you do this in line with our Complaints Policy (PDF, 74 KB).

Right to erasure/to be forgotten

You have the right to request that we delete your information and can discuss this with us at any time.

You should know that there are some circumstances where we may need to keep your details, for example, if it is necessary to comply with a legal obligation on us. If this situation occurs, then we will explain and discuss these circumstances with you.

Right to restrict processing

You can request that we restrict processing of your data, as an alternative to deleting it – this means that we will keep the data but stop processing for most purposes. You may want to exercise this right if you feel that the data is inaccurate, that our processing of it is unlawful, whilst we progress a request from you to object to processing, or if we have no further need of the data, but you require us to keep it in relation to the establishment, exercise or defence of a legal claim.

Rights related to automated decision making

You have rights to avoid being subject to decisions based solely on automated processing (including profiling) which has a significant effect on you. At SANE we do not carry out any such processing.

Right to data portability

You have the right to request a copy of certain personal data to have it transferred to another organisation in certain circumstances.

You should know that there are some circumstances where these rights may not apply, but where this is the case we will always explain this to you. Please do contact us if you have any questions or concerns on how we collect and use your personal data, or on your rights, as we are always happy to speak to you.

You also have the right to make a complaint direct to the UK’s data protection authority, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). The ICO can be contacted via their website where concerns can be also logged.

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Making a complaint

We are totally committed to providing an excellent service and always trying to do what we say we will. In this context we very much welcome your views feedback, compliments and comments.

If you are not completely happy, let us know by downloading our Complaints Policy (PDF, 74KB). We will keep a record of your comments and complaints on file for six years following our final contact with you.

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Policy changes

We are committed to improving the services we offer. As such, from time to time we may need to amend our policy without prior notice to you. Any substantial changes, however, will be explained on our website.

We ask that you check our policy regularly to keep updated on our latest terms. This does not affect your statutory rights under UK law.

If you have any questions regarding the Privacy Policy, please contact the fundraising team on 0203 805 1790 or email info@sane.org.uk.

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Website cookies

How we use Cookies

We use cookies and similar technologies (also known as tags/pixels/beacons/floodlights) on our websites to personalise content and digital advertising, provide social media features and analyse traffic. This policy refers to both ‘cookies’ and ‘similar technologies’ as cookies.

You can accept all the cookies that we use by clicking on the ‘Accept Cookies’ button displayed on our cookie banner. If you’d rather decide what cookies are set, you can choose your preferences by clicking on ‘Cookie Settings’. You can opt out of all our cookies (except the strictly necessary ones). Find out how to control and delete cookies in your browser. But, if you choose to refuse all cookies, our website may not function for you as we would like it to.

What are cookies?

Cookies are small text files placed on your computer, phone or other device by websites you visit.

They do not store or collect information about you such as your name but will instead collect information related to, for example, the devices you use to access the internet, your browser and your browsing history. Cookies are widely used to make websites work more efficiently for visitors, and to provide information to the owners of the site.

What are tags?

We use tags to transfer data collected from visitors to our websites to external sources like Facebook. We use them to track:

  • your interactions with our websites and digital adverts (for example, when you’ve downloaded content, clicked on an advert or viewed a video)
  • what pages you visit on our sites, how long you spent on those pages, how you got there and when you left them. This information can also be used to monitor digital advertising performance.

If you haven’t given permission for us to set cookies through the cookies banner that would have popped up when you first visited this site, your visit (and how you got here) won’t be tracked by us. However, if you visit this site using a different device and/browser in the future, you will need to provide us with your cookie preferences again.

How do we use cookies on our websites?

We use cookies on the websites to:

  • facilitate users’ ability to navigate through the website.
  • ascertain whether the website is operating effectively.
  • compile statistics on how our website is being used, which can help us to improve our website and online services.
  • personalise and improve the service we offer you by understanding your preferences and establishing which areas of the website are most relevant to you.

We also use cookies to make sure we keep your information confidential and secure as you move through secure or password protected areas of our websites.

Some of the cookies that we use are ‘Session Cookies’ which are deleted when you close your browser. Others remain on your browser or device until they expire or you delete them from your browser history – these are known as ‘Persistent Cookies’.

All cookies have an ‘owner’ which can be identified by looking at the domain (i.e. the company or website name in the cookie). Cookies can either be first-party (i.e. they’re owned by the website who set them) or third-party (i.e. they’re not owned by the website who set them). We use both first-party and third-party cookies on our websites.

Categories of cookies used by SANE

Below is a list of the main cookies we use on this website. The categories we have used are based on the International Chamber of Commerce’s Guide for Cookie categorisation. If you would like more information, please contact us.

A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking technologies for the following purposes:

Strictly Necessary Cookies

These cookies are necessary for our websites to function and therefore cannot be switched off. They are only set in response to actions made by you such as setting your privacy preferences, logging into our sites and/or filling in forms. You can set your browser to block these cookies, however this will inevitably mean that some parts of our sites will not work.

Performance Cookies

These cookies allow us to count web site visits and traffic sources so we can both measure and improve the performance of our sites as well as that of our digital advertising campaigns. They help us to know which pages are the most and least popular, see how visitors move around the site and measure the impact of our digital adverts. If you do not allow these cookies, we will not know when you have visited (or how you have reached) our sites -this means that we will not be able to monitor site/digital advertising campaign performance as accurately.

Personalisation Cookies

We use personalisation cookies to track the pages you visit on our websites (including the pages/content related to the support we provide to visitors to our site) so that we can suggest relevant content based on the pages you have previously visited. If you do not allow these cookies, you will receive a less personalised experience on our websites.

Targeting Cookies

“Targeting Cookies” are used by our advertising partners (e.g. Facebook) to collect information about how you use our website (including visits to our information pages) and show you associated adverts on other sites. The information that’s been used to build that profile may also be used to find other people with similar interests to yours so that our adverts can be shown to them too. No directly identifiable personal information is shared with our advertising partners e.g. details such as your email address), but information that uniquely identifies your browser and internet device will be shared. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

Third party cookies

So we can make improvements to our websites, take steps to ensure that our online advertising is cost effective, and provide you with content and ads that we think you’ll find interesting, our sites place cookies which are owned by third-party suppliers.

Further details about the main suppliers that we use and links to their privacy information is provided below:

Google

We use Google’s Marketing Platform cookies so that we can measure the impact of our digital advertising campaigns. This helps us to ensure that the money we spend on digital advertising is cost-effective. They also help us to serve adverts to people who have visited our websites and control the number of times that a website visitor sees an advert.

We use Google Analytics cookies to help us measure how visitors use our websites. This helps us to improve peoples’ experience of using our sites and measure the effectiveness of our digital advertising campaigns. Read Google’s privacy policy

Facebook

We use Facebook cookies so we can deliver adverts to website visitors who have a Facebook account as well as find Facebook customers with similar interests to the people who visit our website. We also use Facebook cookies to measure the effectiveness of our Facebook ad campaigns which, in turn, helps ensure that we’re using our resources effectively. Read Facebook’s privacy policy

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