Privacy Policy

1 Our Commitment to Protecting your Privacy

Autism Initiatives is committed to ensuring that your privacy is protected. Should we ask you to provide certain information by which you can be identified when using this website, or by any other means, then you can be assured that it will only be used in accordance with this privacy notice.
This notice sets out how the Autism Initiatives group of companies uses and protects any information that you give us when you use this website and in other ways. It also gives information about cookies – what they are, which ones are used on this website, the purposes for which they are used and how you can manage and/or disable them. Please carefully read the section on cookies to understand cookies and how we use them.
Autism Initiatives adheres to the principles contained within the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) 2016. It also adheres to legislation in the jurisdictions within which we operate. The specific legislation is listed at Point 1 in the Appendix to this notice.
We may change this notice from time to time by updating this page. You should check this page from time to time to ensure that you are happy with any changes. This notice is effective from 25th May 2018 and the date of the current notice will be stated at Point 2 in the Appendix to this notice.

2 Who we are

Autism Initiatives is a large group of charitable companies providing a range of services to people with autism, their families and carers. Our services operate across England, Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Ireland and Isle of Man. A full list of the company and charity numbers can be found at Point 3 in the Appendix to this notice. This notice applies to all the companies in the Autism Initiatives group.

3 What we collect

The information we collect will be limited to what we need for the particular purpose and it will depend upon who you are:

(i) People accessing our services

Your personal information is gathered and processed to enable us to effectively provide a support service to you. We will only gather such information as is necessary for this purpose. Such information includes:

• Your name, address, contact phone numbers and email address
• Your date of birth and national insurance number
• Referral forms and reports, transition notes
• Details about your family and next of kin
• Details of any guardian, appointee or advocate you may have and communication arrangements with them
• Your medical history
• Your gender
• Your religion, if any, and details of any spiritual needs
• Your income sources
• Information about your likes and dislikes

We may use this information to design and deliver an appropriate support service for you and this will include us creating documents and records which will facilitate this.

We only ask for information which is relevant and which we need in order to provide the service to you. This may be to enable us to fulfil the contract with you or a Commissioner for the service provision, or for purposes of compliance with regulation and the law. We may also rely upon our legitimate interests. Where we intend to step outside of these reasons we will usually not do so without first seeking your consent.

(ii) Job Applicants

If you apply to work with AI we will collect and process your information in order to assess and progress your application. This data will be held in line with applicable law and good practice. In most cases this means that this data will be destroyed after 12 months if you are unsuccessful. The information will usually consist of:

• Your name, address, contact phone numbers and email address
• Photographic and other forms of identification
• Your qualifications
• Your employment history
• Evidence of right to work
• Details of disabilities to enable us to make reasonable adjustments
• Information required under monitoring obligations such as gender or religion

(iii) Employees (including Bank Staff and Agency Workers)

If you are employed by AI, we will use your information only for the purposes of fulfilling your contract of employment. When you leave our employment we are required to retain your information for six years from the date of leaving at which point it will be securely destroyed unless we have an obligation in law or regulation to hold it for longer. The type of information we will gather will depend upon the job role that you are fulfilling with us but will typically include:

• Your name, address and contact details, including your email address and telephone number
• Next of Kin details
• Statutory monitoring information (ethnicity, gender, religion etc)
• Details of your relevant qualifications and training
• Details of your employment history
• Whether you have a disability for which we need to make a reasonable adjustment in the workplace
• Information about your entitlement to work in the UK/Ireland
• Details of professional registrations
• Details of your suitability to drive (if this is required as part of the role)
• Details of criminal records
• References
• Appraisal documents and reports
• Details of training and qualifications
• Sickness/Fitness certificates
• Occupational Health reports
• Welfare records
• Disciplinary records
• Grievance records
• Correspondence
• Bank details
• National Insurance/PPS numbers or equivalent
• Information required by government bodies
• Accident/incident information.
• Photographs and other images/recordings
• Any additional information which our commissioners or regulators may specify

(iv) Volunteers

We will use your information only for the purposes of fulfilling your volunteer contract. When you cease to be a volunteer we are required to retain your information for six years from the date you leave us at which point it will be securely destroyed unless we have an obligation in law or regulation to hold it for longer. The sort of information we may require will depend upon the volunteer role you are undertaking and will include only such of those items under the Employees section above which are relevant.

(v) Complainant

If you make a complaint to AI, we will usually retain this information for six years unless we have an obligation in law or regulation to hold it for longer. The information retained will be your name, any contact details and the detail of your complaint and our response to you in respect of it.

(vi) Contractors, Visitors, Others

Where we engage with you in a way that necessitates us gathering personal information from you we will use that information only for the purposes for which it is gathered and retain it for only as long as law, regulation or good practice dictates.

(vii) Website and Social Media Users

Please see section below: Website Visitors and our Use of Cookies

4 Sharing your Information with Third Parties

There are times when we will have to share your personal information with a third party. For example if you are a person using our services we may need to share information about you with the housing provider, our insurers, the commissioner of your service, and others. If you are an employee we will have to share with the HMRC, our payroll system operator, an insurer or a regulator. If you make a complaint we may have to pass this on to commissioners, regulators, insurers and others. The third party is subject to data protection obligations just as we are and we make sure that they are committed to fulfilling their obligations and the legal requirement on them to safeguard your personal information.

5 Your Rights

You have the right to:

• Ask us what information we have about you and the legal bases for processing it
• Access the personal information we hold about you. This is known as a Subject Access Request (or SAR)
• Request that the information we hold on you be deleted or destroyed. Note, however, that it is not always possible to delete all the information we have about you because there may be legal, regulatory or other reasons why we need to keep it (in which case we will explain these reasons to you)
• Request to have it amended if you believe the information we hold on you is incorrect. Note that we will consider your request but it is not always possible to
• Have the matter investigated if you have concerns about how we are handling, or have handled, your personal data.

To exercise any of these rights you should contact:

• Your Key Worker if you are a person supported
• Your line manager or the HR Department if you are an employee, bank staff, agency worker, job applicant or volunteer (0151 330 9500)
• Website manager if you are a visitor to the website/social media etc (0151 330 9500)

For all other queries:

• Email anne.macrandal@ai-ni.co.uk
• Telephone 02890 699130
• By writing to: The Data Protection Lead, Autism Initiatives, 1 & 2 Linden House, Beechill Business Park, 96 Beechill Road, Belfast, BT8 7QN

We will deal with most requests within one month of receipt. We may need to ask you for some details before we can deal with your request and we may also need to verify your identity.

6 Website Visitors and our use of Cookies

When you make a visit to the website we may collect the following information:

• name
• contact information including email address
• demographic information such as postcode, preferences and interests
• other information relevant to customer surveys and/or offers

What we do with the information we gather

• We will use your personal information to provide you with the services, products or information you have requested, for administration purposes and to further our charitable aims, including for fundraising activities.
• We only use your personal information for direct marketing purposes if we are allowed to do this by law or if we have your consent.

Security

We are committed to ensuring that your information is secure. In order to prevent unauthorised access or disclosure, we have put in place suitable physical, electronic and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure the information we collect online.

Our website may contain links to other websites of interest. However, once you have used these links to leave our site, you should note that we do not have any control over that other website. Therefore, we cannot be responsible for the protection and privacy of any information which you provide whilst visiting such sites and such sites are not governed by this privacy statement. You should exercise caution and look at the privacy statement applicable to the website in question.

Controlling your personal information

We will not sell, distribute or lease your personal information to third parties unless we have your permission or are required by law to do so. We may use your personal information to send you promotional information about third parties which we think you may find interesting if you tell us that you wish this to happen.
You may request details of personal information which we hold about you under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). In writing by post or email to:

Autism Initiatives UK
Sefton House, Bridle Road
Bootle
Merseyside
L30 4XR

Email: info@autisminitiatives.org

If you believe that any information we are holding on you is incorrect or incomplete, please write to or email us as soon as possible, at the above address. We will promptly correct any information found to be incorrect.

Cookies

What are cookies?
Cookies are small text files that are placed on your computer by websites that you visit. They are widely used in order to make websites work, or work more efficiently, as well as to provide information to the owners of the site.

Cookies contain information that is transferred to your computer’s hard drive. They help us to improve our site and to deliver a better and more personalised service. Cookies do lots of different jobs, like letting you navigate between pages efficiently, remembering your preferences, and generally improve the user experience. They can also help to ensure that adverts you see online are more relevant to you and your interests.

The cookies used on this website have been categorised based on the categories found in the ICC UK Cookie guide. A list of all the cookies used on this website by category is set out below.

To find out more about cookies generally, including how to control and delete them, visit www.aboutcookies.org.uk

What cookies are used by Autism Initiatives and why?

‘Strictly Necessary’ Cookies
These cookies are essential in order to enable you to move around the website and use its features. Without these cookies services you have asked for, cannot be provided.

• Cookie Name: ASP.NET_Sessionld
• Description: Used to differentiate one user from another in order to provide core website services and this cookie is erased when the user closed their browser
• Expiry: Current session only

‘Performance’ Cookies
These cookies collect information about how visitors use a website, for instance which pages visitors go to most often, and if they get error messages from web pages. These cookies don’t collect information that identifies a visitor. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. It is only used to improve how a website works.

• Cookie Name(s): _utma, _utmb, _utmc, _utmz
• Description: We use Google Analytics to understand how the site is being used in order to improve the user experience. Google Analytics sets and uses the 4 cookies listed here. User data collected is all anonymous.
  You can find out more about Google’s position on privacy as regards its analytics service at https://support.google.com/ana…
• Expiry: 730 days (__utma), Less than one day(__utmb), Current session (__utmc), 182 days (__utmz)

‘Functionality’ Cookies
These cookies allow the website to remember choices you make (such as your user name, language or the region you are in) and provide enhanced, more personal features. For instance, a website may be able to provide you with local weather reports or traffic news by storing in a cookie the region in which you are currently located. These cookies can also be used to remember changes you have made to text size, fonts and other parts of web pages that you can customise. They may also be used to provide services you have asked for such as watching a video or commenting on a blog. The information these cookies collect may be anonymised and they cannot track your browsing activity on other websites.

• Cookie Name: PREF, NID
• Description: These cookies are set by Google and are 3rd party cookies served by the domain google.co.uk, and may be set when a visitor to this website browses to the Contact Us page. These cookies may be used by Google to track how many people are using their Google Maps service, which is currently used on the Contact Us page of this website. These cookies don’t gather information that identifies a user.
  You can find out more about Google’s position on privacy as regards its analytics service at https://support.google.com/ana…
• Expiry: 730 days (PREF), 183 days (NID)

• Cookie Name: fluidtextsizer1
• Description: The website also allows users to resize the text on the site as well as change it from the default to high contrast text option. The fluidtextsizer1 cookie remembers what size you’ve altered the text to as well as if the high contrast option has been activated. This cookie is deleted at the end of the browser session.
• Expiry: Current session

Youtube cookies

We embed videos from our official YouTube channel using YouTube’s privacy-enhanced mode. This mode may set cookies on your computer once you click on the YouTube video player, but YouTube will not store personally-identifiable cookie information for playbacks of embedded videos using the privacy-enhanced mode. To find out more please visit You Tube’s embedding videos information page

Third Party Cookies

In some cases, we use cookies provided by trusted third parties. The following section details which third party cookies you might encounter through this site.

This site uses Google Analytics which is one of the most widespread and trusted analytics solution on the web. This helps us to understand how you use the site and suggest ways that we can improve the user experience. These cookies may track things such as how long you spend on the site and the pages that you visit.

For more information on Google Analytics cookies, see the official Google Analytics cookies page

This site uses the Lucky Orange analytics system to help improve usability and the customer experience. Lucky Orange may record mouse clicks, mouse movements and scrolling activity. Lucky Orange may record keystroke information that you voluntarily enter on this website.

For more information on Lucky Orange cookies, click here

This site uses a Facebook pixel setting to help advertise relevant services to you. Features such as audiences, conversions, targeting and optimisation as well as Facebook Analytics data are tracked.
For more information on the Facebook pixel please click here

From time to time we test new features and make subtle changes to the way that the site is delivered. When we are testing new features, these cookies can be used to ensure that you receive a consistent experience whilst ensuring we understand which optimisations benefit our users the most.

How do I manage and delete these cookies?
Most web browsers allow some control of most cookies through the browser settings. To find out more about cookies, including how to see what cookies have been set and how to manage and delete them, visit www.aboutcookies.org.uk

7 What if I want to complain about how you are handling my personal information?

You have the right to lodge a complaint with the Data Protection Lead if you have any issues about how your information is being or has been handled. The Data Protection Lead is entirely independent of the organisation when acting in the Data Protection Lead role. Contact details are: Anne MacRandal, Autism Initiatives NI, Linden House, Beechill Road, Belfast, BT7 8QN, Email: anne.macrandal@ai-ni.co.uk Call: 02890 699130.

The Data Protection Lead will acknowledge your complaint within seven working days of receipt and will aim to provide a full response to it within a further fourteen days. If it is likely to take longer then the Data Protection Lead will contact you to explain the likely time frame.

If the Data Protection Lead cannot resolve the matter for you to your satisfaction, or, if you wish to take the matter further, you can refer to the supervisory authority.

8 How do I Contact the Supervisory Authority if I have a Complaint about how Autism Initiatives has handled my Information?

England and Wales:

• Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF. Helpline 0303 1231113, or, 01625 545745.
• Textline 01625 545860 Website www.ico.org.uk

Northern Ireland:

The Information Commissioner’s Office – Northern Ireland, 3rd Floor, 14 Cromac Place, Belfast, BT7 2JB. Telephone: 028 9027 8757 / 0303 123 1114. Email: ni@ico.org.uk

Scotland:

Scottish Information Commissioner, Kinburn Castle, Doubledykes Road, St Andrews, Fife. KY16 9DS. Telephone: 01334 464610. Email: enquiries@itspublicknowledge.info

Ireland:

Data Protection Commission, Canal House, Station Road, Portarlington, Co. Laois, R32 AP23, Ireland. Phone +353 (0761) 104 800 | LoCall 1890 25 22 31 Fax +353 57 868 4757 | email info@dataprotection.ie

Isle of Man:

Isle of Man Information Commissioner, P.O. Box 69, Douglas, Isle of Man, IM99 1EQ Telephone: +44 1624 693260 Email: ask@inforights.im

9 Appendix

Point 1 – Legislation

• The EU General Data Protection Regulation 2016 (“GDPR”)
• The Data Protection Act 2018 (UK)
• The Data Protection Act 2018 (Ireland)
• The Data Protection Act 2018 (Isle of Man)
• The Human Rights Acts

Point 2 – Date of this Notice

• November 2019

Point 3 – Autism Initiatives group of Companies

Name Company Number Charity Number

Autism Initiatives Group 07120634 1170634

Autism Initiatives UK 2436777 702632 / OSCR – SC040905

Branch in Isle of Man L4192250

Autism Initiatives Northern Ireland 047238 104641

Autism Initiatives Ireland IE435497 20066031

Autism Ventures 7260299 1137068 / OSCR – SC043186

Autism Spectrum Connections Cymru 08461023 1158045

Living Initiatives 05648762 –

The Bridge Project 3039158 1055005

The registered office for the lead company, Autism Initiatives Group, is:
Sefton House, Petersfield, Bridle Road, Bootle, Merseyside, L30 4XR.