Privacy Statement - Volunteering

Registered Volunteers – how we use your data

We always make sure we treat your personal data with great care and we will only use it for the purpose you gave it to us. As a registered volunteer, you are an integral part of the Trust and we could not do our work without you.

There are certain types of information we will share with you as part of being a registered volunteer and we will do so under the ‘Contractual Agreement’’ rule of the new General Data Protection Regulations. These are detailed below.
Some information we send; you will need to let us know you are happy for us to do so. New volunteers can do this at the point of registering, existing volunteers will need to ‘opt-in’.

How we will contact you as a registered volunteer 

At the point of registering with us, you told us what types of volunteering you were interested in and so we will contact you with the relevant information and opportunities as they arise. 

Our central volunteering team will send you information such as;

-Volunteering opportunities which may arise that match the interests you have given us
-Training courses we think you will be interested in, based on the information you have given us, from both the Trust and other similar organisations
-Information about our annual volunteering conference, so that you may have the opportunity to attend the training workshops and meet volunteers from other areas and projects.

We may also contact you for administration purposes to keep your records and interests up to date on our system.

If you are volunteering with a particular project, our project officers will also contact you to help engage you with the project, they will send you information like;

-Information about training courses available from the Trust and other similar organisations which match your volunteering requirements
-General Information you will need in order to take part in your volunteering. For example; information about a work party activity including location and meet times, or a Trust event which you may wish to take part in directly linked to the project you are volunteering with
-Information about the progress of the project you are volunteering to support, or the progress of a particular piece of work you have helped to achieve. For example, if you helped with some habitat restoration, we may contact you to let you know of successes as a result.

Contacting you with other information - we will need your consent 

If you want to continue to receive further information, you will need to tell us it is ok to do so;
- Volunteer e-newsletter
- Information about Trust events and events from similar organisations
- Information about wider job and volunteering opportunities from the Trust and similar organisations, including other Wildlife Trusts
-Information about the work of the Trust and other ways in which you can support our work, including membership, fundraising and any issues we are campaigning around to help protect the environment and fundraising campaigns

How we store and use your data
We store all of your personal information in a secure database at our Head Office. This database is accessed only by authorised individuals who need to do so to process your data and keep it up to date. We store the information you gave us at registration, and your local project officer who you deal with on a regular basis will keep only your contact details securely so they can get in touch with any information you may need to know.
We store information such as;
-Your contact details
-Your volunteering activity, including information from signing in sheets
-Any additional security information, depending on your role (For example, any medical conditions you have informed us of, DBS checks). Any of this information will have been provided by yourself and it is your responsibility to keep this up to date with us.

How long we keep your data 

As an Active volunteer we will keep your records securely on our database. We will keep them as up to date as possible with the information we receive, please inform us of any changes to your details
If you have registered as a volunteer, but have not yet actively volunteered, we will keep your information for 2 years to allow relevant opportunities to emerge. After this point, if you haven’t volunteered we will remove you from the database. If you have ‘opted-in’ to the Trust volunteer e-news, this will be unaffected until you unsubscribe.

If you are a registered volunteer and have become inactive, please let us know if you intend to return as a volunteer.

We may in some cases, keep data for longer where other regulations require us to do so, for example health and safety records and for insurance purposes. We will also keep details of your activity for reporting purposes, but these records will be anonymised after the relevant period has passed.

Telling us how you want to be contacted or changing your details

If you want to change the way we contact you, or stop us contacting you, or update your details, please contact our Volunteering Team on 01772 324129 (Mon-Fri 9am-5pm) or email us anytime at volunteer@lancswt.org.uk