St. Andrew’s Children’s Society (registered address 7 John’s Place, Leith, Edinburgh, EH6 7EL) through the course of providing our services to you will collect and store information about you. We are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy and complying with Data Protection Act 2018 and the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations (Amendment) 2016 and the GDPR Regulation 2018.

This Privacy Notice sets out the basis on which any personal data we collect from you will be processed by us. Please read the following carefully to understand our practices regarding your personal data. By contacting us to access our adoption or foster care services you are accepting and consenting to the practices described in this statement.

Lawful Basis

Our main activities are concerned with providing Fostering and Adoption Services including Adoption Support. Therefore most of the information we gather about our service users is required by adoption and foster care legislation and associated regulations and guidance. The Children (Scotland) Act 2007, The Looked After Children (Scotland) Regulations 2009, the Adoption and Children (Scotland) Act 2007 and the Adoption Agencies (Scotland) Regulations 2009. Where we rely on our legitimate interest to process your personal data, we will explain what that interest is.

Information we may collect from you

Any information we collect about you is done so under our obligation as a registered voluntary adoption and foster care service. We obtain information about you when you use our services or access our website, for example, when you contact us about our services.

The type, amount and sensitivity of the information we gather will vary widely depending on the reason we are gathering it, but will always be the minimum we need to provide the service or activity you require. We will explain the reason for which we are collecting and processing your information, and we will restrict the use of your information solely for the purpose we have explained.

Website Cookies

The St Andrew’s Children’s Society website (www.sacsadopt.scot) uses cookies, which are small text files that are saved on your device by websites that you visit. They save and retrieve pieces of information about your visit to the website – for example, how you entered the site, how you navigated through the site and what information and documentation was of interest to you. This means that when you go back to a website, it can give you tailored options based on the information it has stored about you on your last visit.

For further information visit www.aboutcookies.org or www.allaboutcookies.org.

If you do not wish to accept cookies from our website, please leave this site immediately and then delete and block all cookies from this site.

Our website contains links to other websites. This privacy notice only applies to this website so when you link to other websites you should read their own privacy notices.

Google Analytics

When someone visits www.sacsadopt.scot we use a third party service, Google Analytics, to collect standard internet log information and details of visitor behaviour patterns. We do this to find out things such as the number of visitors to the various parts of the site. This information is only processed in a way which does not identify anyone. We do not make, and do not allow Google to make, any attempt to find out the identities of those visiting our website. You can find more information on how cookies are used on this website in the Website Cookies section above.

Mailchimp Mailing List

As part of the registration process for our Mailchimp mailing list, we collect personal information including your name, email address and IP address.

We use a third-party provider, Mailchimp, to deliver these emails. We gather statistics around email opening and clicks using industry standard technologies to help us monitor and improve our emails. For more information, please see Mailchimp’s privacy policy (https://mailchimp.com/legal/privacy). You can unsubscribe from our emails at any time by clicking the unsubscribe link at the bottom of any of our emails or by emailing info@standrews-children.org.uk

Mailchimp is based in the USA and has obtained Privacy Shield certification. Request a callback

Calendly

As part of the process to request a callback, we collect personal information. We gather your name, email address and telephone number to schedule the event. You will receive a reminder email about your callback. Your personal information will not be added to our mailing list.

We use a third-party provider, Calendly (calendly.com), to enable website visitors to set up the callback. For more information, please see Calendly’s privacy notice (calendly.com/pages/privacy). Your personal information will not be added to our mailing list. You can reschedule or cancel your callback at any time by clicking on the appropriate links at the bottom of the invitation email you receive after booking a callback or by emailing info@standrews-children.org.uk.

Calendly is based in the USA. Website Send us a message form

As part of the process to enable you to contact us via our Send us a message form on our website, we collect personal information. We collect your name, email address and a comment where you can leave a message. Once the form is submitted, we will use the details you supplied to contact you. Your personal information will not be added to our mailing list.

WordPress

We use a third-party provider, WordPress (www.wordpress.com), to enable website visitors to contact us via this form. WordPress do not store any customer data. For more information, please see WordPress’ privacy notice (https://automattic.com/privacy/).

WordPress is based in the USA and has obtained Privacy Shield certification.

EmailMeForm

As part of the process to enable you to send us an initial enquiry about adopting or fostering via our adoption and fostering enquiry form on our website, we collect personal information. We collect your name, contact details, date of birth and a comment where you can leave a message. Once the form is submitted, we will use the details you supplied to contact you. Your personal information will not be added to our mailing list.

We use a third-party provider, EmailMeForm (www.emailmeform.com), to enable our website visitors to send us this initial enquiry about adopting or fostering via our adoption and fostering enquiry form on our website. EmailMeForm do not store any customer data. For more information, please see EmailMeForm’s privacy notice (https://www.emailmeform.com/v-privacy.html).

EmailMeForm is based in the USA and has obtained Privacy Shield certification. Social Media Platforms

All communication, engagement and actions taken through external social media platforms that this website and its owners participate on are custom to the terms and conditions as well as the privacy policies held with each social media platform respectively.

People’s Fundraising

When you contact us we will collect the following data:

Personal information such as your name, postal and email address (for the past 10 years), telephone number, date of birth, drivers licence number, National Insurance number, employment history and references, passport details, sexual orientation, ethnicity, health and medical history, religious beliefs, convictions and finance. We will use the personal data that we collect about you for the purposes of providing you with and adoption or foster carer service. We may consider gathering information about you that is in the public domain (social and other media sources).

How long do we keep this information for?

• If you enquire with us about adoption and foster care with us we are legally required to retain this information for 10 years
• If you are assessed by us as a prospective adopter or foster carer but do not have a child placed we are legally required to retain this information for 10 years
• If you are assessed and approved by us as an adopter and you have a child placed with you we are legally required to retain this information for 100 years
• If you are assessed and approved by us as a foster carer and you have a child placed with you we are legally required to retain this information for 25 years.

• You can request that your data is deleted, and that you are ‘forgotten’ by us, and we will where we are legally at liberty to do

How we look after your Data

• Security precautions are in place to prevent the loss, misuse or alteration of your
• When you give us personal information, we take stringent steps to ensure that it’s treated
• We only gather the data we need to provide you with a
• We encrypt or anonymise data wherever possible to make it more
• We back up all data both locally and remotely to preserve it from
• We employ secure servers that store all data within EU
• We destroy information securely once our retention periods elapse, and we can verify that this has been

Disclosure of your information

We will not share the personal data that you give us outside our organisation unless:

• It is required in the linking/matching process between you and a child and you will always be told when this information is being
• We are under a duty to disclose or share that information in order to comply with any legal obligation; particularly relating to Child Protection/Safeguarding or the protection of other vulnerable people. Such disclosure is necessary to protect the rights of those vulnerable people and to ensure we operate within the laws that pertain to Child Protection/Safeguarding.

Where we store your personal data

We keep your data secure in our database with appropriate security mechanisms in place.

Access to information

You have the right to access personal data held about you. Your right of access can be exercised in accordance with Data Protection Act 1998 and the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations (Amendment) 2016 and the GDPR

Regulation 2018. This access excludes information lawfully gathered from third parties such as health and social worker professionals.

You have the right to request that information held on you is refined or destroyed and this will be considered in terms of our statutory responsibilities to retain information about adoption and foster care.

Your rights

The law requires us to tell you that you have a variety of rights about the way we process your data. These are as follows:

• You may request a copy of the data we hold about

• Where we obtain data as part of our legal requirement in relation to adoption and foster care you do not have an automatic right of access. However we are always open to discussing this on an individual
• Where our use of your data requires consent, you may withdraw this consent at any
• Where we rely on our legitimate interest to process data, you may ask us to stop doing
• If you are not satisfied with the way we have processed your data then you can complain to the Office of the Information

Changes to our privacy statement

We may change this privacy statement at any time, and such changes will take immediate effect. This policy was last updated in January 2021.

Complaints

As well as being able to make a complaint to us directly, you have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office if you are unhappy about how we have managed your personal data. The ICO can be contacted at scotland@ico.org.uk or www.ico.org.uk

Contact

Questions, comments and requests regarding this privacy statement should be addressed to info@standrews-children.org.uk