Privacy notice

Scope exists to make this country a place where disabled people have the same opportunities as everybody else. Our supporters are important to us, and we are committed to keeping your data safe, making it clear what information we collect from you, and how we use it.

This page, together with our terms of use and cookies policy, sets out how we use and protect your data. Scope is registered with the Information Commissioner's Office under number Z8748114, is a registered charity under number 208231, and a registered company limited by guarantee under number 520866 (England and Wales).

You can change how we contact you at any time by contacting Supporter Care; please email SupporterCare@scope.org.uk or call 0808 800 3333

As part of our commitment to you, we also have a nominated Data Protection Officer; you can contact them by writing to:

The Data Protection Officer
Scope
Here East Press Centre
14 East Bay Lane
London
E15 2GW

or by emailing Data.Protection@scope.org.uk

What data we collect and how we use it

The type and quantity of data we collect, and use depends on why you have provided it.

We will only collect, use, and otherwise handle your personal data:

where you have consented to this for specified, explicit and legitimate purposes
where this is necessary to fulfil legal obligations that apply to us
where it is necessary for our legitimate interests relating to running our daily operations, as long as in each case these interests are in line with applicable law and your legal rights and freedoms.

As a fundraising organisation, we undertake in-house research and from time to time engage specialist partner agencies to gather information about you from publicly available sources, for example, Companies House, the Electoral Register, company websites, 'rich lists', social networks such as LinkedIn, political, and property registers, and news archives.

We may use the email address you give us to help research potential donors like you, so that we can grow our supporter base through our online channels. We may also use publicly available information about you to help find and contact other family members, known associates or likeminded people who may be interested in supporting Scope. Third-parties and/or publicly available sources provide broad demographic information based on where you live, for example geographic location, type of household, media consumption, profession, job title, employment, directorships, or charitable trustee appointments, etc.

By understanding these common interests, we can target our resources more efficiently to reach people who are more likely to be interested in supporting our work. We may also use trusted third-party wealth screening and insight agencies to undertake this research on our behalf.

You will always have the right to opt-out of this. We may also conduct research using publicly available information to identify individuals who may have an affinity to our cause but with whom we are not already in touch.

We also use publicly available sources to undertake due diligence on donors in accordance with the charity's Gift Acceptance Policy and anti-money laundering regulations.

This research helps us to understand more about you as an individual so we can focus the conversations we have with you about supporting Scope and ensure that we provide you with an experience as a donor or potential donor which is appropriate for you.

Using your information

From 05 May 2023, Scope will operate under a new communication and contact policy. While continuing to follow an opt-in approach for all electronic communications activity through email, Scope will use legitimate interest as the basis for post and telephone communications activity. Where applicable, Scope may use carefully vetted third-party organisations for such marketing and telemarketing activities.

A combination of these two approaches has been deemed the most appropriate approach in meeting the needs of the charity and the expectations of our supporters, following a review of our previous opt-in policy.

Supporters who had previously opted in will continue to have their channel preferences respected as before. Where existing supporters re-engage with us and have been presented with the new permissions' statement, we will always respect their latest instruction.

Supporters

If you support us, for example by signing up to an event, donating, signing up to Gift Aid, or signing up to a campaign, we will usually collect your name, contact details, and whether you would like to be contacted, and how we would do so. If appropriate, we may also ask to collect your date of birth, financial details, Gift Aid eligibility, reasons for support, information relating to health and disability, and responses to our campaigns.

We collect this data so we can keep you up-to-date with information and products you have requested, or may be interested in, and to ask for more support, in the way that you have chosen; to run our events; and to fulfil our legal responsibilities for financial and Gift Aid reporting. We will keep your data only for as long as necessary. If you have kindly donated to us, we are required to keep this data for 7 years. If you have not donated to us, we will only keep your data for 3 years.

Volunteers

If you volunteer with us, or enquire about our volunteering opportunities, we will usually collect your name, contact details, emergency contact details, bank details, contact preferences, ethnicity, gender, availability to volunteer, disability (including physical and mental conditions) and criminal convictions.

We collect this data so that we can contact you about volunteering opportunities that come up; so that we ensure the safety of our volunteers, staff, and customers; can pay expenses; carry out our awards programme; and to help us anonymously measure our inclusion and accessibility across our volunteering programmes.

Gift in Wills

Some of our supporters choose to let us know that they plan to leave a gift in their Will to Scope to help us carry out our important work. We will collect contact details and contact preferences of supporters who ask us for more information about how to leave a gift to Scope in their Will or who tell us that they are thinking about leaving a gift to the charity. We will use this data to keep in touch and send you other information and products that you are interested in. If you change your mind, then we will only keep this data for 3 years.

If you tell us that you do intend to leave us a gift in your Will then we will collect contact details and contact preferences. We will use this data to keep in touch and send you other information and products that you have expressed an interest in. This data will be kept on file long-term, as hopefully it will be many years before your gift is realised.

To administer bequests, solicitors, executors, and our probate agents Smee and Ford will provide us with details of the deceased, the corresponding executors, solicitors, and where necessary other beneficiaries. This data will be kept by us and shared with our legacy administrators Foot Anstey LLP for the purposes of administering our legacy income. On occasion we or Foot Anstey LLP may share this data with other parties such as co-beneficiaries, third-party experts, and any other person(s) involved with the estate for the purposes of administering legacies only. The data will be kept on file indefinitely.

Storytellers

Some of our supporters kindly tell us stories about their experiences to help us in our campaigns. We will retain the details of the story and contact details to enable us to get updated approval to use the story. We will keep this data for 3 years after you give it to us and will contact you in line with the consent agreement you have made with us.

Photography

Our supporters, volunteers and customers kindly let us use photography and images of them to help our campaigns and activity come to life. We keep these images stored in a secure location and will only use them with the subject's permission. We keep these images for 3 years after we have been given them unless you ask otherwise.

Research

Part of the work we do involves carrying out research. If you agree to take part, we will retain responses to questions that you give us, and your personal details. This data will be used to fulfil our research objectives and may be shared for relevant projects. Your data will remain anonymous unless you consent to it being disclosed. The data we collect will be kept for 5 years.

Online Community

Scope offers an online community for disabled people, parents, and carers to get disability advice and information, and to talk to people with similar experiences. Posts on the Community pages will be kept indefinitely.

Services

Scope offers a wide range of information and advice services to disabled people, families of disabled children, and businesses. We will collect your contact details and preferences, and any other data necessary for delivering the service. This information will be used for the purposes of the services. And will not be used to contact you about other services or offers from Scope unless you have given us permission.

We will keep the data for up to 6 years, in line with contracts and government regulations.

If we become concerned about you or anyone else while using one of our services, we will act in line with our safeguarding policy and procedures. This may involve sharing this information with relevant authorities to ensure we comply with our policies and legal obligations.

Complaints

Should you wish to register a complaint we will collect your name, contact details and details about the complaint to enable us to respond, monitor and improve our organisation. This data will be shared with any parts of Scope or any third-parties who are involved in resolving the complaint, for example, agencies that we have partnered with.

We will hold this data for 6 years.

Website

When someone visits scope.org.uk 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 information, such as the number of visitors to the various parts of the site.

If we want to collect personally identifiable information through our website, we will be upfront about this. We will make it clear when we collect personal information and will explain what we intend to do with it. We will collect any questions, queries, and feedback you leave. This will include your email address if you email us, your IP address, and which web Browser (and version) you use. Information on how people use the site, through cookies and page tagging, helps us improve our website and our services. Find out more about our Cookie Policy.

We may also pass on your personal information to online analytics and advertising tools, including but not limited to Adalyser, Meta and Google to carry out 'remarketing activities'. These third-party vendors may use cookies to serve these ads based on your previous visits to our website.

We may use a social media tool called a ‘custom audience’ to target communications to you online. We upload your name and email address to the social media platform in an encrypted format. The social media platform then searches its own data for a match. Where a match is found, our marketing will start to appear in your news feed. We may also use a “lookalike” tool to help us find profiles of people who are like you and who may be interested in our services or in supporting our charity. Once identified by the social media platform they may also start to see our marketing in their news feed.

We will only share your details with social media platforms in this way if you have consented to us sending you marketing via email and an email address has been provided for this purpose. You can contact us at any time to let us know that you would prefer us not to use your information in this way. You can also update your preferences within the social media site to stop receiving marketing.

We might also obtain your personal data through your use of Social Media such as Facebook, WhatsApp, TikTok, Twitter or LinkedIn, depending on your settings or the privacy policies of these Social Media and messaging services. To change your settings on these services, please refer to their privacy notices, which will tell you how to do this.

E-newsletters

We use a third-party provider to deliver our monthly e-newsletters. We collect statistics around email opening and clicks using industry standard technologies including clear gifs to help us monitor and improve our e-newsletter. A list of our third-party providers can be made available upon request.

Suppression list

Should you not wish Scope to contact you in the future, we will hold your contact details on file. This will enable us to ensure that we comply to your wishes.
We will hold this data indefinitely. Should you wish to engage with Scope again then please get in touch with our Supporter Care team SupporterCare@scope.org.uk

Children's data

Although children under 16 years of age can fundraise with the consent and support of a parent or guardian, we do not hold their contact information. Instead, their parent or guardian's details are retained (with their contact preferences). Individuals over 16 years of age can be held but still require a parent or guardian as reference (for school contacts this can be a teacher).

For our services, the service is always provided to the family or parent/guardian. Data is supplied to us where we have a legal basis to collect and retain that data as per the contracts, or included in the case notes provided, for example by paediatricians or in independent support where there is a young person involved. This information is not shared with anyone not connected to providing the service.

Telephone recordings

Scope records some calls to help train our staff. You will always be informed of this at the start of any call that will be recorded.

The recordings will be deleted after 45 days.

CCTV

To ensure that you are confident that we are using CCTV and other similar devices responsibly, we have noted our obligations below. "CCTV" relates to Closed Circuit Television, and any other such security systems that capture personal data including, but not limited to body cameras, automated recognition technologies, vehicle trackers, and dash-cams.

We use CCTV to:

Monitor the security of our premises to prevent and detect crimes (such as theft from our shops)
Ensure the security of our and your property, and that of our customers, and contractors
Help identify, apprehend, and prosecute offenders in relation to the above

Images captured by CCTV may be monitored and recorded at Scope premises and kept for up to 31 days after the recording was made.

You have the right to view any personal data recorded by our CCTV systems, and we may be able to supply you with a copy of the recording(s) unless it is not technically possible to do so, or to do so will require a disproportionate amount of effort. We will however redact the personal data (images) of anyone else on the recording(s) we provide you with.

Job applicants

Scope is the data controller for the information you provide during the process unless otherwise stated. If you have any queries about the process or how we handle your information, please contact us by writing to:

Recruitment
Scope
Here East Press Centre
14 East Bay Lane
London
E15 2GW

or emailing jobs@scope.org.uk

What will we do with the information you provide to us?

All the information you provide during the process will only be used for the purpose of progressing your application, or to fulfil legal or regulatory requirements if necessary.

We will not share any of the information you provide during the recruitment process with any third-parties for marketing purposes or store any of your information outside the European Economic Area. The information you provide will be held securely by us and/or our data processors whether the information is in electronic or physical format and will be in line with UK GDPR rules.

We will use the contact details you provide to us to contact you to progress your application. We will use the other information you provide to assess your suitability for the role you have applied for.

What information do we ask for, and why?

We do not collect more information than we need to fulfil our stated purposes and will not retain it for longer than is necessary.

The information we ask for is used to assess your suitability for employment. You don't have to provide what we ask for, but it might affect your application if you don't.

Application stage

We ask you for your personal details including name and contact details. We will also ask you about your previous experience, education, referees and for answers to questions for the role you have applied for. Our recruitment team will have access to all this information.

You will also be asked to provide information for equal opportunities monitoring. This is not mandatory – if you don't provide it, it will not affect your application. This information will not be made available to any staff outside our recruitment team, including hiring managers, in a way which can identify you. Any information you do provide, will be used only to produce, and monitor equal opportunities statistics.

Shortlisting

Our hiring managers shortlist applications for interview. They will not be provided with your name or contact details or with your equal opportunities information if you have provided it.

Assessments

We might ask you to participate in assessment days; complete tests or occupational personality profile questionnaires; and to attend an interview – or a combination of these. Information will be generated by you and by us. For example, you might complete a written test, or we might take interview notes. This information is held by Scope.

If you are unsuccessful following assessment for the position you have applied for, we may ask if you would like your details to be retained in our talent pool for a period of 6 months. If you say yes, we will proactively contact you should any further suitable vacancies arise.

Conditional offer

If we make a conditional offer of employment, we will ask you for information so that we can carry out pre-employment checks. You must successfully complete pre-employment checks to progress to a final offer. We are required to confirm the identity of our staff, their right to work in the United Kingdom and seek assurance as to their trustworthiness, integrity, and reliability.

You will be required to provide:

proof of your identity – you will be asked to attend our office with original documents, we will take copies
proof of your qualifications – you will be asked to attend our office with original documents, we will take copies
you will be asked to complete a criminal records declaration to declare any unspent convictions
we will contact your referees, using the details you provide in your application, directly to obtain references
we will also ask you to complete a questionnaire about your health. This is to establish your fitness to work. This is done through a data processor (please see below).

If we make a final offer, we will also ask you for the following:

Bank details – to process salary payments
Emergency contact details – so we know who to contact in case you have an emergency at work

Use of data processors

Data processors are third-parties who provide elements of our recruitment service for us. We have contracts in place with our data processors. This means that they cannot do anything with your personal information unless we have instructed them to do it. They will not share your personal information with any organisation apart from us. They will hold it securely and retain it for the period we instruct.

How long is the information retained for?

If you are successful, the information you provide during the application process will be retained by us as part of your employee file for the duration of your employment plus 6 years following the end of your employment. This includes your criminal records declaration, fitness to work, records of any security checks and references.

If you are unsuccessful at any stage of the process, the information you have provided until that point will be retained for 6 months from the closure of the campaign.

Information generated throughout the assessment process, for example interview notes, is retained by us for 6 months following the closure of the campaign.

Equal opportunities information is retained for 6 months following the closure of the campaign whether you are successful or not.

Service providers and partners

Scope will use contact details of personnel belonging to our service providers and partners for the purpose of managing the relationship and fulfilling each party's obligations under the agreement with the supplier or provider. These contact details will be kept as long as the partnership or service provider agreement remains in force.

Sharing your data

Unless we are required to share your data for legal or regulatory reasons, to help with a complaint, or to administer a Gift in Will, we will never share your data with other organisations unless you have given us consent to do so.

We do use third-party organisations to help us collect donations, and to help us fulfil our marketing and telemarketing campaigns. Where we use external companies to collect or process data on our behalf, we conduct comprehensive checks on these companies, and put in place contracts to control how they manage the data they may collect or have access to. A list of our third-party providers can be made available upon request.

Keeping your data safe and up-to-date

At Scope we ensure that appropriate technical controls are in place to keep your data safely. Access to your data is regularly reviewed and will only be accessible to relevant, trained staff, volunteers, and contractors.

Where we use external companies to collect or process data on our behalf, we conduct comprehensive checks, and put in place contracts to control how they manage the data they may collect or have access to. Your data will be hosted on servers located either in the UK or the EU, and your data will not be transferred out of the European Union (EU).

Data profiling

On occasion, we may use your personal information to conduct profiling of our supporters, this profiling may include members of your household, colleagues, or potential supporters for the purposes of our legitimate interests. This will help target our communications in a more focused, efficient, and cost-effective way, helping ensure our supporters and potential supporters receive appropriate and relevant communications.

Profiling may be carried out internally or with the help of third-party partner agencies. You can object/opt-out to the use of your personal information for profiling at any time by contacting Scope at the details set out in the "Contact Details" section of this Privacy Notice. But this may mean that you stop receiving marketing communications from us more generally.

Profiling may include the following:

Data Matching. We may combine the personal information you have given us with data obtained from external sources, such as the Office for National Statistics. This is to infer likely social, demographic, and financial characteristics and motivations. Based on the insight we gain from the profile(s) we build; we will tailor our communications and services to better meet both your needs, and the needs of others like you,

The results of data matching will not be used in any way that intrudes on your privacy or your previously expressed privacy preferences.

Analysis of potential higher-value donors. We may conduct research to determine whether an individual could be a potential higher-value donor. We may use publicly available information from third-party sources such as Internet search engines, the Charity Commission and Companies House, published biographies, and publicly available LinkedIn profiles.

The type of information we collect may include areas of interest, career history, profession, job title, employment history, directorships or charitable trustee appointments and memberships, history of past giving to Scope or other charities, public information on philanthropic activity and networks, as well as other charities you volunteer for, or similar information regarding other members of your household or known associates.

Event Planning. We may produce biographies of people who are due to meet with our leadership team or colleagues. We may also produce biographies of people who are registered to attend events hosted by Scope.

Ethical Screening. We may conduct due diligence on donors, verify donations, and use appropriate financial checks to protect the charity from fraud, reputational harm, or money laundering. In addition, we may ethically screen donors to reduce the risk of being associated with a person, group, or entity that could undermine our values or harm our reputation.

To help us ensure that we only hold accurate and up-to-date data, we regularly use third-party data sources to clean our data. These data sources include Experian and the Post Office.

Trustees and Independent Board members

We hold Trustee and Independent Board Member personal data to communicate directly with them, to distribute board meeting invites, agendas, meeting minutes and papers, in addition to other associated data they may require. The personal data will be collected as part of their recruitment process and held by Scope in line with its legal obligations as outlined in our Data Retention Policy.

On occasion Scope may be legally obliged to provide other organisations the personal details of its Trustees. For example: when registering Scope with the Charity Commission, Companies House, HM Revenue & Customs or registering with financial organisations.

Your rights

We will only collect the data that we need to carry out the purposes you have contacted us for or given us permission to use it for.

To enable us to carry out the purposes you have contacted us for, there will be occasions when we will make some data collection mandatory. For example, your name and address to claim gift aid, or your email address to access our services. If you don't provide this data, we cannot carry out the purposes you have contacted us for. We will always tell you why these fields are mandatory.

At any time that you wish you can:

gain access to your personal information
object to the processing of your personal information
object to the use of automated decision-making and profiling
restrict the processing of your personal information
ask for a copy of your personal data (known as data portability)
rectify or correct your personal information
have your personal information removed (known as Erasure or the 'right to be forgotten').

Where you have provided consent to be contacted or to receive a service, you will be entitled to withdraw that consent at any time.

If you are at any point unhappy with the way that we handled your personal data, you can make a complaint to the Information Commissioner's Office.

To make changes to how we contact you, please contact the Data Protection Officer at: