Privacy Policy

We want everyone who supports us, or who comes to us for support, to feel confident and comfortable with how any personal information you share with us will be looked after or used. This Privacy Policy sets out how we collect, use and store your personal information (this means any information that identifies or could identify you). Our Privacy Policy may change so please remember to check back from time to time. Where we have made any changes to this Privacy Policy, we will make this clear on our website or contact you about any changes.

1. Who we are

Here at AM Consultacy Network we are committed to protecting your personal information and making every effort to ensure that your personal information is processed in a fair, open and transparent manner. We are a “data controller” for the purposes of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) which means that we are responsible for, and control the processing of, your personal information. 

2. How we collect information about you

We collect information from you in the following ways:

• When you interact with us directly: This could be if you ask us about our activities, register with us for training or consultancy or otherwise provide us with your personal information. This includes when you phone us, contact us through our website or get in touch through the post, by email or in person.
• When you interact with us through third parties: This could be if you provide your consent for your personal information to be shared with us.

3. Information we collect and why we use it

Personal Information
The personal information we collect includes details such as your name, email address, postal address, telephone number as well as information you provide in any communications between us.  You will have given us this information whilst making an enquiry.

We will mainly use this information:

• To provide the services that you have requested.
• To update you with important administrative messages about services you have requested..
• To keep a record of your relationship with us.

If you do not provide this information, we will not be able to process your donation, sign you up for a particular event or provide services you have requested.

4. Legal basis for using your 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 fulfil a contract with you.

However, there are other lawful reasons that allow us to process your personal information and one of those is called ‘legitimate interests’. This means that the reason that we are processing information is because there is a legitimate interest for us to process your information.

Whenever we process your Personal Information under the ‘legitimate interest’ lawful basis we make sure that we take into account your rights and interests. Some examples of where we have a legitimate interest to process your personal information are where we respond to your request for information about our work or services; send out newsletters about our work; use your personal information for data analytics or contact you to ask for feedback to improve our services.

5. Sharing your Information

The personal information we collect about you will mainly be used by our staff (and volunteers) so that they can support you.

We will never sell or share your personal information with organisations so that they can contact you for any marketing activities. Nor do we sell any information about your web browsing activity.

6. Legal disclosure

We may disclose your information if required to do so by law (for example, to comply with applicable laws, regulations and codes of practice or in response to a valid request from a competent authority); or, in order to enforce our conditions of sale and other agreements.

7. Keeping your information safe

We take looking after your information very seriously. We’ve implemented appropriate physical, technical and organisational measures to protect the personal information we have under our control, both on and off-line, from improper access, use, alteration, destruction and loss.

Unfortunately the transmission of information using the internet is not completely secure. Although we do our best to protect your personal information sent to us this way, we cannot guarantee the security of data transmitted to our site.

Our websites may contain links to other sites. While we try to link only to sites that share our high standards and respect for privacy, we are not responsible for the content or the privacy practices employed by other sites. Please be aware that advertisers or web sites that have links on our site may collect personally identifiable information about you. This privacy statement does not cover the information practices of those websites or advertisers.

Any debit or credit card details which we receive on our website are passed securely to our payment processing partners, according to the Payment Card Industry Security Standards. 

8. How long we hold your information for

We only keep it as long as is reasonable and necessary for the relevant activity, which may be to fulfil statutory obligations. Our data retention policy is available on request.

9. Your rights

You have various rights in respect of the personal information we hold about you – these are set out in more detail below.  If you wish to exercise any of these rights or make a complaint, you can do so by contacting our team using our contact us page.

• Access to your personal information: You have the right to request access to a copy of the personal information that we hold about you, along with information on what personal information we use, why we use it, who we share it with, how long we keep it for and whether it has been used for any automated decision making. You can make a request for access free of charge.  Please make all requests for access in writing, and provide us with evidence of your identity.
• Right to object: You can object to our processing of your personal information where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal information for direct marketing purposes.  Please contact us as noted above, providing details of your objection.
• Consent: If you have given us your consent to use personal information you can withdraw your consent at any time.
• Rectification: You can ask us to change or complete any inaccurate or incomplete personal information held about you.
• Erasure: You can ask us to delete your personal information where it is no longer necessary for us to use it, you have withdrawn consent, or where we have no lawful basis for keeping it.
• Portability: You can ask us to provide you or a third party with some of the personal information that we hold about you in a structured, commonly used, electronic form, so it can be easily transferred.
• Restriction: You can ask us to restrict the personal information we use about you where you have asked for it to be erased or where you have objected to our use of it.
• No automated-decision making: Automated decision-making takes place when an electronic system uses personal information to make a decision without human intervention.  You have the right not to be subject to automated decisions that will create legal effects or have a similar significant impact on you, unless you have given us your consent, it is necessary for a contract between you and us or is otherwise permitted by law.  You also have certain rights to challenge decisions made about you.  We do not currently carry out any automated decision-making.

Please note, some of these rights only apply in certain circumstances and we may not be able to fulfil every request.

10. Cookies on our websites

‘Cookie’ is a name for a small file, usually of letters and numbers, which is downloaded onto your device, like your computer, mobile phone or tablet when you visit a website.

They let websites recognise your device, so that the sites can work more effectively, and also gather information about how you use the site. A cookie, by itself, can’t be used to identify you. 

How do we use cookies?
We may use cookies to distinguish you from other users of our website. This helps us to provide you with a good experience when you come to our website and also allows us to improve the user experience.  

The cookies we use:

• We use the categorisation set out by the International Chamber of Commerce in their UK Cookie Guide.
• We may use all four categories of cookies:Strictly necessary cookies are essential for you to move around our website and to use its features, like our shopping basket and your account.
• Performance cookies collect anonymous information about how you use our site, like which pages are visited most.
• Functionality cookies collect anonymous information that remember choices you make to improve your experience, like your text size or location. They may also be used to provide services you have asked for such as watching a video or commenting on a blog.
• Targeting or advertising cookies collect information about your browsing habits in order to make advertising relevant to you and your interests. As such if you visit the Mind website you may then be more likely to see adverts about Mind’s work on other websites as your browsing suggests that this is an area of interest.

No cookies, please:
You can opt out of all our cookies (except the strictly necessary ones).  But, if you choose to refuse all cookies, our website may not function for you as we would like it to.