Contact Us!

Our Commitment to Protecting Your Privacy

 

1 Introduction

 

Autism Initiatives is committed to ensuring that your privacy is protected. This Privacy notice sets out how the Autism Initiatives group of companies process personal data, including how we collect it, what we do with your information, what we do to keep it secure, as well as the rights you have over your personal information and the principles we must follow. Specific 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, can be found towards the end of this notice.
Throughout this document we refer to Data Protection Legislation which means the:

  • Data Protection Act 2018 (UK) as amended by the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025,
  • Data Protection Act 2018 (Isle of Man),
  • Data Protection Act 2018 (Ireland),
  • UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) as amended by the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025,
  • European General Data Protection Regulation (EU GDPR),
  • The Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations (PECR 2003) as amended by the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025,
  • Any other legislations in connection with the aforementioned legislations within the jurisdictions within which we operate,
  • Any legislation implemented in connection with the aforementioned legislations.

 

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 the Isle of Man. A full list of the company and charity numbers can be found at the end of this notice. This notice applies to all the companies in the Autism Initiatives group.

Autism Initiatives Group,
Sefton House,

Petersfield,

Bridle Road,

Bootle,

Merseyside,

L30 4XR.

 

Tel: 0151 330 9500

Contact us: Autism Initiatives |

 

Our Data Protection Officer can be contacted here:

Data.Protection@autisminitiatives.org

 

Postal address:

 

Data Protection Officer

Autism Initiatives Group,
Sefton House,

Petersfield,

Bridle Road,

Bootle,

Merseyside,

L30 4XR.

 

3 How we collect your personal data

 

We may collect your personal information directly from you or indirectly from another person or organisation, it may be shared with us from a range of sources – online or offline. This includes, but is not limited to, interactions via our websites, at our events, phone calls, face-to-face meetings, emails, referrals, social media platforms, through current, past or prospective employers, your family members, sponsors, law enforcement agencies, the Home Office and the Disclosure and Barring Service.

  1. Whose personal data we collect

 

The information we collect will be limited to what we need, for a particular purpose or purposes, in accordance with Data Protection legislations and it will depend upon who you are.

 

We may collect personal information for:

  • Adults and children accessing our services, including within our schools,
  • Families and carers of people accessing our services,
  • Guardian, appointee or advocate of people accessing our services,
  • Job Applicants,
  • Employees (including Bank Staff and Agency Workers),
  • Volunteers (including Trustees and Governors),
  • Complainants,
  • Contractors,
  • Fundraisers and Supporters,
  • Visitors,
  • Auditors in their professional capacities,
  • Others in their professional capacities such as social workers and medical experts.

 

  1. What we may collect

 

Personal data is any information that relates to an individual. Where that individual can be identified or is identifiable, directly or indirectly, from that information on its own or in combination with other available information.

 

Types of personal data we may collect and process are:

 

  • Your name, address, contact phone numbers and email address,
  • Your date of birth and national insurance number,
  • Your gender,
  • Financial information,
  • Images of you,
  • Identification documents
  • Your qualifications, training and employment history,
  • Evidence of right to work,
  • Evidence required under a work or student visa,
  • References,
  • Details of professional registrations,

We may also collect and process special categories of personal data such as:

 

  • Personal data revealing racial or ethnic origin;
  • Personal data revealing political opinions;
  • Personal data revealing religious or philosophical beliefs;
  • Personal data revealing trade union membership;
  • Genetic data;
  • Data concerning health;
  • Data concerning a person’s sex life; and
  • Data concerning a person’s sexual orientation.

 

We may in some instances also process personal data relating to criminal convictions and offences.

 

  1. How we use your data

 

We follow the principles laid out within data protection legislations and therefore we will only use personal information fairly and lawfully for a specific, legitimate purpose and only where it is necessary and proportionate to do so.

 

We process personal information for a number of reasons. Depending on who you are, we may process your information for:

  • Employment purposes,
  • To provide a service to you,
  • To comply with our legal obligations,
  • To provide products or information you have requested,
  • To further our charitable aims,
  • Fundraising Purposes,
  • Marketing Purposes,
  • To deal with a complaint,
  • Safeguarding Purposes,
  • Health and Safety reporting,
  • Research Purposes,
  • To assist another organisation to comply with their public task or official functions.

 

Our Lawful basis in doing so will be dependent on the purpose and will fall into one or more of the following lawful grounds.

  • It is necessary for the performance of, or to take steps entering into, a contract,
  • To comply with a legal obligation,
  • It is necessary for the purposes of a recognised legitimate interest, as laid out in law.
  • We have a legitimate interest to do so, and it is necessary and balanced against your own interests, rights and freedoms. (Further information regarding processing for our legitimate interest can be found below.)
  • There may be rare occasions where it becomes necessary to use your personal information to protect your vital interests (or someone else’s vital interests).
  • You have given your consent to the use of your personal data.

 

Where we process special categories of personal data, we will do so in accordance with the necessary lawful basis and where necessary under the appropriate condition as set out within data protection legislation. We may process special category data under one or more of the following lawful basis:

 

  • Where we are required to do so under employment and social security and social protection law,
  • Where it is necessary to protect your vital interests (or the vital interest of someone else),
  • Where it is necessary to do so in the course of our legitimate activities as a charity,
  • Where you have made the information manifestly public,
  • Where it is necessary for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims,
  • Where it is necessary for reasons of substantial public interest,
  • Where it is necessary for the purposes of preventive or occupational medicine, for the assessment of the working capacity of an employee, medical diagnosis, the provision of health or social care or treatment or the management of health or social care systems and services,
  • Where it is necessary for archiving purposes in the public interest, scientific or historical research purposes or statistical purposes.
  • Where we have your explicit consent
  • Whenever we process personal data under this condition, whether this be explicit consent or otherwise, we will ensure there is a genuine choice about your data. We will ensure that this has been freely given, specific, informed and unambiguous and has been obtained through a clear statement or affirmative action.
  • When consent is required, we explain clearly what we are asking for and why, how we use it, how long we will keep it for, the steps we will take to delete it and how you can withdraw your consent.

 

  1. Legitimate Interest

 

At times, we rely on legitimate interest as one of our lawful basis for processing your personal data. This means we use your information for purposes necessary for our legitimate business activities, whilst ensuring your rights and freedoms are never negatively affected.

 

We rely on legitimate interest for purposes such as improving our services, fundraising and marketing purposes, maintaining the security of our systems and preventing fraud.

 

We will always carefully balance our legitimate interests against your rights and freedoms and will only process your information if necessary and proportionate to do so.

 

  1. Soft Opt-in for Marketing purposes

Following changes in data protection laws, we may rely on what is known as the ‘soft opt-in’ to send you information electronically about our charitable purposes, activities and other ways you can help support us. This means if you have provided us with your contact details in connection with our work, we may use those details to contact you about similar opportunities that further our charitable objectives.

If we collected your details before these changes in law, your contact preferences will remain unchanged. This means we will not use soft opt-in for you unless you re-engage with us after the new rules are in force. For example, by providing your details again in connection with our work.

Whenever we collect your details, we will give you the chance to say no to receiving direct marketing from us. Any message you may receive from us following your soft opt-in will include a simple way for you to opt-out or you can change your preferences at any time, using the contact details laid out within this notice.

We will never share your information with other organisations for their own marketing purposes.

  1. Sharing your Information with Third Parties

There are times when it may be necessary for us to share your personal information with a third party. For example, we may need to share information about you:

  • With a housing provider,
  • Our insurers,
  • The commissioner of your service,
  • Local Authorities,
  • Funders,
  • HMRC,
  • Your Sponsor,
  • Regulators,
  • Our processors in their duties of our legitimate business purposes, to support you or to assist us, often with technical infrastructure, such as our payroll system operator or our digitalised care records management system.
  • Health and social care professionals,
  • Law Enforcement Agencies,
  • HMRC,
  • Disclosure and Barring Service,
  • Current, past and prospective employers,
  • Other voluntary sector organisations.

Any third parties to which we share personal data with are bound by the same Data Protection laws as we are. We make sure that they are committed to fulfilling their obligations and legal requirements to safeguard your personal information.

Furthermore, we do not share personal data outside the EU, EEA or to any country that does not hold adequacy status. Should this change, we will ensure that appropriate safeguards are in place as laid out in law.

 

  1. Your Rights

 

Under Data Protection laws, you have a number of rights to which you can exercise in relation to the personal information we process about you.

Right to be informed

  • This right entitles you to be told how we obtain your personal information and how we use it throughout its life cycle with us. This privacy notice gives you that information, as well as telling you what your rights are under the relevant laws.

Right of Access

  • This right is often known as a Subject Access Request / SAR / DSAR. This enables you to request a copy of personal data we hold about you.

Right of Rectification

  • This right allows you to request information we hold about you to be corrected, if you believe the information held is incorrect.
  • Right of Erasure also known as the Right to be Forgotten
  • This right allows you to request to have data deleted, where there is no lawful reason for us to continue to process this.

Right to Complain

  • This right allows you to make a complaint to us if you are dissatisfied to the way in which we handle your personal data or believe that, in relation to your personal data, there is an infringement of Data Protection regulations.
  • Further to this right, if you remain dissatisfied to the way in which we handle your complaint, this right allows you to make a complaint to the relevant supervisory authority. Details can be found at the end of this notice.

Right to Object to Processing

  • This right enables you to request to object to the processing of your personal information in certain circumstances. This right is relevant in instances to which we process your personal data under the lawful basis Legitimate Interest or recognised Legitimate Interest.

Right to Restrict Processing

  • This right enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of personal information about you.

Rights to Data Portability

  • This right enables you to request data transfer of your personal information from one IT environment to another. This right only applies to personal data provided by you, where the processing is based on your consent or for the performance of a contract and when that processing is carried out by automated means, therefore this excludes paper files.

Right to Withdraw Consent at any time

  • This right applies only to the circumstances to which we process your personal information under the lawful basis consent.

Rights around Automated decision making, including Profiling

  • We do not carry out any decisions about you using automated processes, including profiling. Any use of your personal data is always subject to meaningful human oversight.

It is important to note that some of these rights are not absolute rights and as such, there may be instances where we lawfully cannot action your request, or part of your request, at that particular time.

Before dealing with a request we may need to verify your identity and may ask you for some details to do this.

We aim to deal with your request without undue delay and within one month of receipt. In rare instances, it may be necessary to extend the time to respond if the request is complex. We will let you know within one month if an extension is necessary.

 

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)

 

Or our Data Protection Officer can be contacted using the details laid out at point 2 of this notice.

 

  1. Retention

We retain your information for as long as is necessary for the particular purpose or purposes for which it is held, always in accordance with the Data Protection Legislation and never for longer than is necessary.

The information we hold about you is kept for the duration of your interactions with us, such as through employment or by accessing our services, and for no longer than six years from the date of leaving or ending your time with us, unless otherwise required by law.

 

  1. Security

We apply a variety of technical, administrative and organisational measures within Autism Initiatives to ensure we are securely safeguarding your data from unauthorised access, disclosure, alteration or destruction.

We adopt measures such as strict access controls to our buildings and technologies, encryption, appropriate password protections, we maintain internal policies and procedures, carry out audits and deliver appropriate training at regular intervals.

It should be noted that the security of information transmitted through the internet can never be guaranteed. Our website may include links to external sites that we believe may be of interest. However, once you click on these links and leave our website, please note that we do not have any control over the content, privacy practices or security of those external sites. We are not responsible for the protection and privacy of any information which you provide to these sites whilst visiting them. For the avoidance of doubt, these third party websites are not governed by this privacy notice. You should exercise caution and look at the privacy notice applicable to the website in question.

 

  1. Details for relevant Supervisory Authorities

 

IC England contact details

Information Commission
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

Helpline number: 0303 123 1113

Website Contact us – public | ICO

IC Wales contact details

Information Commission – Wales
2nd Floor, Churchill House
Churchill Way
Cardiff
CF10 2HH

Please phone 0330 414 6421 to talk to the team.

Email: wales@ico.org.uk

IC Scotland contact details

The Information Commission – Scotland
6th floor, Quartermile One
15 Lauriston Pl
Edinburgh
EH3 9EP

Telephone: 0303 123 1115

Email: Scotland@ico.org.uk

IC Northern Ireland contact details

The Information Commission – Northern Ireland
10th Floor
Causeway Tower
9 James Street South
Belfast
BT2 8DN

Telephone: 0303 123 1114
Email: ni@ico.org.uk

Data Protection Commission – Ireland

6 Pembroke Row
Dublin 2
D02 X963
Ireland

Website: How to contact us | Data Protection Commission 

Isle of Man Information Commissioner

Isle of Man Information Commissioner,

P.O. Box 69,

Douglas,

Isle of Man,

IM99 1EQ

 

Telephone: +44 1624 693260

Email: ask@inforights.im

Website: inforights.im

 

  1. Autism Initiatives group of companies

Autism Initiatives Group

Company Number: 07120634

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

This privacy notice may be updated from time to time. We last updated: 1st December 2025