Privacy policy

Last updated: November 2025

At Contact, we are committed to protecting your privacy. Whenever you share personal data with us, we aim to be clear with you about how we process it and not to do anything with your data that you wouldn’t reasonably expect us to do.  

When processing your data, we do so in accordance with Data Protection law (UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018) 

This policy sets out what information we collect, how we use and protect it, and your rights to the data we hold on you. 

If you have any questions about our privacy policy, contact us at [email protected] 

If you are a parent carer forum and receive the Department for Education parent participation grant, you will agree to a separate privacy notice. You can access this via the grant application and grant monitoring forms. 

1. What type of information do we collect and where from?

When you give it to us directly  

We may ask for personal information about you, including your name, date of birth, email address, postal address, telephone number, the local authority that you live in and demographic information such as ethnicity and gender.  

Times when we would do this include when you: 

• Ask about our activities. 

• Take part in our activities. 

• Sign up for e-newsletters/bulletins. 

• Tell us your story for a case study. 

• Take part in our research. 

• Call, email or message our helpline.  

• Order products or services. 

• Make a donation. 

• Fundraise on our behalf. 

• Complete an online survey.  

This includes information that you may have provided to organisations that are now part of the Contact family and whose services Contact runs, such as Hemihelp.  

We collect this data to understand who we are helping with each service and if there are groups of families with disabled children that we are not reaching.  

In some circumstances, such as when you get in touch with the Contact helpline or access Contact’s services, we may ask about your children, including their ages, names, disability or medical condition, other people in your household, the type of education your child receives and your housing costs. You will always have the option to “prefer not to say”.   

Occasionally, it may be useful for us to find out why you are supporting us. This helps us understand the benefits of our work. You do not have to answer this question. We only want you to answer if you are happy doing so.  

When you give it to us indirectly 

Independent event organisers, such as Virgin London Marathon, or fundraising sites like Justgiving or Virgin Money Giving, may share your information with us. These independent third parties will only do this if you’ve indicated you’re happy for them to do so. You should check their privacy policy when you provide your information to understand fully how they will process your data.  

We may get your information via a referral from a third party, such as another charity or local authority. They should ask for your consent before sharing that information with us, or they should ensure they are using the appropriate legal basis for sharing data.

When we collect your information as you use our websites – Cookie use  

Our website and microsites use cookies – small text files placed on your device when you visit a website containing standard information such as your IP address, browser type and language, access times and referring website addresses. Based on the International Chamber of Commerce’s Guide for Cookie categorisation, we use the following cookies types: Advertisement; Analytics; Functional; Performance.     

We use both first-party (we own them) and third-party (our partners own them) cookies, trackers, pixels and similar technology: 

• To enable you to use all the features on our website. 

• To track how you use our site so we can improve our online services.  

• To share information (including information you provide to us such as email address; gender; location; full name; and phone number) about your use of our site with third-party supplies, such as our advertising and social media partners. This helps ensure our advertising is cost-effective and personalised to you These partners may combine this with other information you’ve provided to them when you’ve used their services.    

We recommend that you review the privacy policy or cookie policy for any search engines or websites that have linked you to our website. This is so that you fully understand the privacy policies they currently have in place.  

Managing cookies 

We ask visitors to our site to consent to all cookies or manage their cookie settings when they first visit our site and every 365 days thereafter. 

You can use the button below to manage the cookies we place on your device when you use this website. However, if you choose to prevent cookies, it is possible that core features of our website will not work. You may experience limited functionality from the website as a result.   

It is possible to prevent your web browser from accepting cookies. You can find details of how to change your local settings, and how to manage and delete cookies, on the website of the Information Commissioner’s Office. 

You can control what information your social media accounts gather about you from external websites by visiting your social media account settings.   

When you use our social media platforms  

We use third-party provider Metricool to monitor and manage our social media interactions. This service is governed by the privacy policy of the platform.  

Posts on our social media pages are available publicly. However, if you message or post a question to Contact directly on social media seeking advice, we will assume you give permission for us to respond, and if we do, we will process this data as we would when any user accesses our services. Your general use of our social media pages is subject to the privacy policies of the platform provider and your specific privacy account settings. 

We may use messages posted on Contact’s social media pages to document and promote our services. As part of this, we may scrape, anonymise and aggregate information that you post on our social media pages and community pages. We may then publish this information as a case study or share it with partners. We will only do this in line with the privacy policies and terms and conditions of those platforms. If we seek to use attributable quotes from our social media channels, we will always seek your permission first.  

Data for fundraising  

We use data you provide for the purpose of managing our fundraising efficiently and effectively so that we can raise more to spend on families with disabled children.  

We may gather information about you from publicly available sources to help us to understand more about you as an individual and your ability to support Contact. Occasionally we may contract a trusted third-party supplier to carry out a wealth screen to help us gain a better understanding of current and/or potential new supporters.  

This data is gathered entirely from publicly accessible and robust sources such as:  

• Public Registers: Companies House, the Electoral Commission (Political Donations), the Electoral Roll (Open Register), the FCA (Financial Services Register), the Law Society, the Land Registry.  

• Trade & Industry References, Professional directories, Charity Commission.  

• K Reference Volumes: Who’s Who, Debrett’s People of Today, Debrett’s Peerage and Baronetage, City of London Livery Company information, Trustfunding.org.uk.  

• Reliable print and broadcast media: newspapers (The Telegraph, The Times and Sunday Times, City AM), magazines, rich lists.  

• Internet: general google searches, company websites, online-only articles, social media, justgiving.com, linkedin.com.  

This research helps us understand more about you as an individual so we can focus conversations we have with you about fundraising and volunteering in the most effective way and ensure that we provide you with an experience as a donor or potential donor that is appropriate for you.  

You have the right to opt out of this processing at any time should you wish to. Please call 020 7608 8700 or email [email protected] 

2. How we use the information collected

We use your personal information to:  

• Provide you with the services, products or information you asked for. 

• Keep a record of your contact and relationship with us. 

• Understand more about our current supporters and identify or seek support from new potential supporters. 

• Ensure we know how you prefer us to contact you. 

• Keep you informed about our work. 

• Administer and acknowledge your donation or support your fundraising, including processing gift aid. 

• Understand how we can improve our services, products or information. For example, data on the services you access will be used anonymously and in aggregation with other user data to report back to our funders about the number of people reached and services delivered and to carry out research. 

Keeping a record of your contact with us

Information about the services you have accessed, including advice you have received from us, may be kept as a record of your contact with us where it is in our legitimate interest to do so, for instance to provide you with a better service if you get in touch again. This may include information you have given us in the course of receiving advice, such as about your child’s age and disability. 

We may combine information you provide to us with information available from publicly-available sources, for example listed Directorships or typical earnings in a given area.  

Building supporter profiles 

We may use publicly available information to find new potential supporters and invite them to be involved in supporting our cause through tailored communications that may be of interest to them.  

This is so that in some certain cases we can build a profile, better understand you and target our communications with the most relevant information. For example, we may wish to send you invitations to attend special events or to discuss specific fundraising projects. Where we use such profiles, it enables us to cost-effectively and efficiently raise funds to support our work. We also use publicly available sources to carry out due diligence on donors in line with our Gift Acceptance Policy and meet money laundering regulations. 

Developing a better understanding of our supporters through your personal data means we can make better decisions, fundraise more efficiently and, ultimately, support families with disabled children more effectively. 

Sending newsletters and other communications 

Contact communicates with beneficiaries and supporters by email, post, phone and text message. 

We will only contact you by each channel if you have asked us to do so – for example our regular updates – or where we believe you would reasonably expect us to – for example sending you reminders to an event you’ve signed up for.  

We might use personal information you have provided to tailor our communications to you. This may include: 

• Your contact details (e.g. formal titles or professional details you share with us – and from which we may derive gender; email address information; post code, etc). 

• Details about the generous donations you may have made to us in the past (e.g. gift amount, type of gift, banking and transaction information, etc). 

• Any connection to Contact you may have shared with us if you have given us permission to use in this way. 

• Other preferences expressing interest in particular aspects of our work and activities. 

We will always use this information with care and consideration. If you’d like to change how we communicate with you, or would like us to remove your details, please call 020 7608 8700 or email [email protected] 

If you would like to opt into our communications, visit www.contact.org.uk/sign-up  

What you’ll receive when you opt into our updates

When we invite you to opt into our regular communications, we will offer you a choice of communications channels and some options of what you’d like to hear about. These options are: 

Information & advice for parent carers (previously News updates) 

Includes our weekly newsletter What’s new – a round-up of news for parent carers from the disability sector and information about Contact’s projects, activities and services – alongside other ad hoc communications about our projects, activities and services for parent carers, sometimes based on your location. 

Our What’s new newsletter occasionally includes updates on our fundraising and campaigning activities. However, we will never send you direct appeals or emails specifically dedicated to those topics unless you’ve subscribed to our other updates (see below). 

Local office updates 

If you subscribe to updates from a particular Contact office – for example “News updates from Contact Cymru” – we’ll send you regular updates for parent carers from the disability sector with a local focus, alongside national stories and updates on contact’s information, advice and support projects and activities. 

Updates for campaigners 

Dedicated communications about opportunities to contribute to our campaigning work, including by signing petitions, contacting your MP or local authority, or becoming a media case study to bring to life the important issues we’re fighting. 

Updates on our work and how to support us (previously Supporter updates) 

Updates about our latest work and activities, including how donations are contributing to our work; giving appeals; opportunities to take part in fundraising events; and tips and suggestions for organising your own. 

Fundraising updates 

Dedicated communications about opportunities to take part in our fundraising events, tips and suggestions for organising your own fundraising activity, and appeals in which you can make a financial contribution to our work if you’d like to. 

Workshop updates 

We’ll send you communications about our new and upcoming workshops. You can choose which topics you’d like to hear about or we can tell you about all our sessions. 

Practitioner updates 

Information, news and offers around the services we provide to professionals working with families with disabled children. 

Updates about parent carer participation 

We’ll send you key information about our work supporting parent carer forums, including updates about health, special education and social care in England, news for local forums, Department for Education grant information, forum success stories, the latest news from the NNPCF and opportunities for forums to participate and shape policy and legislation. 

Hemihelp updates 

Communications from our Hemihelp team, including news, events, campaigns and activities and a regular Hemihelp newsletter. 

Rare Conditions Network updates 

Regular updates for rare conditions groups on funding and networking opportunities, details of our workshops, information to help support families and updates from the rare community. 

Other communication by email 

We may use email to give updates about or to ask for feedback on our services, in respect of an entry for an event and to thank our supporters. Our helpline will sometimes email people back with additional information or to confirm a call-back appointment with a parent adviser where you have agreed to a call-back appointment. Similarly, if you are receiving support from one of our family workers, they may email in relation to your appointment or with additional information. 

We may use email addresses and first name/last name details to identify ‘lookalike’ audiences on social media channels to provide information, services, or products that we feel may be of use or interest to those audiences. This involves uploading these supporter details to third-party social media organisations, including Facebook and Twitter, from which they identify ‘lookalike’ cohorts. This upload is governed by terms and conditions restricting the processing and use of the data and can be viewed on Facebook Business and Twitter Business. 

Other communication by post 

If you receive information by post from our helpline, we will never use your address to send you information unless we have your explicit consent to do so. We send magazines, publications, event information and invitations and fundraising materials by post to people who have asked to receive post from us or for legitimate interest reasons. All such communications include details on how to stop receiving these in future by phoning, emailing or writing to us. 

We very occasionally use third-party companies for large-scale mailings who would receive your contact details for this purpose only. These arrangements are governed by appropriate contracts that protect your personal data. . 

Other communication by phone 

We phone people who have consented to hear from us by phone or for legitimate interest reasons, and this may be to give updates about or to ask for feedback on our services, in respect of an entry for an event and to thank our supporters.  

Our helpline team will sometimes phone people back with additional information, or to confirm a call back appointment with a parent adviser. All these appointments are by telephone. Call back appointments are only made with the agreement of the individual. Similarly, if you are receiving support from one of our family workers, they may telephone in relation to your appointment or with additional information. 

Processing donation data 

If you donate money to Contact, we will record your personal details, which enable us to process your donation (for example if made by credit card or direct debit) and to claim Gift Aid where relevant. This may include some or all of your: name, address, telephone number, email, amount of donation, reason for donation, bank details, if you are a tax payer for Gift Aid purposes.  

We may contact you using these details in respect of your donation (for example to send an acknowledgement or receipt, to give notice of direct debit collection). 

Processing resource orders 

A range of advice and fundraising resources are available to order on our website. If you order any of these resources we will collect information from you necessary for fulfilment of that order including mailing to you, emailing to you and phoning you.  

Fulfilment may be carried out on our behalf by third-parties to whom we would pass your details for that purpose only. Such arrangements are governed by appropriate contracts with clauses included to protect your data. We will not use your details for other purposes unless you have given separate permission for us to do so. 

3. Legal basis and legitimate interests

When we collect and use your personal information, we will make sure we do this only in accordance with at least one of the legal grounds available to us under Data Protection law (UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018). 

Consent 

We have obtained your specific consent to use your information for a previously notified purpose, such as to send you email/text marketing or to provide you with a product, service or information at your request. 

Legal obligation 

We have a legal obligation to use or disclose information about you – for instance, 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. 

Legitimate interest 

We may collect and use personal information where this is necessary in our legitimate interest as a charity.  

This includes being able to: 

• Send direct marketing material to supporters by post or contacting them by telephone for fundraising purposes (subject to checking against the Telephone Preference Service and any existing marketing preferences). 

• Conduct research to better understand who our supporters are and better target our services, campaigning and fundraising activity. 

• Monitor who we deal with to protect our charity against fraud, money laundering and other risks. 

In all cases, we balance our legitimate interests against your rights as an individual. We make sure we only use personal information in a way or for a purpose that you would reasonably expect in accordance with this policy. We would also not intrude on your privacy or previously expressed marketing preferences. 

Where we process sensitive personal data, we will make sure that we only do so in accordance with one of the additional lawful grounds for processing such as where we have your explicit consent or you have made that information manifestly public. When we do this, we will tell you what sensitive personal data we are collecting and why. 

4. Who we share your information with

We will not sell your details to any third parties. We may sometimes share your information with people or organisations authorised to act on Contact’s behalf. For example, we may share your information with people or organisations who: 

• Process payments on our behalf. 

• Administer activities on our behalf (for instance if we subcontract a consultant or associate to deliver a service on our behalf). 

• Supply us with technology to provide you with a service, and/or to process your data safely and in accordance with your wishes (for example database solutions; email marketing tools; our website’s chat functionality). 

• Provide research and insight services to support fundraising (e.g. wealth screen service). 

• Update addresses to ensure any post we send goes to the correct and up-to-date address. 

In all these instances, we remain the data controller. The protection of your data will be covered by written agreements with any person or organisation who acts on our behalf, ensuring that they treat your data in a safe and legal way. 

In addition, we may exchange your personal information with other organisations for the purposes of fraud and credit risk reduction. In these circumstances, we always require strict compliance from these organisations and require that your personal information is not used for their own business and marketing purposes. 

Breaking confidentiality 

There are a few exceptional situations where we may have to breach confidentiality and pass on your details without your consent. 

Situations where we might need to break confidentiality: 

• A child is at risk of harm. 

• A vulnerable adult is at risk of harm. 

• You are at serious risk of immediate harm. 

• A terrorist threat has been made. 

• We have been ordered to share information with the courts. 

• A person poses a serious risk to others. 

If a decision is made to break confidentiality, we will make reasonable effort to keep your informed of what we intend to do. We will only ever share your data in circumstances outside of this if we have explicit and informed consent. 

5. How we keep your data safe

Contact is responsible for collecting your personal information. We use rigorous procedures when we collect your personal information to prevent unauthorised access.  

Any donation payment details are encrypted. The forms you complete on our site are transmitted through a secured connection (known as SSL). However, no data transmission over the internet is 100% secure. Although we try to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee the security of any information you transmit to us, and you do so at your own risk.  

We have appropriate technical controls in place to protect your personal details. We ensure that your information is only accessible by appropriately trained staff, volunteers and contractors with whom we have contracts that are compliant with data protection regulations.

6. How you can access and update your personal information 

If you would like to update the information that we have on our records, please email [email protected]  

You have a right to ask us to stop processing your personal data, to restrict how we process your data or to delete your data. If it’s not necessary for legal reasons or for the purpose you provided it to us for (e.g. processing your donation or registering you for an event) we will do so. Contact us on 020 7608 8700 or [email protected] if you have any concerns.  

You have a right to request access to any information we hold about you. If you wish to access your information, please contact us at [email protected]. We will ask you to complete a subject access request form to confirm your identity if necessary and provide you with the data you need. If there are any discrepancies in the information we provide, please let us know and we will correct them.  

For further information, we recommend reading the Information Commissioner’s guidance.  

If you have any concerns with the way we have handled your personal information, you can contact the ICO. 

7. How long we keep your data for

We keep your personal information only for as long as required to operate the service in accordance with legal requirements and tax and accounting rules. When we no longer require your information, we will ensure it is disposed of in a secure manner. 

We must keep donations and advice data (including records of helpline enquiries) for a minimum of seven years.

8. How we handle children’s data

We never use children’s data for marketing purposes. None of our services or the support we offer to parents is reliant on children’s data being shared with us. We use the data to ensure that we give the best possible support to the parent. We also use data on children for our own research purposes and to ensure that the services we offer are as effective as they can be in supporting parents. 

9. Changes to the policy

We review this policy annually and may update it from time to time. If we make any significant changes in the way we treat your personal information, we will make this clear on our website or by contacting you directly.  

If you have any queries about this Privacy policy, please contact us on [email protected]