Volunteer Privacy Notice

This notice explains how we collect, hold, and process data about you, if you volunteer for the Charity.

Volunteer Tina Shah in her role as volunteer Receptionist at the Arthur Rank Hospice

Read more about the data we process and store

What information do we collect?

We collect and process a range of information about you. This information depends on your volunteering role but may include:

  • your name, address and contact details, including email address and telephone number and age/ date of birth
  • information about your volunteering role and volunteer agreement
  • details of your employment (or other) status, qualifications, skills, experience and volunteering/ employment history, including start and end dates, with previous employers and with Arthur Rank Hospice Charity
  • information about your emergency contacts
  • information about your personal circumstances
  • information about your entitlement to volunteer in the UK
  • information about your criminal record
  • information about your driving licence, car insurance and car details
  • information about your professional membership(s)/registration(s)
  • details of your schedule (days of volunteering and hours) and attendance
  • details of your induction and training records
  • information about medical or health conditions, including whether or not you have a disability for which Arthur Rank Hospice Charity needs to make reasonable adjustments

We collect this information in a variety of ways. For example, data is collected through application forms, CVs, obtained from identity documents such as your driving licence and passport; from forms completed by you at the start of or during volunteering; from correspondence with you; or through interviews, meetings or other assessments.

We seek consent from the holder of parental responsibility when processing personal data relating to those under the age of 18.

In some cases, we collect personal data about you from third parties, such as references, and information from criminal records checks permitted by law.

Data is stored in a range of different places, including in your volunteer file, in the volunteer management database (Better Impact) and in other IT systems (including our email system).

Your personal data will be processed in a manner compliant with the Information Commissioner’s Office  and GDPR. It will be stored in Canada, one of twelve countries outside the EU that the European Commission has determined favourable for data storage

We need to process data to be able to recruit, engage and develop volunteers.

In some cases, we need to process data to ensure that we are complying with our legal obligations. For example, we are required to comply with health and safety laws.

For certain volunteer roles, it is necessary to carry out criminal records checks to ensure that individuals are permitted to undertake the role in question.

In other cases, Arthur Rank Hospice Charity has a legitimate interest in processing personal data before, during and after the end of the volunteering relationship. Processing employee data allows us to:

  • run volunteer recruitment and selection processes
  • support your ongoing volunteering relationship with us
  • complete the volunteer recruitment process
  • carry out research and surveys about our services
  • send you information about your volunteering with us, for example the volunteer newsletter and volunteer events
  • maintain accurate and up-to-date records and contact details (including details of who to contact in the event of an emergency)
  • ensure effective general business administration
  • provide references on request for current or former volunteers
  • respond to and defend against legal claims
  • maintain and promote equality

Some special categories of personal data, such as information about health or medical conditions, is processed to carry out our obligations to our volunteers (such as those in relation to volunteers with disabilities and for health and safety purposes).

Your information will be shared internally, including with members of the HR / Voluntary Services team, your supervisor, colleagues in the business area in which you volunteer, on-call managers and IT staff, if access to the data is necessary for performance of their roles.

We also share your data with third parties in order to obtain pre-engagement references from employers and obtain necessary criminal records checks. When necessary for the performance of the volunteering engagement, we would also share your data with third parties that process data on its behalf, such as:

  • Ucheck – in connection with criminal records checks
  • Legal advisers/ insurers – in connection with any aspects of insurance, disputes or claims
  • Better Impact – Volunteer database
  • Cambridgeshire County Council – for work permits for youth volunteers 
  • Riverlite – in connection with IT support services
  • North West Anglia NHS Trust – in connection with the provision of Occupational Health services
  • Training Tracker and e-learning for Healthcare – in connection with training records

Arthur Rank Hospice Charity undertake Privacy Impact Assessments when engaging with suppliers to check that their information governance practices are appropriate

We take the security of your data seriously. There are many measures in place to ensure your information is kept safe. This includes the use of a professional IT company to support in the storing of your data and all staff being trained in information governance: in the unlikely event of a data breach, all members of staff can identify this and are aware of the steps which then need to take place. This helps to prevent your personal information from being lost, misused, accessed by unauthorised individuals, modified or disclosed. All information held by Arthur Rank Hospice Charity is held in accordance with legal requirements

The organisation will hold your personal data for the duration of your volunteering. The periods for which your data is held after you finish volunteering are set out in our Information Governance Handbook.