What personal information we process

When you volunteer with us, we need to collect and use certain personal information to help manage your role, improve your experience, and meet our legal and safeguarding responsibilities. The types of personal information we process are listed below. Please note that we might not collect or use all this information – it depends on if your application is successful and if so, the nature of your volunteering and the activities with which you are involved.

• Identity and contact information such as your name, email address, telephone number, address, date of birth, nominated parent or guardian if you are aged 16 or 17, and contact details for your emergency contact.
• Eligibility and background information such as your previous experience or interests relevant to the role, references, and driver eligibility information.
• Volunteering records such as information about your volunteering arrangement (including start date, end date, and reason for leaving), the activities you take part in or complete, dates and times you volunteer, training and development, articles or other contributions you make to newsletters and internal communications, and the feedback you provide to us about your volunteering experience.
• Performance information, such as conducting performance reviews, managing performance, and determining performance requirements.
• Information relating to concerns raised by you or others relating to your volunteering, including any subsequent appeals or disputes.
• Financial information such as your bank account information, to process any expense claims.
• Your preferred methods of communication from English Heritage.
• Information about your use of our communications and information systems.
• Visual and audio recordings of you captured at English Heritage sites and events, such as CCTV footage, photos, film, including recordings of webinars, lectures, and meetings.

We may also collect, store, and use the following more sensitive types of personal information:

• Information about criminal convictions and offences, if the role requires a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check.
• Information about your health, such as details about medical condition(s) and sickness records.
• On an optional basis as part of our equity, diversity and inclusion monitoring, information about your race or ethnicity, marital status, religious beliefs, gender identity, and sexual orientation.

While it may not be necessary to process all the above types of personal information, there may be circumstances where failure to provide the information requested will affect our ability to continue our volunteer arrangements with you (such as paying expenses or placing you in your desired volunteering role).

It is important that the personal information we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your personal information changes during your volunteering by updating your Volunteer Hub account. If you have a volunteer expense account and need to update details associated with this, please contact Volunteer.Hub@english-heritage.org.uk.

Why we process your personal information

We will only process your personal information when the law allows us to. Most commonly, we will use your personal information in the following circumstances:

1. Where we need to comply with a legal obligation.
2. Where it is necessary for legitimate interests pursued by us or a third party and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests.
3. Where we have your consent to process your personal information.
4. Where we need to protect your health and safety in an emergency (or someone else’s health and safety), although this situation is likely to be rare.

We will not routinely process special category (more sensitive) information about you unless it is necessary for performing or exercising obligations or rights in connection with volunteering. On rare occasions, there may be other reasons for processing, such as it is in the public interest to do so.

We will only collect information about criminal convictions if it is appropriate given the nature of the role and where we are legally able to do so. Where appropriate, we will collect information about criminal convictions as part of the application and onboarding process, or we may be notified of such information directly by you during your volunteering for us.

We will process your personal information for the following purposes:

• Managing your volunteering role (activities needed to recruit, appoint, support, and manage you as a volunteer):
  
  o Making decisions about your appointment and assessing your suitability for a particular role or task.
  o If you are 16 or 17 years old, gaining consent for you to volunteer from a nominated parent or guardian.
  o Administering the volunteering arrangement we have entered into with you.
  o Conducting performance reviews and managing performance requirements.
  o Providing access to volunteer benefits (Employee Assistance Programme, volunteer pass, volunteer communication, optional promotions and offers).
  o Supporting your education, training, and development needs.
  o Reimbursing expenses you incur while volunteering.
  o Making decisions about continuing or ending your volunteering arrangement.

• Ensuring safety, welfare, and compliance (activities needed to protect you and others, and to meet our legal and organisational obligations):
  
  o Complying with health and safety obligations.
  o If you drive as part of your role, ensuring that you are eligible to drive and that we are aware of any relevant licence restrictions.
  o Contacting your family or friend in the event of an accident or emergency.
  o Preventing fraud.
  o Dealing with complaints, concerns, legal disputes, or accidents involving you or others.
  o Gathering evidence for potential grievance or investigation processes.

• Protecting our systems (activities required to keep our information, systems, and organisation secure):
  
  o Monitoring your use of our information and communication systems to make sure our IT policies are followed.
  o Ensuring network and information security, including preventing unauthorised access and malicious software.
  o Business management and planning, including auditing.

• Understanding and improving the volunteer experience (activities that help us evaluate, develop, and improve our volunteer programmes):
  
  o Conducting data analytics studies and feedback surveys to understand your volunteering experience.
  o Promoting English Heritage’s charitable interests and development.

• Communications and marketing (activities involved in staying in touch with you):
  
  o Sending volunteer communications (e.g., magazine, newsletter).
  o Sending marketing communications, such as volunteer discounts and fundraising activities, according to the preferences you have chosen.

• Special category information processing (activities needed to provide support, promote equality, and protect wellbeing):
  
  o Processing health and disability information to ensure your safety, assess your fitness to volunteer, provide necessary adjustments, and support wellbeing (including managing sickness absence).
  o Conducting meaningful equal opportunity monitoring and reporting using information about your ethnicity, religious beliefs, gender identity, sexual orientation, and disability status.
  o Protecting you or another person from harm if we reasonably believe you are at risk of physical, mental, or emotional harm.

• Criminal convictions processing (activities needed to ensure safety and comply with legal obligations):
  
  o Conducting a DBS check to make decisions about your appointment to a volunteering role.
  o Complying with health and safety obligations.

Automate decision making

Automated decision-making takes place when an electronic system uses personal information to make a decision without human intervention. We do not envisage that any decisions will be taken about you using automated means. However, we will notify you in writing if this position changes.

Disclosing and sharing your personal information

We may share your data with third parties where it is necessary to support, manage and administer our volunteering arrangement with you, where we have another legitimate interest in doing so, or where required by law. Third parties include, but are not limited to, service providers such as suppliers, contractors, designated agents. We require third parties to respect the security of your data and to treat it in accordance with the law. We may transfer your personal information outside the UK. If we do, you can expect a similar degree of protection in respect of your personal information. Examples of activities carried out by our service providers include:

• Volunteer support: such as expense reimbursement, Employee Assistance Programme.
• Volunteer administration: such as administration of our volunteer survey, administration of our volunteer management system, provision of volunteer passes, hardcopy Volunteer Focus magazines, and uniforms.
• Communication and development: such as administration of our learning and communication portal and training provision (when not conducted internally by English Heritage).
• Health and safety services: such as driving licence checks and provision of personal protective equipment (PPE).
• IT and Finance services: such as providing access to systems and paying expenses.

We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal information for their own purposes. We only permit them to process your personal information for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.

We may also need to share your personal information to comply with laws and regulations, as requested by the courts, or as otherwise permitted by data protection law. This may include making a report to the Health and Safety Executive, returns to HMRC, or our auditors.

How long we keep your personal information

We will only retain your personal information for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes for which we collected it, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements.

If you apply to volunteer but do not join the team, we will delete your data a year after you first contact us. If you become an active volunteer, we will keep your data throughout your time with English Heritage, plus seven years from your last day volunteering with us. If there are any specific safeguarding concerns that have arisen as a part of your volunteering role, your data might be kept for longer.

In some circumstances, we may anonymise your personal information so that it can no longer be associated with you, in which case we may use that information without further notice to you.

Your rights

We want to ensure you remain in control of your personal information. Under UK data protection law, you have a number of rights in relation to the personal information we hold about you. These rights are explained below.

Please note that some data protection rights are subject to exceptions or conditions. There may be circumstances where we are unable to meet a request, for example where we are required to process personal information to meet a legal obligation, or where specific exemptions apply, such as the prevention or detection of crime or legal professional privilege.

Your data protection rights

You have the right to:

• Access your personal information: You can request a copy of the personal information we hold about you. This is known as a subject access request.
• Have inaccurate personal information corrected: You can ask us to correct personal information that is inaccurate or incomplete.
• Have your personal information erased: You can request that your personal information is deleted where there is no lawful reason for us to continue to use it.
• Object to certain uses of your personal information: this includes the right to object to your personal information being used for direct marketing or profiling.
• Withdraw consent: where we have used consent as the lawful basis for processing your personal information you can withdraw that consent.

How to exercise your rights

If you would like more information about your rights, or wish to exercise any of them, please contact us using the details set out in the ‘Contact us about your personal information’ section below.

If you are requesting access to the personal information we hold about you, you may wish to use our template subject access request form.

You can verify or update the personal information we hold about you via your Volunteer Hub account. If you have a volunteer expense account and need to update details associated with this, please contact Volunteer.Hub@english-heritage.org.uk.

How to make a data protection complaint

If you are concerned about how English Heritage has handled your personal information, you can raise a complaint with us directly.

Please provide enough information for us to understand your concern and how it relates to your personal information. This will allow us to review the matter and respond to you.

Complaints can be made using the same contact details set out in the ‘Contact us about your personal information’ section below.

You can find more information about how to make a data protection complaint, including the type of information it is helpful to provide, on our Data Protection Complaints page.

If you remain dissatisfied after receiving our response, you have the right to raise your concern with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK’s data protection regulator.

Contact us about your personal information

Email: data.protection@English-Heritage.org.uk

Post: Data Protection Team, English Heritage Trust, The Engine House, Fire Fly Avenue, Swindon, SN2 2EH

Changes to this privacy notice

We will amend this Privacy Policy from time to time to ensure it remains up to date and accurately reflects how and why we use your personal information. The current version of our Privacy Policy will always be on our website.

If you have any questions about this privacy notice, please contact Data.Protection@english-heritage.org.uk.