Our privacy policy

The British Heart Foundation is the leading heart charity in the UK and our registered charity numbers are 225971 in England and Wales, and SC039426 in Scotland. Our charity is also registered in England and Wales as a company limited by guarantee under number 00699547.

In this Policy ‘we’ means both the charity and its subsidiaries trading on its behalf who are: British Heart Foundation Ventures Limited, a registered company in England and Wales: number: 02767880, BHF Shops Limited a registered company in England and Wales: number 02472513 and London to Brighton Bike Ride Limited, a registered company in England and Wales: number 02672643.

The charity and each of these subsidiaries may collect and decide for themselves how to use your personal information. The legal phrase that's used to describe an organisation that makes these decisions is 'data controller'.

We collect information about you in the following ways:

• Information you give us. For example, when you post information on our social media or message boards, make a donation to us, register for an event or otherwise provide us with personal information. When you register, we’ll ask for personal information, like your name, email address, telephone number, date of birth, bank account details for setting up a regular direct debit gift and contact preferences.
• Information we get from your use of our website and services. We collect information about our online content that you use and how you use it, like when you watch a video on YouTube, visit our websites or view and interact with our ads and content. We, like all organisations, are able to confirm what browser you are using, IP address and computer operating systems that are being used and this information may be used to improve the services we offer. Please see our Cookie Policy for more detail.
• Information from known third parties. We may also receive information about you from our third party partners with whom you choose to interact, for example websites such as JustGiving when making a donation or Ebay when buying BHF related products. This can include information such as your name, postal or email address, phone number, your geographic location, credit/debit card details and whether you are a tax payer so that we can claim Gift Aid. To the extent that we have not done so already, we (or they) will notify you when we receive information about you from them and tell you how and why we intend to use that information.
• Information available publicly. We may include information found in places such as Companies House, LinkedIn and information that has been published in articles/newspapers. Please see ‘How we combine and analyse the information we collect about you’ to find out more

Wherever possible we use aggregated or anonymous information which does not identify individuals by name. See below How we use your information to understand our purposes for processing your personal information.

We collect, store and use the following kinds of personal information:

• Your name and contact details, including postal address, telephone number, email address and, where applicable, your social media profile
• Your date of birth
• Financial information you provide where you make a payment, such as bank details or credit/debit card details, although we don't store credit or debit card details (see below)
• Information about your computer/mobile device and your visits to and use of this website, including for example your IP address and geographical location
• Information about our services which you use/which we consider of interest to you
• Information as to whether you are a tax payer so that we can claim Gift Aid
• Any other personal information you share with us as described above

Certain categories of personal information are regarded by the law as more sensitive than others.

This is known as 'special category' or 'sensitive personal data' and covers things like information about your health, ethnic origin, religious beliefs, political opinions or any genetic or biometric data that is used to identify you.

We do not usually collect ‘sensitive personal data’ about our supporters unless there is a clear reason for doing so, such as participation in a marathon or similar fundraising event or where we need this information to ensure that we provide appropriate facilities or medical support to enable you to safely participate. We may also collect sensitive personal data if you make the information public or if you tell us about your experiences relating to heart disease (for example, if you agree to act as a case study for us or volunteer to be a ‘Heart Voice’).

We will always make it clear when we collect this information from you what sensitive personal data we are collecting and why.

If you use your credit or debit card to donate to us, buy something or pay for a registration online we will use a specialist payment processor. We will also ensure that card details are handled securely under Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standards. For more information about these Standards see here - https://www.pcisecuritystandards.org/about_us/

If you provide your card details to make a donation by phone, only BHF staff who are authorised and trained to process payments should be able to collect or see your card details. We never store your credit or debit card details following the completion of your transaction. All card details and validation codes are securely destroyed once the payment or donation has been processed.

Please do not send an email containing any credit or debit card details, since it will be immediately deleted and no payment will be taken. If this happens, we'll let you know.

All purchases or donations should be completed through the donation page or online shop on our website (www.bhf.org.uk) or via our customer support centre by calling 0300 330 3322.

All BHF websites use cookies to help our websites work well and to track information about how people are using them. More information on cookies can be found  in our Cookie Policy.

• All BHF websites collect personal information you supply when you register with us.
• The website you sign up to will collect information such as your name, email address and post code. Once you register with that website, you will not be anonymous to us when you subsequently sign in.
• As part of the registration process and continued use of BHF services, you agree that any registration information you give to BHF will always be accurate, correct and up to date. Please do get in touch should you need to amend or update any of your personal information.
• We collect and retain information about your interactions with us so that we can process any request you make and efficiently deal with future queries.
• As explained in our Cookie Policy, we use cookies to allow us to store limited information on an individual’s computer to either track them through tracking cookies or to allow people to have automatic logons as an example. We use this information to provide you with a good experience when browsing our website and to improve the functionality of our site.
• Our website uses products such as Google Optimize, Movable Ink and Mouseflow to analyse and improve user experience. These products track user experience of the website by looking at behaviours like mouse clicks, mouse movements, page scrolling and any text entered into website forms. The information is used to improve and personalise website experience, personalise the content of emails and for statistical and aggregate reporting.

If you apply to work at the BHF, we will only use the information you give us to process your application or to monitor recruitment statistics on an unidentified basis. If we want to disclose information to someone outside the BHF, for example, if we need a reference from your previous employer, we will tell you beforehand. The only exception is where the law obliges us to disclose information to a third party (such as the police) and we are not allowed to tell you.

If you are unsuccessful in your job application, we may hold your personal information after we’ve finished recruiting for the post you applied for, for up to 12 months to deal with any follow up queries or issues.

We keep statistical information about all applicants to develop our recruitment processes however no individual applicant would be identifiable from this information.

If you commence employment with the BHF, your personal information will be processed in accordance with your employment contract and other applicable human resources policies we have from time to time.

We use your personal information for a number of purposes including the following:

• To provide you with the services, products or information you have requested;
• To provide information about our work, activities, volunteering or events although this will only be where you have consented to being contacted for those purposes unless the BHF is in a position to rely on the Legitimate Interest basis for contacting you (see further information below under Legal Basis for Processing)
• To process donations we may receive from you;
• To fundraise in a manner referred to in this Policy or that you would reasonably expect;
• To create an account for you if you register with us;
• To deliver products or services to you;
• To process orders from our shops or provide after-sales service;
• For administration purposes (for example we may contact you regarding a donation you have made, including in relation to Gift Aid or the event you have registered for);
  For internal management, such as record keeping of enquiries, feedback or complaints;
• To invite you to participate in surveys or research (although this is voluntary);
• To use IP addresses to identify your approximate location, to block disruptive use, to record website traffic or to personalise the way our information is presented to you;
• To analyse and improve the online services we offer, to make them as user-friendly as possible;
• We may collect personal information to conduct supporter research and this is on occasion through our existing network. We may also analyse information you provide to us with other freely available public information to create a profile of supporter interests, preferences and level of potential donations so that we can contact you in the most appropriate way and with the most relevant information (for more information about this use, see How will you combine and analyse the information we collect about you?)
• Where collecting and holding your information is required or authorised by law;
• We may use your personal information for the purposes of credit risk reduction or fraud prevention (using external specialist agencies to help us); and
• Other specific purposes that you may agree to from time to time.
• If you arrange a BHF furniture collection through Amazon Alexa, we will contact you by email to arrange a delivery date and ascertain contact details for this purpose.

Before contacting you, we may use data analysis to interpret your data and predict how likely you are to be interested in or responsive to a particular campaign or fundraising message. Where we have identified that you have the capacity and/or affinity to support the British Heart Foundation at a higher level, we may collect additional information about you (see 'How we use your information') and combine, analyse and compile that information into a profile of you in order to assist us in engaging with you in a more personalised way.

We typically look at and combine information published in the media but other commonly used publicly available sources including company resources, the Electoral Register and any data you choose to make public on LinkedIn such as your professional memberships and networks. We may also use any publicly available data that you share on social media. We may use additional information such as geographical information for measures of affluence where available. In order to do this efficiently, we may use trusted third party specialist companies that collate and analyse information from public registers alongside statistical social-economic data to automate some of this work. This helps us to understand more about your interests and level of potential engagement or donation. Examples of companies who assist us with this process include CACI Limited (Acorn) https://acorn.caci.co.uk and Management Diagnostics Limited (Boardex) https://boardex.com/industries/non-profit

You can opt out of your data being combined and analysed for marketing purposes by contacting our Supporter Care Team or our Data Protection Office as set out in the Contact Us below.

Please note that before seeking or accepting major donations we are required to conduct a minimum level of due diligence. This is in accordance with our legal and regulatory obligations and our internal risk management policies and procedures. This means that if you opt out of analysis of your data, we may still conduct some analysis that is required to enable us to accept donations from you.

The British Heart Foundation uses social media to promote our life saving work. We have accounts on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and Snapchat. We collect donations through Facebook Fundraisers and Facebook Donate and other channels. Where members of the public engage with our posts or publish content relevant to our work, we may like the posts, follow them, reply or write to them. We conduct research on what people say on public social media platforms to better understand how people feel about our sector and to improve our work. This research may be done by staff or companies we work with.

If you are a social media user, we will user social media tools as part of our relationship with you. These tools include Facebook Custom and Lookalike audiences. Through using these tools, we will provide some of your data to the social media platform to allow them to identify your social media profile. You will then be shown advertising relating to the British Heart Foundation which we think you will be interested in seeing. The social media platform will also use your profile to identify those with similar characteristics to you who we think may also be interested in finding out more about the work we do. These individuals will then be shown advertising about the British Heart Foundation. You can object to your information being shared with social media platforms. Please contact us at [email protected] if you wish to object.

The law requires us to set out the lawful grounds on which we collect and process your personal information as described in this Policy. Depending on the purposes for which we use your data, one or more of the grounds listed below may be relevant:

Legitimate Interest:
We rely on the “legitimate interest’ ground for processing where we believe it is in the legitimate interests of you, as the data subject, or of the BHF, to process your data. When we process your personal information in this way, we also consider and balance any potential impact on you (both positive and negative), and your rights under data protection laws. We will not use your personal information for activities where our interests are overridden by the impact on you, for example where collection and use of your information would be excessively intrusive (unless, for instance, we are otherwise required or permitted to by law). We will only use your information in accordance with the purposes described in this Policy. Examples of processing based on the legitimate interests ground are:

• Sending direct marketing material to supporters by post for fundraising purposes
• Conducting research to better understand who our supporters are and better target our fundraising activity;
  Measure and understand how our audiences respond to a variety of marketing activity so we can ensure our activity is well targeted, relevant and effective;
• Providing information about heart health;
• Taking and using photos and/or films of event participants and attendees; 
• Administering events;
• Sending relevant communications to your work email address;
• Staff recruitment and taking applications for volunteers and contacting volunteers about their role; and
• The use of CCTV recording equipment in and around our premises for monitoring and security purposes
• Promoting the BHF on social media, Google, YouTube and other online platforms 
  
  Consent:
  In many instances, we will rely on obtaining your consent to our use of your personal information in a certain way (for example, asking for your consent to use your personal information to send you direct marketing information, and we may ask for your explicit consent to share sensitive personal information with us)
  
  Legal  Obligation: 
  We may need to collect, process and disclose personal information to comply with a legal obligation. For example, where we are ordered by a court or regulatory authority or we are legally required to hold donor transaction details for Gift Aid or accounting/tax purposes. We may also use personal information to cross check and prevent known malicious activities on BHF operated services.
  
  Performance of a contract:
  For example if you purchase something from our online shop or agree to work for us, we need to be able to process your information for the purpose of meeting our contractual obligations.

You have the following legal rights in relation to our collection and processing of your personal information:

• Right to be informed – you have the right to be told how your personal information will be used. This Policy and other policies and statements used on this website and in our communications are intended to provide you with a clear and transparent description of how your personal information may be used.
• Right of access – you can write to us to ask for confirmation of what information we hold on you and to request a copy of that information (and other related information). Provided we are satisfied that you are entitled to see the information requested and we have successfully confirmed your identity, we will provide you with your personal information subject to any exceptions that apply.
• Right of erasure – at your request we will delete your personal information from our records as far as we don't have an overriding legitimate reason for holding on to it (e.g. to comply with a legal obligation).
• Right of rectification – if you believe our records of your personal information are inaccurate, you have the right to ask us to update those records. You can also ask us to check the personal information that we hold about you if you are unsure whether it is up to date or not.
• Right to restrict processing – you have the right to ask us to restrict the processing of your personal information if there is disagreement about its accuracy or whether our use is legitimate or not.
• Rights related to automated decision-making – where we take automated decisions in relation to your personal information with no human involvement (i.e. such as credit scoring) you have the right to ask us for human intervention or to challenge any such decision.
• Right to object – you have the right to object to processing where we are: (i) processing your personal information on the basis of the legitimate interests ground (see 'Legal basis for processing' above) and we have no compelling reason we can demonstrate to continue with that processing; (ii) using your personal information for direct marketing, or; (iii) using your personal information for statistical purposes.

It is always your choice as to whether you want to receive information about our work, how we raise funds and the ways you can get involved. If you do not want us to continue to contact you, you have the right to object or change your mind at any time.

You may opt-out of our marketing communications at any time by clicking the ‘unsubscribe’ link in at the end of our marketing emails or by sending us an "opt-out" text message, following the instructions we provide you in our initial text.

You can also change or edit any of your contact preferences at any time (including telling us that you don't want us to contact you for marketing purposes by telephone, or by post) by contacting our Customer Support Centre on 0300 330 3322 or [email protected] or you can write to: Customer Support Centre, British Heart Foundation, Compton House, 2300 The Crescent, Birmingham Business Park, Birmingham, B37 7YE.

If you have indicated that you do not wish to be contacted by us for marketing purposes, we will retain your details on a 'do not contact' list to help ensure that we do not contact you accidentally. However, we may still need to contact you if you carry on dealing with us, including (but not limited to):

• Processing a donation you make or any continuing direct debit;
• Providing you with information you need in order to participate in an activity or event for which you have registered;
  Explaining and apologising where we have made a mistake; and

Dealing with future legal claims in connection with a contract we have with you

You can also enter your details on the Fundraising Preference Service (FPS) website and choosing ‘British Heart Foundation’ (Charity Number 699547 or in Scotland No. SC039426). This service is run by the Fundraising Regulator and allows you to stop email, telephone, addressed post, and/or text messages from a selected charity or charities by using the online service at fundraisingpreference.org.uk or by calling the telephone helpline on 03003033517. Once you have made a request through the FPS, we will ensure that your new preferences take effect within 28 days of your request.

To exercise any of these rights, please send a description of the personal information in question to our Data Protection Office at the address shown in the Contact us section below. Please note that some of these rights may be subject to legal restrictions, which we'll tell you about if they apply.

For more information about your rights or if you are not happy with our response to your request, you can contact the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) – for more details, see https://ico.org.uk

We do not sell or rent your information to third parties for marketing purposes. However, we may disclose your personal information in the following circumstances:

• To other BHF entities, trading subsidiaries, suppliers or service providers to provide the products or services you've requested from our website(s). For example, where, we use a separate company to deliver goods to you.
• To third parties who support our operations and services under our instructions. The legal phrase used to describe these types of third parties is 'data processor'. These third parties include trusted partners (e.g. Workday (our Human Resource Management Platform) (https://www.workday.com), StarVale Management & Technologies Ltd (our external lottery managers), MDA (Fulfilment House) (https://www.mdams.com/), Blackbaud (Non-Profit Software and Donor Management and Fundraising) (https://www.blackbaud.co.uk), Adobe (customer marketing management system) (https://business.adobe.com/uk/products/experience-manager/adobe-experience-manager.html) Microsoft (storage and authentication services) (https://www.microsoft.com) that work with us to assist us in achieving our charitable aims and objectives, and other entities that act as fundraisers for BHF, sell BHF products or deliver BHF information and marketing support on our behalf (subject to your communication preferences). We require these third parties to act lawfully in accordance with our instructions and ensure that appropriate controls are in place to keep your information secure. We regularly monitor the activities of these companies and partners to ensure they are complying with the BHF's high standards of care.
• We may provide your email address or mobile phone number in an encrypted format to social media companies, such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or YouTube, or to digital advertising networks that are providing services to us by displaying our advertising to you on those social media platforms and other websites, as well as identifying audiences with interests similar to yours. You can opt out of your data being used in this way by contacting our Supporter Care Team or our Data Protection Officer as described below. However, this may not prevent our advertisements being shown to you where you have not been targeted personally.
• Where we are under a duty to disclose your personal information in order to comply with any legal obligation (for example, where ordered by government bodies and law enforcement agencies), or in order to enforce or apply our rights (including in relation to lawful operation of our website or enforcing applicable terms and conditions) or to protect the BHF, for example in cases of suspected fraud or defamation.

If you contact our cardiac nurses, dietitians or customer support officers on our Heart Helpline, you may choose to provide details of a personal nature in particular about your health or someone else’s health. Only the Heart Helpline cardiac nurses, dietitians or customer support officers will use this personal information and only for the purposes of responding to your enquiry. They will not pass the personal information on to anyone else without your express permission, except in exceptional circumstances to comply with the nurses’ NMC code of professional conduct or the law.

Your call will be recorded for quality and monitoring purposes and stored on a secure database where access is only granted to the Clinical Team Manager and a member of IT staff. The call will be retained for two years, after which it will be deleted. Your details will not be used for marketing or any other purposes. If for any reason you want your details removed from these records, please contact the Heart Helpline.

Who is this Young Person's Privacy Policy for?

This policy is specially aimed at you, if you are a 'young person'. This means someone under the age of 18 years. 

Why do we need a Privacy Policy?

If we are collecting information that says something about you and you can be identified from it, this is called 'personal data'.  By law, the British Heart Foundation (BHF) needs to provide you with this Privacy Policy to tell more you about: 
• what personal data about you we collect;
• when we collect that data;
• what we use that personal data for; 
• who else may handle it; and
• your rights under the law. 

What personal data does the BHF collect about me? And how?

The vast majority of young people's personal data that we collect is through you providing that information with us. We collect personal data in the following ways: 

• Information you give us. For example, when you post information on our social media or message boards, make a donation to us or register for an event or you apply to be a volunteer. When you register, we’ll ask for personal information like your name, email address, telephone number, date of birth, bank account details for setting up a regular direct debit gift and contact preferences.

• Information we get from your use of our website and services. We collect information about our online content that you use and how you use it, like when you visit our websites or view and interact with our ads and content. We, like many organisations, are able to confirm what browser you are using, IP address and computer operating systems that are being used and this information may be used to improve the services we offer. Please see our Cookie Policy below for more detail.

• Information from third parties. We may also receive information about you from our third party partners with whom you choose to interact, for example websites such as JustGiving when making a donation or Ebay when buying BHF related products. This can include information such as your name, postal or email address, phone number, your geographic location and debit card details and whether you are a tax payer so that we can claim Gift Aid. 

• Information available publicly. We may use information found in public places such as Companies House, LinkedIn and information that has been published in articles/newspapers. 

What about more sensitive information?

The law says that some kinds of personal data need to be handled more sensitively than others. The sensitive personal data the BHF handles about young people is usually limited to information about:

• Your heart condition and the name of the hospital you are being treated under the BHF's Teen Heart programme. 
• Your ethnic origin if you are provide this in a survey or form, but we only use this information to anonymously monitor diversity of our audience. 
• Health condition(s) you inform us of in the volunteering application form. 
 

We also promise:

• To only ever use information about your health or ethnic origin, where you or your parent or guardian has given consent 
• Never to analyse or target (or take any decision) regarding any young person based on their gender, age or ethnic origin.
What do we use young people's personal data for? 

The personal data about young people we receive is normally used for one or more of the following purposes:
• To provide support to you (or your family) as a young person with a heart condition; 
• To provide information in BHF guides, leaflets or DVDS and to send email updates about campaigns or events;  
• To offer support programmes such as Teen Heart;
• To enable you to take part in a fundraising activity or event (such as the Duke of Edinburgh Award scheme or school fundraising activities);
• You may provide personal data if you take part in a survey or case study. If you agree to take part in a case study, the information we receive about you is used to create a resource to be published on our website or in our Heart Matters magazine or in our in house volunteer magazine. 

Sometimes we collect and use personal data about a young person in the following limited situations: 

• in relation to the BHF's 'Give in Celebration' service if they are the person receiving the gift;
• if we accept a work experience student who is a young person at the BHF or in one of our shops; or
• in connection with the running of our shops. For example, if a young person has committed an offence or had an accident in one of these shops.

Does BHF share young people's personal data with anyone else?

We never sell or give your personal data to anyone else other than:
• Some companies who hold data for us to provide support to our organisation, such as a website hosting company; 
• Where the law obliges us to share your data with a public authority, the police or courts or we have to do share data with a professional adviser, such as a lawyer in connection with legal claims; or 
• If you agree to take part in a case study, information about you (including any audio or video recording) will need to be sent to the media agency or production company that we use to create the case study. 
We make sure any company or agency who we give your personal data to, will only do what we tell them with that data and will always respect your privacy and security.

How long does BHF hold my data?

We keep your personal data only for as long as we need to use it for the purposes set out in this Policy.  

Personal information that we no longer need is securely disposed of and/or anonymised so you can no longer be identified from it. Some personal information may be retained by us in archives for statistical or historical research purposes although we will do this in a manner that complies with data protection law.

We continually review what personal information and records that we hold, and delete what is no longer required. We never store payment card data after the transaction has been complete. 

What legal basis does BHF have for using my personal data?

The law requires us to set out the grounds on which we collect and process your personal data. One or more of the grounds listed below may apply:

Consent:

In many instances, we will rely on obtaining consent, either your consent or the consent or your parent or guardian to use your personal data.

What you can consent to:

• If you are aged 13 to 17 and you wish to sign up to Teen Heart.
• If you are aged 16 to 17 you can consent to participate in a BHF event or acquire goods or services online. 

When the consent of a parent or guardian is needed: 

• You are under 13
• If you are under 16 and wish to participate in an event or acquire goods or services online
• You are under 18 and wish to:

o Volunteer with BHF
o Have your photo taken, be videoed, interviewed or provide written material to promote the work of BHF; or 
o Participate in a Teen Heart event

If you provide your consent to us (or we obtain it from your parent or guardian) to use your personal data, you can withdraw consent, at any time in the future, by calling 0300 330 3322 or by emailing [email protected]

Legitimate Interest:

In certain instances, we collect and use your personal information by relying on the legitimate interest ground. This means the processing is necessary for the ‘legitimate interests’ of BHF as it helps us work towards our vision of a world without heart and circulatory disease. We will only rely on this ground where we have balanced the interests of BHF against any potential impact (both positive and negative) on your rights and interests. We would not use your personal data for activities where the interests of BHF are overridden by the impact on you.   

Where we rely on legitimate interests, we are using personal data in a way that people would expect us to, or we have a compelling reason. Examples include: 

• Providing information about heart health;
• Administering events;
• Staff recruitment and taking applications for volunteers and contacting volunteers about their role; and
• The use of CCTV recording equipment in and around our premises for monitoring and security purposes

Legal Obligation:

We may need to collect, process and disclose personal information to comply with the law. For example, store a gift aid declaration if you have made a donation and wish to claim gift aid. We may use personal data in relation to a legal claim.

Performance of a contract:

It may be necessary for us to process your personal data to carry out a contract you have entered into with us. For example, if you would like to donate furniture to BHF, we will need your address to come collect the furniture. 

What are my legal rights?

The law gives you 'data protection rights' to control how we use the personal data we hold about you. In short, you can ask us at any time to:

• stop using your personal data (or 'forget' about you) in most cases;
• correct any data we hold; 
• tell you about the personal data we hold (and provide you with a copy); and
• complain to the regulator https://ico.org.uk/

If I want to use these data protection rights, what do I do?

You can find out more about your rights by clicking here: bhf.org.uk/privacy. The ‘Your rights’ section may be particularly helpful.  

Can I get more information?

Yes, if you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, your personal data or your data protection rights, please contact: the Data Protection Office, Legal and Corporate Governance Department, British Heart Foundation, 180 Hampstead Road, London NW1 7AW or email: [email protected]

If I don't like the answer I get from the BHF, can I contact anyone else? 

If you don't get the answer you would like from us or you have a complaint about how we use your personal data, you can contact the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), whose website is https://ico.org.uk.

We are committed to protecting vulnerable supporters. Please refer to our Vulnerable Supporters Policy on our website under the ‘We are respectful’ section of our Supporter Promise page.

https://www.bhf.org.uk/about-us/supporter-promise

If you post or send any content that we believe to be inappropriate, offensive or in breach of any laws, such as defamatory, abusive, or hateful content on our forums or social media pages, if necessary, we may use your personal information to inform relevant third parties such as your internet provider or law enforcement agencies.

Your information is normally kept within the UK or within the European Economic Area (EEA) and this is a priority for the BHF when selecting where we host and use your information.

On some occasions, we may have to use services of other parties that host your information outside of these areas. When this occurs, we will only ever use highly reputable suppliers that have gone through our information security due diligence, have contractual clauses about the high standard of data processing, and meet all requirements that your information is looked after to a standard as if it were in the UK or the EEA. If and when this occurs usually this is a company in the USA.

For more information about this please contact us using the Contact Us section below.

We keep your personal information only for as long as we need to use it for the purposes set out in this Policy.

We have adopted a data retention policy that sets out the different periods we retain personal information for in respect of these relevant purposes. The criteria we use for determining these retention periods is based on various legal requirements; the purpose for which we hold data and whether there is a legitimate reason for continuing to store it (such as in order to deal with any future legal disputes); and guidance issued by relevant regulatory authorities including, but not limited to, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO).

Personal information that we no longer need is securely disposed of and/or anonymised so you can no longer be identified from it. Some personal information may be retained by us in archives for statistical or historical research purposes although we will do this in a manner that complies with applicable data protection law.

We continually review what personal information and records that we hold, and delete what is no longer required. We never store payment card data after the transaction has been completed.

If you would like to receive further information about this Policy or any of our safeguards, please contact the Data Protection Office, Legal and Corporate Governance Department, British Heart Foundation, 180 Hampstead Road, London NW1 7AW or email [email protected]