At THE FARMING COMMUNITY NETWORK (FCN), registered Charity number 1095919, we are committed to protecting your privacy. The purpose of this policy is to explain how FCN processes your data, whether you are using our service, you are a volunteer, interested in volunteering, a supporter, making a donation, or just browsing our website.
Formed in 1995, FCN provides support to the farming community in England and Wales, with 30 groups and over 400 volunteers. FCN does not provide professional advice, but supports by:
- Listening
- Visiting
- Accompanying
- Helping to find advice
- Explaining
- Advocacy
- “Walking with” those who need help
Support is offered free and is confidential.
FCN takes appropriate technical and organisational measures to keep your data safe.
What data we collect and how we use it
The type and quantity of data we collect and use depends on why you have provided it. We will only collect, use and otherwise handle your personal data:
- Where you have consented to this for specified, explicit and legitimate purposes
- Where this is necessary to fulfil legal obligations that apply to us
- Where it is necessary for our legitimate interests relating to running our daily operations, as long as, in each case, these interests are in line with applicable law and your legal rights and freedoms.
Volunteers
If you volunteer with us, or enquire about our volunteering opportunities, we will usually collect the following information:
your name, contact details, emergency contact details, contact preferences, ethnicity,
gender, availability to volunteer, disability (including physical and mental conditions), criminal convictions and bank details.
We collect this data so that we can contact you about volunteering opportunities that come up; so that we ensure the safety of all volunteers, staff and clients; can pay expenses; and to help us anonymously measure our inclusion and accessibility across our volunteering programmes.
We will keep this data for two years after you stop volunteering for us.
Supporters
If you support us, for example by signing up to an event, donating, signing up to Gift Aid, or signing up to a campaign, we will usually collect:
your name, contact details, and whether you would like to be contacted, and how we should do so. If appropriate, we may also ask to collect your date of birth, financial details, Gift Aid eligibility, reasons for support, and responses to our campaigns.
We collect this data so we can keep you up to date with information you have requested, or may be interested in, and to ask for more support, in the way that you have chosen; to run our events; and to fulfil our legal responsibilities for financial and Gift Aid reporting.
We will keep your data only for as long as necessary. If you have kindly donated to us, we are required to keep this data for seven years. If you have not donated to us, we will only keep your data for three years, unless you have specifically requested to receive communications from us.
Please note for some of our communications and mail-outs we may use a third party to provide this service. Any provider used is GDPR compliant and will ensure data is stored safely and securely, and for a limited period of time.
Gift in Wills
Some of our supporters choose to let us know that they plan to leave a gift in their will to FCN to help us carry out our work. We will collect contact details and contact preferences of supporters who ask us for more information about how to leave a gift to FCN in their Will or who tell us that they are thinking about leaving a gift to the charity. We will use this data to keep in touch and send you other information that you may be interested in.
If you change your mind then we will only keep this data for three years.
If you tell us that you do intend to leave us a gift in your will then we will collect details and contact preferences. We will use this data to keep in touch and send you other information and products that you may have expressed an interest in. This data will be kept on file long-term, as hopefully it will be many years before your gift is realised. In order to administer bequests, solicitors, executors and our probate agents will provide us with details of the deceased, the corresponding executors, solicitors and where necessary other beneficiaries. This data will be kept by us and shared with our legacy administrators for the purposes of administering our legacy income. On occasion we may share this data with other parties such as co-beneficiaries, third party experts and any other person(s) involved with the estate for the purposes of administering legacies only.
The data will be kept on file indefinitely.
FCN Helpline
FCN operates a Helpline service manned by volunteers, every day of the week from 7.00am until 11.00pm. Potential clients will be asked to provide, with their consent, the following information:
name, contact details, contact preferences and gender.
This data, along with other information relating to the problem or issue is inputted into an online case recording system to alert and inform the volunteer(s) to take action, as requested and agreed by the caller.
If no data has been inputted for 18 months, the volunteer(s) will be instructed automatically to delete all personal data about the client. This can, however, be overridden by an authorised person if the case is still ‘live’.
Testimonials
Some of our volunteers and supporters kindly tell us stories about their experiences to help us in our advertising and marketing. We will record the details of the story, and contact details to enable us to get updated approval to use the story.
We will keep this data for three years after you give it to us, and will always contact you each time we wish to use it.
Photography
Our volunteers, supporters, and clients kindly let us use images and video of them to help our marketing and activities come to life. We keep these images stored in a secure location and will only use them with the subject’s permission, or by the use of a Model Release form.
Research
Part of the work we do involves carrying out research. If you agree to take part, we will record responses to questions that you give us, and your personal details. This data will be used to fulfil our research objectives, and may be shared for relevant projects. Your data will remain anonymous unless you consent to it being disclosed.
The data we collect will be kept for five years.
Services
FCN offer a range of information and support services to the farming community. We will collect your contact details and preferences, and any other data that is relevant to delivering the service to you.
This information will only be used for the purposes of the service and not shared with other agencies unless you give us permission to do so.
We will keep the data for up to six years, in line with contracts and government regulations.
Your rights
We will only collect the data that we need to carry out the purposes you have contacted us for, or given us permission to use it for. To enable us to carry these purposes, there will be occasions when we will make some data collection mandatory i.e. your name and address to claim gift aid, or your email address to access our services. If you don’t provide this data, we cannot carry out the purposes you have contacted us for.
We will always tell you why these fields are mandatory. At any time that you wish you can:
- gain access to your personal information,
- object to the processing of your personal information,
- object to the use of automated decision making and profiling,
- restrict the processing of your personal information,
- ask for a copy of your personal data (known as data portability),
- ask for a copy of your personal information, and
- rectify or correct your personal information, and have your personal information removed (known as Erasure or the ‘right to be forgotten’).
Where you have provided consent to be contacted or to receive a service, you will be entitled to withdraw that consent at any time. If you are at any point unhappy with the way that we handled your personal data, you can make a complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office.
To make changes or to delete your personal information, please contact:
The Farming Community Network, Manor Farm, Guilsborough Road, West Haddon, Northamptonshire, NN6 7AQ, or email help@fcn.org.uk.
Complaints
Should you wish to register a complaint, please contact FCN at the address given above or by email, providing full details of the nature of the complaint. We will record your name, contact details and details about the complaint to enable us to respond, monitor and improve our organisation. The data will be shared with any third parties who are involved in resolving the complaint, for example, agencies that we have partnered with. We will acknowledge receipt of the complaint within 48hrs. It is our aim to resolve a complaint within 14 days of receiving it.
We will hold this data for six years.
Changes to this Policy
We will keep this Policy under regular review. If we make any changes in the way we hold your personal information, we will make this clear on the FCN website, or by contacting you direct.