Privacy Policy

Privacy Policy

Privacy and Data Protection Notice (“the Notice”)

Who we are

The Mission to Seafarers (“MTSF“) is a maritime welfare charity working in 50 countries, with a presence in more than 200 ports. Our simple mission is to care for the shipping industry’s most important asset: its people.

MTSF is registered as a charity in England and Wales (registered charity number 1123613) and we are also registered as a company limited by guarantee (company number 6220240).

We use two wholly owned subsidiary companies of MTSF, Flying Angel Marketing Enterprises (registered company in England and Wales number 00933115) and The Flying Angel Belfast Ltd. (company number NI605252) to carry out our activity classed as trading, for example the sale of Christmas cards.  We also carry out some of our frontline work through other wholly owned subsidiaries: The Dunkirk War Memorial Trust Ltd. (company number 00185130) and The Mission to Seafarers Scotland Ltd (company number SC389483).

Within the context of this notice, “we” means the charity and these subsidiaries.

Our Notice

In carrying out our day to day activities we process and store personal information relating to our supporters and we are therefore required to adhere to the requirements of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) (EU) 2016/679. We take our responsibilities under this Regulation very seriously and we ensure the personal information we obtain is held, used, transferred and otherwise processed in accordance with the Regulation and all other applicable data protection laws and regulations including, but not limited to, the Privacy and Electronic Communication Regulations.

We will be clear when we collect your data about why we are collecting it and what we intend to do with it, and not do anything you wouldn’t reasonably expect.

Developing a better understanding of our supporters through their personal data allows us to make better decisions, fundraise more efficiently and, ultimately, helps us to fulfil our charitable objective of caring for seafarers of all nationalities and creeds, and their families.

This privacy notice sets out our data processing practices for personal information in electronic and manual form. If you have any requests concerning your personal information or any queries regarding these practices, please contact the Data Protection Officer, details of which are provided at the end of this Notice.

Right to amend to this Notice

We will regularly review and update this Privacy and Data Protection Notice and will update, modify, add or remove sections at our discretion.  If we do so, we will post the changes on this page and they will apply from the time we post them. Please check this page from time to time so that you are aware of any changes. If you continue to use our website, any of our services and/or continue to provide us with your personal information after we have posted the changes to this Privacy Notice we will assume that you are aware of its amended contents. This notice was last changed on 3 November 2020.

What personal information do we collect?

Personal information (also called “personal data”) is information that can be used to identify you. It can include your name, date of birth, email address, postal address, telephone number, mobile telephone number, fax number, bank account details, credit/debit card details and whether you are a UK tax payer so that we can claim Gift Aid (please rest assured we do not collect information about your actual tax payments, just whether you are a tax payer).

We do not usually collect “sensitive personal information” (also called “special categories of personal data”) about you unless there is a clear reason for doing so. For example if you participate in an event we may need information about your dietary or access requirements to ensure we provide appropriate facilities for you.  We will make it clear to you when collecting this information what we are collecting and why.

When do we collect personal information?

We collect personal information about you when:

• i) ask about our activities;
• 
ii) register with us (for example, subscribing for a publication);
• iii) make a donation to us;
• 
iv) register for an event;
• 
v) engage with us on social media;
• vi) order products and services (such as publications and Christmas cards);
• (v) apply for a job with us or enquire about volunteering opportunities;
• (vi) are a seafarer and contact us for assistance;
• and
(vii) otherwise give us personal information

We will only collect the data we need for the purposes we specify at the point of collection. We will not use your personal data for a purpose different from the one specified at collection unless you give your explicit consent for us to do so.

If you do nothing other than read pages or download information from our website, we may gather information about this using cookies, such as which pages are most visited and which events or activities are of most interest.  This information can be used to help us improve our website and services and ensure we provide you with the best service.  Wherever possible, the information we use for this purpose will be aggregated or anonymised i.e. it will not identify you as an individual visitor to our website.  You can find more information about cookies in our Cookie Policy and in the section below entitled “Our website”.

Why we collect and how we use your information

We collect your personal information for one or more of the following reasons:

• to provide you with the services, products or information you have requested;
•  to process any donation(s) we may receive from you;
• to provide you with information about our work or our activities, that you have asked to receive;
• to send you the items you have ordered from us;
• for administration purposes e.g. we may contact you about a donation you have made or event you have expressed an interest in or registered for;
• for internal record keeping, such as the management of feedback or complaints;
• to analyse and improve the services we offer;
• and/or where it is required or authorised by law.

If you are aged 16 or under, and would like to participate in an event, make a donation or get involved with us, please make sure that you have your parent/guardian’s permission before giving us your personal information, and please send us proof of that permission.

In some circumstances, for example where you are making a donation, we cannot process your request until you have provided the information we request in our forms.

Contacting you

We would like to send you information about how we help seafarers and their families by mail, e-mail, telephone, mobile telephone or social messaging. Most of the time we will be relying on your explicit consent to contact you, in compliance with the laws on electronic marketing. In certain instances we may rely on our legitimate interests to contact you where those interests are in line with what we think your reasonable expectations might be. For instance where you have sent us a donation and we would like to acknowledge it, or where you have donated to us in the last two years and we want to inform you about our recent work or appeals.

Opting out

We only want to communicate with you by the method you prefer and send you information that may be of interest to you. Our forms have clear marketing preference questions and we will always include information on how to opt-out when we send you marketing communications.

If you would like to opt out of receiving all or any form of communication from us, then please email gdpr@missiontoseafarers.org or call 020 7248 5202. We will ensure that your preferences are updated as soon as possible.

Your information and third parties

We will not sell or swap your information with any third party. We may share your information with our data processors. These are trusted partner organisations that work with us in connection with our charitable purposes, for instance by processing our donations, mailing our newspapers to you, sending you the Christmas cards you have purchased, providing software for the emailing of our publications and newsletters, or for the provision of our digital chaplaincy services.

All our trusted partners are required to comply with data protection laws and our high standards and are only allowed to process your information in strict compliance with our instructions. We will always make sure appropriate contracts and controls are in place and we regularly monitor all our partners to ensure their compliance.

We may disclose your personal information to third parties if we are required to do so through a legal obligation (for example to the police or a government body); to enable us to enforce or apply our terms and conditions or rights under an agreement; or to protect us, for example, in the case of suspected fraud or defamation. If you have asked us to claim Gift Aid on your donations, we will share your details with HM Revenue and Customs in order to do so. We do not share your information for any other purposes.

How we store your information

We promise to respect any personal data you share with us and keep it safe. Information is stored on our secure servers located in the UK. We may also store information in paper files.

In addition, as your personal data is shared with our data processors, it may also be transferred and stored securely outside the UK and the European Union. Where that is the case, we will take steps to ensure it is subject to equivalent legal protections through the use of model contract clauses or other appropriate safeguards.

We place great importance on the security of all personally identifiable information associated with our clients. As such, we have security measures in place to attempt to protect against the loss, misuse and alteration of personal data under our control. Whilst we cannot guarantee that loss, misuse or alteration of data will not occur while it is under our control, we use our best efforts to attempt to prevent this.

We aim to ensure that all information we hold about you is accurate and, where applicable, kept up to date. If any of the information we hold about you is inaccurate and either you advise us or we become otherwise aware, we will ensure it is amended and updated without delay.

We will only keep your information for as long as required to enable us to carry out the purpose for which it was collected. We will not keep your information for any longer than is necessary. We will take into consideration our legal obligations and tax and accounting rules when determining how long we should retain your information. When we no longer need to retain your information we will ensure it is securely disposed of, at the appropriate time in line with our data retention policy. You can request a copy of our data retention policy by sending an email to dataprotection@missiontoseafarers.org.

Legal basis for using your personal information

In some cases we will only use your personal information where we have your consent, or because we need to use it in order to carry out a contract with you or take steps in order to carry out a contract with you (for example when you make a donation through our website, or where you buy products from us).

However, in other cases we may use other lawful grounds to process your information:

• We have certain ‘Legitimate interests’ to process your personal information to help us to achieve our goals as a charity. When we use legitimate interests to process your personal information we carefully consider your rights and interests. We will not process your personal information using legitimate interests if the impact on your rights and interests outweighs our interests. Our legitimate interests include:
  • to communicate with our existing donors, including acknowledging donations and informing them about recent work or appeals;
  • to develop awareness about our charity and its work;
  • to improve our website and our services;
  • to prevent fraud and to keep our network and information secure;
  • to assert or enforce our legal rights;
  • to deal with complaints and claims;
  • to comply with guidance from relevant regulators such as the Charity Commission;
  • to maintain and administer our charity and our records;
• We may need to use your personal information to comply with our legal obligations.

Our website
For all areas of our website which collect personal information, we use a secure server. We enforce strict procedures and security features to protect your information and prevent unauthorised access.

Our website contains links to other websites belonging to third parties and we sometimes choose to participate in social networking sites including but not limited to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram and LinkedIn. We may include content from sites such as these on our websites but we do not have any control over the privacy practices of these other sites.

You should make sure when you leave our site that you have read and understood that site’s privacy policy in addition to our own.

Gift Aid

• You are a UK taxpayer and would like The Mission to Seafarers to treat all donations you make or have made in the past 4 years and from this date forward for all future donations as Gift Aid donations.
• You understand that if you pay less Income Tax and/or Capital Gains Tax than the amount of Gift Aid claimed on all your donations to charities and Community Amateur Sports Clubs in that tax year, it is your responsibility to pay any difference.
• You will notify The Mission to Seafarers if you no longer pay sufficient Income Tax and/or Capital Gains Tax and if you change your name or address.

Your rights
It is your choice the type of communications and information you receive about our charity. You can change your mind at any time by contacting our Supporter Care Officer at The Mission to Seafarers, St Michael Paternoster Royal, College Hill, London EC4R 2RL or on 0207 246 2930 or e-mail gdpr@missiontoseafarers.org.

You have the right to:

• request a copy of the personal information we hold about you;
• withdraw your consent if we are relying on your consent to process your personal information;
• update or amend the personal information we hold about you if it is wrong;
• change your communication preferences at any time;
• ask us to remove your personal information from our records;
• object to the processing of your information for marketing purposes;
• or raise a concern or complaint with us or with the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office about the way in which your personal information is being used.

If you wish to find out more about these rights, if you have questions or queries about this Privacy and Data Protection Notice, to obtain a copy of the information we hold about you or to make a complaint about how your personal data has been used by us, please contact our Data Protection Officer at:

Data Protection Officer
The Mission to Seafarers
St Michael Paternoster Royal
College Hill
London
EC4R 2RL

Tel: 020 7246 2944
Email: dataprotection@missiontoseafarers.org

Published: 17 August 2021