Privacy policy
The British Association of Social Workers (BASW) Charitable Foundation for Social Work is committed to protecting and respecting your privacy.
This policy explains when and why we collect personal information about you, how we use it, the conditions under which we may disclose it to others, how we keep it safe and secure and your rights and choices in relation to your information. Any questions regarding this policy and our privacy practices should be sent by email to contact@BASWFoundation.co.uk or by writing to the Data Controller, The British Association of Social Workers Charitable Foundation for Social Work, Wellesley House, 37 Waterloo Street, Birmingham, B2 5PP.
How we collect your information
Information you give us directly
We may obtain information about you when you take part in one of our events, supply goods and services, purchase products and services or contact us about campaigns or policies.
Information you give us indirectly
Your information may be shared with us by third parties, which might include:
- Subcontractors acting on our behalf who provide us with technical, payment or delivery services
You should check any privacy policy provided to you where you give your data to a third party.
When you visit this website
We, like many organisations, automatically collect the following information:
- Technical information, including the type of device you’re using, the IP address, browser and operating system being used to connect your computer to the internet. This information may be used to improve the services we offer.
- Information about your visit to this website, for example we collect information about pages you visit and how you navigate the website, i.e. length of visits to certain pages, products and services you viewed and searched for, referral sources (e.g. how you arrived at our website).
We may collect and use your personal information by using cookies on our website – more information on cookies can be found under the ‘Use of Cookies’ section below.
Social Media
When you interact with us on social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter we may obtain information about you (for example, when you publicly tag us in an event photo). The information we receive will depend on the privacy preferences you have set on those types of platforms.
Public Information
We may source contacts for policy development and campaigns from information obtained from publicly available sources such as the Houses of Parliament, newspaper and publication websites, central and local government websites
What type of information is collected
The personal information we collect, store and use might include:
- Your name and contact details (including postal address, email address and telephone number);
- Your date of birth (members);
- Information about your activities on our website and about the device used to access it, for instance your IP address and geographical location;
- Your bank or credit card details. If you purchase a membership, event ticket or product online, your card information is not held by us, it is collected by our third party payment processors, who specialise in the secure online capture and processing of credit/debit card transactions;
- Any other personal information shared with us.
Data protection laws recognise certain categories of personal information as sensitive and therefore requiring greater protection, for example information about your health, ethnicity and religion.
We do not usually collect sensitive data about you unless there is a clear and valid reason for doing so and data protection laws allow us to, for example, we do provide members with the opportunity to provide information on their ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion and any disability, so that we can monitor and ensure the effective delivery of our services.
Where appropriate, we will make clear why we are collecting this type of information and what it will be used for.
How your information is used
- Carrying out our obligations under any contracts entered into between you and us;
- Keeping a record of your relationship with us;
- Consulting you on policy development, campaigns and member issues
- Seeking view and opinions for press communications
- Sourcing specialist expertise to help represent BASW in media interviews
- Conducting analysis and market research so we can understand how we can improve our services, products or information;
- Checking for updated contact details so we can stay in touch if you move;
- Dealing with entries into a competition;
- Seeking your views or comments on the services we provide;
- Notifying you of changes to our services;
- Sending you communications which you have requested and that may be of interest to you. These may include information about campaigns, policy writing, events and activities and promotions of goods and services;
- Processing applications for committee roles or jobs
How long is your information kept for:
We keep your information for no longer than is necessary for the purposes it was collected for. The length of time we retain your personal information for is determined by operational and legal considerations. For example, we are legally required to hold some types of information to fulfil our statutory and regulatory obligations (e.g. health/safety and tax/accounting purposes).
We review our retention periods on a regular basis.
Date: 5 June 2024