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Introduction

Our privacy policy covers what kind of information we collect, why we collect it, how we store it, legal issues, what information we share, who we share it with, use of the website and social media, access to personal information and cookies. We take our duty to protect your personal data and maintain confidentiality very seriously. We are committed to taking all reasonable measures to make sure the personal data we are responsible for is kept securely. As an organisation, we are registered as a data controller with and accountable to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) Reg ZA078027

 

Contact Details

Carers Link Lancashire is a registered charity in England and Wales (1156275) and registered as a company limited by guarantee in England and Wales (08584591). Registered office: 54-56 Blackburn Road, Accrington, BB5 1LE

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Information we collect and where we collect it from

Carers Link Lancashire collects different types of personal data directly from or about you, but always with your consent. We also need to keep records about the care and support you receive from Carers Link Lancashire.

 

This can include but is not limited to:

 

• Personal information such as your name, address, telephone number, next of kin, email address, date of birth, data relating to your personal and caring situations, gender, ethnicity sexual orientation, medical data e.g. cared for conditions (if pertinent to the activities or services), and some financial data if you are giving us a donation or receiving grant support via us.

• contacts and interactions we have had with you such as telephone calls, emails, appointments or visits to our services • notes and reports about your circumstances including health, treatment care and support • relevant information from other people involved in your care and support such as health professionals, relatives and carers

 

Sometimes we ask people who use our services to let us use images and videos to share the work we undertake with the public. We will always ask for your consent before we do this

 

You may provide us with any or all of this data online, at an event, via a leaflet or over the phone. If you are using our website, Carers Link Lancashire will use the information it collects about you to help it understand more about how the website is used. Some anonymous data such as IP addresses, pages visited, and time spent on the website is also collected. This information is used by Carers Link Lancashire to compile traffic statistics to enhance its understanding of how visitors use the website and to help it improve this service.

 

When you make a donation you are rerouted through to a third party platform such as JustGiving, Gofund me etc this is a separate organisation and has a privacy policy of its own. Please ensure you read this before making any donations; Carers Link Lancashire is not liable for any issues pertaining to a 3rd party website

 

In some cases, anonymous internet and website data is collected using cookies. Cookies are small pieces of data sent by a web server to collect data from a web browser. It also allows a website to recognise a user and their setting preferences the next time they visit the website and may allow some features to load more quickly. Most browsers will allow you to turn off or manage cookies. Please note that turning off or refusing to allow cookies for the Carers Link Lancashire website can restrict your use of the websites. Further details can be found on the cookies page of our website by clicking here.

 

Use of personal information

Carers Link Lancashire is committed to protecting your privacy and does not capture and store any personal information about individuals who access this website, except where:

 

• users voluntarily choose to register with Carers Link Lancashire, either directly or through a 3rd party; or

• users make a donation to Carers Link Lancashire

 

When any such information is supplied to Carers Link Lancashire, the charity is legally bound by the UK General Data Protection Regulation to ensure that such information is only used for the purpose for which it was requested and also to ensure that data is held securely. No personal data obtained via the website is used for direct marketing.

 

Carers Link Lancashire also takes appropriate measures to ensure that any personal information provided is kept secure and only for as long as is necessary for the purposes for which it was provided.

 

Our legal basis for processing your data

Carers Link Lancashire is a charity & a private company limited by guarantee operating across East Lancashire supporting unpaid carers and the wider communities. Our business is based on statutory powers which underpin the legal basis that apply for the purposes of the UK General Data Protection Regulations (UK GDPR). Our primary lawful bases for the majority of our processing are:

 

• Article 6(1)(f) – the processing of personal data is necessary for the purposes of the legitimate interests pursued by Carers Link Lancashire or by a third party, except where such interests are overridden by the interests or fundamental rights and freedoms of the data subject which require protection of personal data. The legitimate interest we rely on are:

1. To fulfil the charitable purpose of Carers Link Lancashire as a health and social care provider. If we are unable to process your personal data, we will be unable to provide you with the health and social care services you need, and we will not be able to meet our contractual obligations with our commissioners (Local Authorities) or meet our legal obligations with our regulators,

2. To fulfil the charitable purposes. For example, if we are unable to fundraise then we will not be able to continue to provide our provision of carers services

3. The health and safety of our visitors, service users and sites.

 

• Article 6(1)(e) – processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in the controller.

 

For entering into and managing contracts with the individuals concerned, for example our employees, the legal basis is:

 

• Article 6(1)(b) – processing is necessary for the performance of a contract to which the data subject is party, or in order to take steps at the request of the data subject prior to entering into a contract.

 

Where we have a specific legal obligation that requires the processing of personal data, for example the processing is necessary for compliance with our legal obligations in relation to our regulators, the legal basis is:

 

• Article 6(1)(c) – processing is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to which the controller is subject. We may also use your personal information in the following situations, which are likely to be rare:

1. Where we need to protect your vital interests (or someone else's interests), for example in a medical emergency where your information needs to be shared with the ambulance services,

2. Where it is needed in the public interest or for official purposes, for example during the Covid pandemic.

• Article 6(1)(a) – the individual has given clear consent for us to process their personal data for a specific purpose.

 

Special category information

 

Where we process special category data, for example data including health, racial or ethnic origin, or sexual orientation, we need to meet an additional condition in the UK GDPR.

 

Where we are processing special category personal data for purposes related to the commissioning and provision of health and social care services the condition is:

 

• Article 9(2)(h) – processing is necessary for the purposes of preventive or occupational medicine, for the assessment of the working capacity of the employee, medical diagnosis, the provision of health or social care or treatment or the management of health or social care systems and services. Where we process special category data for safeguarding purposes the condition is:

 

• Article 9(2)(b) – processing is necessary for the purposes of carrying out the obligations and exercising specific rights of the controller or of the data subject in the field of employment and social security and social protection law. We may also share your data with our trusted legal partners to defend our legal rights – for example to resolve a serious complaint.

 

Consent

When registering with Carers Link Lancashire we will ask you information about yourself and limited information about the person you care for (as mentioned in the ‘The kinds of information we collect’ section). Consent will ALWAYS be obtained which can be written or verbal. When providing information such as telephone numbers and an email address, we will only do this after we have explained that these will be used only to contact you about your caring role, or to receive our monthly e-bulletin or quarterly e-magazine.

 

We will not contact you for marketing purposes, to sell goods or services nor will we disclose personal data to third parties for their direct marketing purposes.

 

If, as part of your caring role, a referral is made to a 3rd party to support you or the person you care for, we will ALWAYS obtain consent which can be written or verbal.

 

We may also share & use your data in the following circumstances:

• Where we must comply with laws such as those for national security, or criminal investigations

• Where we must undertake due diligence, to be sure we are not being used as a channel for criminal activities

• If we believe a person’s safety is at risk

 

How do we store and dispose of this information and for how long do we keep it?

Personal information relates to a living individual who can be identified from that data. We comply with the relevant Privacy legislation (UK General Data Protection Regulation & the Data Protection Act 2018) by ensuring that personal information about you is used fairly and in accordance with the eight data protection principles. These principles are there to protect you.

 

Carers Link Lancashire takes appropriate actions to make sure that the data we hold about you, whether that is on paper or electronically in a computer file or database, is stored securely. We will only hold this data for as long as it is necessary for the purposes for which it is provided to us. We will dispose of unnecessary personal data using secure deletion methods (electronic) or shredding. We encourage all our carers to notify us of any changes in their caring role, or contact information, so that we can keep our records up to date and accurate.

 

We will always make sure that we:

• Don't hold more information about you than we need,

• Ensure information we hold about you is accurate,

• Keep it secure and protected from loss, misuse, unauthorised access and disclosure,

• Keep it only for as long as it is necessary and

• Ensure that all personal data is processed lawfully and legally.

 

Your information is securely stored on our IT servers or on our premises. We have appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used, or accessed in an unauthorised manner, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal data to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal data on our written instruction, and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality. We have procedures in place to deal with any suspected personal data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so. In addition, we limit access to your personal information to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal information on our instructions, and they are subject to a strict duty of confidentiality. We will only retain your information for as long as we need to legally keep records in accordance with charity, company law and funding and regulators terms and conditions. Once this period has elapsed, we will then securely dispose of all data relating to you in accordance with our retention and deletion policies. We will then securely dispose of your personal data in line with recommended deletion processes.

 

We only use your personal information to enable us to provide our services. Your personal information (including health records) is used to direct, manage, and deliver the care and support you receive to ensure that:

 

• The professionals involved in your support have accurate and up to date information to assess your health and decide on the most appropriate care and support for you (

• Healthcare professionals (including partner organisations) delivering your care have the information they need to be able to assess and improve the quality and type of care you receive,

• Appropriate information is available if you see another professional or are referred to a specialist or another part of the health and social care sector. Your information will also be used to help manage the services we provide and protect the health of the public by being used to:

• Review the care and support we provide to ensure it is of the highest standard and quality,

• Protect the health of the general public,

• Manage our services,

• Ensure our services can meet service user needs in the future,

• Investigate service user queries, complaints, and legal claims,

• Prepare statistics on our performance,

• Undertake health and care research and development,

• Help train and educate our health and social care professionals,

• Ask you for feedback about our services,

• Resolve any complaints you may have about services.

 

To ensure that we provide you with an efficient and effective service we will sometimes need to share your information with other organisations. Anyone who receives information from us has a legal duty to keep it confidential. We may also need to share your information with other health and social care service providers, for example to make referrals on your behalf. If something you’ve told us makes us think you or someone else are at serious risk of harm, we might need to tell the police or social services, this will take place without your consent or on very rare occasions without your knowledge where the circumstances require us to do so. We will never share your information with any external organisation for marketing purposes

 

Your Rights & Choice

 

Under data protection law, you have rights including:

 

Right to be informed

You have a right to be informed if your personal data is being used. Most of this right to be informed is met in this privacy notice, and similar information when we communicate with you directly – at the point of contact.

 

Right of access

You have the right to obtain a copy of personal data that we hold about you and other information specified in the GDPR (commonly known as a Subject Access Request or SAR), although there are exceptions to what we are obliged to disclose. For example, we may not provide all the information, where in the opinion of an appropriate health or social care professional disclosure would be likely to cause serious harm to your, or somebody else’s physical or mental health, or it refers to other individuals. You will not usually have to pay a fee to access your personal information (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request for access is clearly unfounded or excessive. Alternatively, we may refuse to comply with the request in such circumstances. To submit a Subject Access Request, you can speak to the worker supporting you or you can contact Rebecca Hodgson, CEO by emailing rebeccah@carerslinklancashire.co.uk  or by phone on 01254 387444.

 

Right to rectification

You have the right to ask us to rectify any inaccurate data that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate data we hold about you corrected, though we may need to verify the accuracy of the new data you provide to us.

 

Right to erasure (‘right to be forgotten’)

You have the right to request that we erase personal data about you that we hold. This is not an absolute right, and depending on the legal basis that applies, we may have overriding legitimate grounds to continue to process and store your data. Right to object You have the right to object to the processing of personal data about you on grounds relating to your particular situation. The right is not absolute, and we may continue to use the data if we can demonstrate compelling legitimate grounds.

 

Right to restriction of processing

You have the right to ask us to restrict the processing of your information in certain circumstances.

 

Right in relation to automated individual decision-making

You have the right to object to being subject to a decision based solely on automated processing, including profiling.

 

Right to notification

You have the right to be notified if there has been a breach with regards to your personal data that we hold. This right is enforced if the breach is likely to result in a high risk of adversely affecting your rights and freedom. Right to data portability You have the right to ask that we transfer the information you gave us to another organisation, or to you, in certain circumstances. It is important that the personal information we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your personal information changes.

 

We also maintain contact with our carers via our quarterly magazine as a minimum. However, it is always your choice as to whether you want to receive information about our work, how we can support carers and the fundraising we undertake. If you do not want us to use your personal information in these ways please let us know.

 

You may opt-out of our electronic communications at any time by clicking the ‘unsubscribe’ link at the end of our monthly e-bulletins or sending us an "opt-out" email.

 

You can also change any of your contact preferences at any time by contacting us on 0345 688 7113 or email info@carerslinklancashire.co.uk

 

How you can manage or delete the information we have about you

Your rights regarding the data we hold and collect about you are outlined in the data protection policies and legislation of the UK GDPR These include: the right to access, edit and update, request the deletion of, and restrict the processing of your personal information, the right to object to the collection of your personal data and the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority about your personal information.

 

If you have any questions or comments about this Privacy Policy or any of the policies mentioned in this Policy, please contact us at: Carers Link Lancashire, 54-56 Blackburn Road, Accrington, BB5 1LE

 

If you are not satisfied with our response or believe we are not processing your personal data in accordance with the law you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). You can contact the ICO on 0303 123 1113, at registration@ico.org.uk or at Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF.

 

Use of the website

Anyone is entitled to view any parts of our website and to use for their own purposes the information contained therein, provided:

• It is used for information purposes only, for reproduction for personal use only and not for reproduction on any other website or for commercial gain without permission

• Any links created to the website are notified to and approved by Carers Link Lancashire before they are created

• No part of the website is copied, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means to any third party without the permission of Carers Link Lancashire

• The name and logos of Carers Link Lancashire and all related product and service names, designs marks and slogans are the trade names, service marks or trademarks of Carers Link Lancashire and may not be used without the prior consent of Carers Link Lancashire

 

No transmission of data over the Internet can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. Carers Link Lancashire cannot ensure or warrant the security of any information you transmit to it and you do so at your own risk.

 

Links to other websites

Our website contains links to enable you to visit other websites. Carers Link Lancashire is not responsible for the content or privacy practices of other websites. Links to external websites do not represent any kind of recommendation or endorsement by Carers Link Lancashire of the accuracy of the content of external websites.

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Disclaimer

Carers Link Lancashire makes every effort to ensure that the information contained within the pages of this website is accurate and up to date, but gives no warranty regarding its accuracy or completeness. Consequently, Carers Link Lancashire accepts no liability for any losses or damages (whether direct, indirect, special, consequential or otherwise) arising out of errors or omissions contained in this website. No liability can be accepted in respect of losses or damages arising out of changes made to the content of this site by unauthorised third parties.

 

Changes to Privacy Policy

Any changes to this policy will be posted on our website. Any significant changes will be brought to you attention at the time of us providing our service to you.  

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June 2025