Rescue. Rehabilitation. Retirement. Re-home. Reunite.

This policy sets out how Finding Forever Homes Ltd uses your information to help further our work in dog rescue and welfare. We want you to feel confident about your information and how we use it when you support our work and dogs in our care.

This policy covers all personal information collected by FFH Ltd. It applies to you if you interact with us, for example if:

• You're a supporter of FFH (this includes donors, volunteers or if you rehome, foster or sponsor a dog)

• You use any of our services

• You visit any of our websites

• You email, call or write to us

• You purchase goods from our online shop

Our privacy and cookie policy may change from time to time. To keep up to date, visit these pages occasionally. If you have any questions relating to this policy or how we use your personal information, please contact the Admin Team by email: findingforeverhomesmd@gmail.com

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Who are ‘we’?

In this policy, whenever you see the words ‘we’, ‘us’, ‘our’ or ‘FFH Ltd’, it refers to Finding Forever Homes Ltd a non-profit company limited by guarantee registered in England and Wales (14410503). FFH Ltd is the data controller responsible for keeping your personal information safe and using it wisely. We do share your information within the FFH Ltd organisation, which is our trading company.

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What data do we collect?

Depending on how you interact with FFH Ltd, we might collect your personal information to help us provide and improve our services as a non-profit and to keep a record of our communications with you. The information we collect might include:

• Contact details, like your name, email address, postal address and phone number

• IP address, username and other network activity data (see our Cookie Policy for more information about what data we might collect using cookies)

• Responses you provide to our surveys and research, which might include gender, marital status and age bracket

• Professional information, like job title and organisation

• Date of birth

• Bank account number and other financial details

• Sponsorship or Members Area information

• Communication preferences and your interests

• A record of our communications with you

• Your supporter and engagement history

• Photography and videography

• Sensitive information (see below)

• Publicly available information from social media

If you apply to rehome a dog, we might collect information relating to your personal circumstances, your household and the type of animal you are looking for.

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Sensitive personal information

We don’t collect sensitive personal information unless there is a clear reason for doing so. For example, we might collect:

• Medical information if you are taking part in a marathon or similar fundraising event

• Conviction history information if you want to foster a dog or volunteer for us

• Information to enable us to recognise and respond to the needs of a vulnerable person or person with a disability.

We will only collect and record sensitive information to make sure that we can enable you to support our work in the way you choose. 

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Where we collect your data

FFH Ltd will process your personal information when you:

• Rehome or foster a dog

• Sign up for our Members Area

• Become a dog sponsor

• Volunteer or fundraise for us

• Pledge or donate or sign up for an event

• Support one of our campaigns

• Purchase from our online shop

• Visit our website

• Telephone, write, contact us online or text us, or provide your personal information in some other way, such as filling in a form or application on our website.

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Our legal basis for collecting data

We always make sure that we have a valid ground for processing your personal information. Depending on the circumstances in which it has been collected and used, we rely on one of the following legal bases:

• Where you have provided your consent to allow us to use your personal information in a certain way, such as receiving news by email, phone or text message

• Where the processing is necessary to honour a contract with you, such as providing dog sponsorship or sale of goods through online gift store

• Where the processing is necessary for us to comply with a legal obligation, such as keeping records for tax purposes, or disclosing information relating to incidents involving dangerous dogs for insurance purposes under the Dangerous Dogs Act

• Where it is in our legitimate interest to perform administrative functions or for governance, such as processing donations or following up an information request

• Where it is in our legitimate interest to generate funds or publicise our work, such as to send you marketing communications by post

 

When we use legitimate interest

Legitimate interest is a legal ground for processing your data. It means that our use of your information must be fair and balanced to ensure we consider your privacy rights and interests as an individual. Listed below is a summary of all FFH Ltd legitimate interests to hold and process your information.

• Governance

• Delivery of our non-profit mission (our purpose)

• Reporting criminal acts and compliance with law enforcement agencies

• Internal and external audit for financial or regulatory compliance purposes

• Reporting required by law or regulation

• Generating funds and publicising our work

• Direct marketing, which is marketing that is actionable by the recipient and measurable by us

• Other forms of free or paid for marketing, publicity or advertising including campaigns, income generation and fundraising to support our work

• Marketing communications by post where our legitimate interest is to raise funds to deliver our charitable purposes

• Digital marketing, using tools on social media platforms, such as YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Google, Twitter, TikTok and LinkedIn to support our work and increase engagement with us

• Personalisation of communications such as post or email, so they are relevant and interesting

• Exercise of the right to freedom of expression or information, including in the media and the arts

• Analysis, targeting, and segmentation to improve our understanding of our audiences and our ability to do more for dogs

• Processing for research purposes, including market research

• Managing our operations

• Physical security, information technology and network security

• Processing for historical, scientific or statistical purposes

• Financial control and management

• Processing financial transactions and keeping financial controls

• Prevention of fraud, misuse of our services, or money laundering

• Enforcement of legal claims including debt collection via out-of-court procedures

• Where FFH Ltd has been named as beneficiary or executor, administration of supporters' estates and/or gifts in Wills

• Administrative purposes

• Responding to enquiries or complaints

• Delivering orders for products or information

• Delivering dog sponsorship benefits

• Delivering Members Area benefits

• Rehoming dogs

• Administration of active dog insurance policies

• Administration of tax

• Maintenance of suppression files, to ensure we honour ‘do not contact’ requests

• Sending thank you communications and receipts

• Administration of active financial transactions

 

Children and vulnerable people

If you are planning to rehome a dog, we will collect information on whether there are children in your household and their ages to make sure we match you with the right dog. For those under 18, where appropriate we may seek consent from a parent, guardian or carer before collecting their information.

We care about the safety of vulnerable persons and, while we welcome their support, we also work hard to ensure we are meeting their needs while upholding their rights. To do so, we might collect information to enable us to recognise and respond to the needs of a vulnerable person.

We abide by regulatory guidance on fundraising with people in vulnerable circumstances. If you think FFH Ltd has interacted with a vulnerable person and have any concerns, please get in touch with our Administration team. Note that we may ask for identification if you are acting on behalf of a vulnerable person. 

 

Accuracy, profiling and analysis

To improve the relevance of the communications we send you, and to ensure we are using your information efficiently, we check, analyse and enhance your personal information.

From time to time, we may contact you to ensure that the information you have provided remains accurate and up to date. If we have not heard from you for some time, we may also contact you to check that you are happy for us to continue sending communications.

We may also analyse your information to help us understand the likelihood that you will be interested in or responsive to communications such as appeals or services.

We may add publicly available information to the information you provide, to create a profile of your likely interests and your ability to support us, including the level of any potential donation you may be able to give. This information is compiled from sources such as public registers, listed Directorships, the electoral roll, newspaper articles and social media posts.

This helps us to take a more personal and informed approach to our communication with you and allows us to raise funds to support dogs more effectively and efficiently.

Following regulatory obligations and our policy, we may also use such personal information to carry out due diligence on potential or actual donors. If you opt-out of analysis of your data in this way, we may not be able to accept donations from you.

If you would prefer us not to analyse your information, or to add to it, you can let us know. 

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How we use your data

In brief, we process your personal information to help us effectively improve our work in the UK and abroad, provide our non-profit services, comply with the law and to help us raise funds.

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Purposes of processing

We have summarised below the main ways we use personal information and provided possible examples of purposes for which we collect, store and process your data. These uses depend on how you interact with and use our various services, websites and activities and our relationship with you. Please also see our ‘When we use legitimate interest’ section, which includes details on how we may process your data when it is within our legitimate interest to do so.

 

Keeping you informed

If you agree to receive communications from us or it is in our legitimate interest to contact you via email and/or , we may be in touch with you about the following:

• Our Members Area and other newsletters and updates keeping you up to date on everything to do with the dogs you help us care for

• Our gift catalogue, online shop promotions and other services such as insurance and dog related products

• Appeals and fundraising – everything from requests for donations, how you can raise money for our work, to raffles, information about how you can leave us a gift in your will, and news about the difference your donations are making

• Rehoming or training a dog – information, updates and news

• Opportunities to support our campaigns

• Events – open days, Fun Days and opportunities such as meeting our team or hearing from experts

• Volunteering opportunities, to support us at our sanctuary in Spain

Depending on your preferences, you may receive communications by post, email, phone or text message. 

We’ll never share your personal information with organisations outside the FFH Ltd organisation for their own marketing purposes.

We may also process your information to communicate with you regarding an enquiry you make.

 

Donations and fundraising

If you donate or fundraise for us, we’ll use any personal information you give us to process your gift. We may send you a thank you letter and send you administrative communications.

If you’ve told us about leaving a gift in your will, we will keep details of this. Where a donor has passed away and we are receiving their legacy gift, we will manage and administer their legacy donation. This involves processing personal information of individuals involved in the estate administration.

If you enter competitions, prizes and games we will process your personal information to notify winners and may publish your images, names and stories to promote our work, with your permission.

 

Cookies

We will gather only essential cookies and will only use this information if required during a legal process or setting.

 

Research

We carry out research with our supporters to get feedback on our services. If you choose to take part in one of our research projects, we will ask for your consent to use the information you provide for our research purposes.

Occasionally we may also use your personal information for research purposes so that we can improve our services and better meet the needs of our supporters and to support our animal welfare objectives.

 

Case studies

Stories, photos and case studies from our supporters are an important part of the content we share to illustrate our work, which we couldn’t do without you. We might use these in places such as our newsletters, social media, or on our website. Wherever we use such information, we will always obtain your prior consent.

 

Rehoming or giving up a dog

When you apply to rehome one of our dogs, we will use the information you provide us to assess your suitability for rehoming and to help us match the right dog to you. We will also register new owner details on a microchip database (see the ‘How we disclose and share your data’ section below for more information) and offer post-adoption support.

If you need to rehome your dog, we will use the information you provide us to establish how we can best look after your dog while it is in our care and to ensure it goes to a suitable new home.

 

Buying from our online shop

When you buy goods from our online shop or mail order catalogue, we’ll collect information from you so that we can process and fulfil your order or contact you if we have any queries about your order. Orders will be processed by our warehouse teams. 

 

Volunteering for us

If you’re a volunteer or fosterer we will collect details to support, provide training for and communicate with you about your work. We may also need extra information about you (such as references, criminal records checks, details of emergency contacts or medical conditions). We will keep this information for legal or contractual reasons, to protect us (including in the event of an insurance or legal claim), and for safeguarding purposes.

Our sanctuary in Spain may also share volunteer information with us for the purposes of keeping a register of current volunteers. Further, your personal information will be held and processed so that we can contact you about future volunteering opportunities. We’ll only hold information relating to the nature of your voluntary work and we’ll delete it in accordance with our retention policies.

 

Data storage

FFH Ltd’s administrative operations are based in the UK, and we endeavour to store all our data in the UK or within the European Economic Area (EEA). We use only GDPR compliant cloud storage including but not limited to Google Drive, Dropbox and Wix to ensure that your information is adequately protected.

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Financial and sensitive data

We ensure that additional controls are in place for financial, sensitive and other special categories of information, to make sure we meet regulatory and legal requirements for managing these types of information.Your payments via debit or credit card are passed securely to our payment processing partner.

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Website Security

Our website provider, Wix, maintains a high level of electronic security to keep your data safe. Wix use modern encryption software to ensure all the personal information you give over the internet, including credit card numbers, bank account details and name and address, is encrypted. Encryption takes the words and figures you enter and converts them into bits of code that are then securely transmitted over the internet.

While we make every reasonable effort to ensure that information sent to us is done so securely, we cannot warrant the security of information transmitted to us through the internet. When you transmit information to us via the internet, you do so at your own risk. 

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How we disclose and share your data

We share personal information within our organisation, Finding Forever Homes Ltd a non-profit company limited by guarantee registered in England and Wales (14410503), our trading company and the sanctuary in Spain. We’ll never share your personal information with third parties for their own marketing purposes.

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Social Media and Digital Marketing

We may provide some of your details to advertising platforms or social media companies who work on our behalf, such as Meta and Google. These enable us to reach existing and prospective audiences more accurately with targeted ads when you visit Facebook, Instagram or Google services.

For more information on these tools, please see the following:

• Meta’s guidance on Custom Audiences

• Meta’s Data Policy

• Google’s guidance on Customer Match

• Google’s Privacy Policy

If you do not want us to share your email address with digital marketing platforms (Meta and Google), even in an encrypted format, then you can ask us not to by emailing us at findingforeverhomesmd@gmail.com.

Please be aware that if you are a Facebook, Instagram or Google user or account holder, you may see FFH Ltd advertisements even if we do not share your personal information with these platforms.

You can control what ads you see via your ad settings within these platforms; we have no control over this.

 

Rehoming a dog

If you rehome a dog from us, we will also share your personal information with HMRC for the purposes of our tax return submission. 

If we have a safeguarding concern, we may share your personal information with the relevant authorities including but not limited to the police force in the UK, the RSPCA and the Guardia Civil in Spain.

We also share information to further fraud protection and reduce the risk of fraud, or when requested by the police or a regulatory or government authority investigating illegal activities. 

 

How long we keep your data

We will retain personal information for different periods of time depending on your relationship with us and in line with our Retention Policy and Schedules, relevant laws and best practice recommendations. Once we no longer need to keep it we will delete or dispose of it safely and securely.

If you request no further contact from us, we will only keep basic information about you on our suppression list to avoid sending you unwanted materials in the future. 

 

Your data protection rights

You have a number of rights under data protection legislation.

 

Your right of access

You have the right to know what information we hold about you and you can request to see it verbally or in writing. This is called a Data Subject Access Request (DSAR).

We will supply any such information you ask for as soon as possible and within 30 days, although this timeframe may be extended by up to two months if your request is particularly complex. You will be asked for proof of identity as we need to be sure we are only releasing your personal information to you.

You can call, write to, or email us with your request. Please put ATT. DATA PROTECTION TEAM - SUBJECT ACCESS REQUEST on your envelope, or in the subject line of your email, so we can process your request as quickly as possible.

 

Your right to be informed

You have the right to be informed how your personal information will be used. This policy, as well as any additional information or notice that is provided to you either when you provided your details, or otherwise, is intended to provide you with this information.

 

Your right to withdraw consent or to object

Where we process your personal information based on your consent (such as sending emails or text messages) you can withdraw that consent at any time. You also have a right to object to us processing data where we are relying on it being within our legitimate interests to do so, such as sending you information by post.

 

Your right to restrict processing

In certain situations, you have the right to ask for processing of your personal information to be restricted, such as a disagreement about its accuracy or legitimate usage.

 

Your right of erasure

In some cases, you have the right to be forgotten, which requires that your personal information is deleted from our systems. Where you have requested that we not send you communications we will need to keep some limited information on a suppression list, so we know not to contact you again.

 

Other rights

As well as rights of access and amendment referred to above, individuals may have other rights in relation to the personal information we hold, such as the right to data portability, the right to rectification, and rights relating to automated decision making and profiling.

 

Contacting the Administration Team

If you wish to exercise any of these rights, please contact the Data Protection Team: By email: findingforeverhomesmd@gmail.com

Data protection enquiries and complaints

The Administration Team can answer any queries you have about how FFH Ltd processes your personal information: By email: findingforeverhomesmd@gmail.com

If you have a complaint regarding data protection, please contact the Administration  Team directly in the first instance using the contact information above.

If you are not satisfied with the response from the Administration Team, you can email Chelsea Watson, Founder & CEO via findingforeverhomes30@gmail.com and it will be handled in accordance with our Complaints Policy.

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Please note that FFH Ltd has no affiliation with, and is not responsible for, third party websites linked in this policy.

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POLICY FFH COR/POL/001/V2.0 last updated 3rd July 2024