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Privacy policy

Now Foster is registered in England and Wales as a company limited by guarantee (company number 13988407). Registered and postal address: Stanford Farm, Halfway House, Shrewsbury, England, SY5 9DW. Now Foster are committed to protecting your privacy and personal data we hold. 

To this end, Now Foster (‘we’) are fully committed to compliance with the requirements of UK data protection law. We will follow procedures that aim to ensure that all staff members and trusted volunteers who have access to any personal data (including paper-based and computer records) held by or on behalf of Now Foster are fully aware of and abide by their duties and responsibilities under UK data protection law. 

All personal information (including paper-based or computer records) will be handled in accordance with data protection law. Now Foster has procedures and safeguards in place to ensure this. 

This privacy statement applies to all personal data we collect except personal data of applicants and employees which we process in the context of recruitment and employment. 

If you want to contact Now Foster directly about your personal data, you can email us at data@nowfoster.org. 

If you have any questions regarding this policy, please contact the Data Protection Officer at data@nowfoster.org.

Collecting personal data

Now Foster collects personal data about potential employees, potential foster carers, individuals affiliated with partner organisations, supporters, and visitors to our websites.

We collect information directly from you when you contact Now Foster about our activities, express your interest in our programme, attend an event, register as a supporter, or send or receive information. This information may include your name, email address, postal address, date of birth, and any other details which you explicitly provide, for example details about your career or family circumstances. This information might be submitted with your expression of interest.  

We collect personal data about you automatically through our use of cookies and similar technologies when you use this website. This includes personal data about your interactions with our website, time spent on pages, and interactions with tools on the website such as social media plugins. More information can be found in the section ‘Cookies and Similar Technologies’ below. 

Using and sharing personal data

If you are applying to foster with Now Foster, we use your personal data to process your enquiry, contacting you in relation to your expression of interest and responding to any enquiries you may have about your application. 

If you are a participant in the Now Foster programme, we use your personal data to obtain updates about your fostering journey, contact you in relation to your participation in the programme, and to respond to any questions you may have. 

If you are a potential foster carer, if you are an individual affiliated with one of our partner organisations or are a supporter, we use your personal information to stay in touch with you and to respond to any enquiries you may have. 

We may share your personal data, such as your contact details and application details, with fostering services that we partner with. We will be in touch with you to seek express permission to do this as part of your application to foster.  

We may also share your personal data with third parties who perform services on our behalf. For example, we may issue invitations to events or send newsletters through Mailchimp. We will not send you marketing messages such as for newsletters or events unless you have opted in to receive these messages. If you opt in to receive the newsletter via our website, the details you input are transferred into Mailchimp. 

Mailchimp is based in the United States, but Standard Contractual Clauses are in use with these organisations, which means they are considered as providing adequate safeguards for international transfers. 

With the exception of sending marketing messages, we use your personal data for all these purposes on the basis that it is in our legitimate interests to administer the Now Foster programme efficiently. It is also in our legitimate interests to remain in contact with you to ensure that we are providing the best service possible, that any complaints or concerns can be dealt with promptly, and that our records are kept accurate and up to date. We intend to do this through surveys and newsletters to anyone who has submitted an expression of interest. 

Cookies

We want to make our website easy, useful, and reliable. Where services are delivered on the internet, this sometimes involves placing small amounts of information on your device or extracting information stored on that device. This includes storing small files known as ‘cookies’, and other similar technologies such as pixels, tags and web beacons (together, we call these “Cookies”). 

A Cookie may be a ‘session’ Cookie, that is, a Cookie that remains on your device or browser while you are logged on to a particular website and then disappears when you close your browser, or it may be a ‘persistent’ Cookie, a cookie that remains on your browser over a period. Information from a Cookie may be collected and used in aggregate form. 

Some cookies are served directly by Now Foster or on our behalf, while others are served by third parties, such as by advertising and data analytics providers who use that data to provide services and to improve their own services. 

We use different types of cookies, including: 

  • Strictly Necessary cookies, which are necessary for us to provide our website. 

  • Functionality cookies, including Google Analytics, which help us analyse usage of our website; and 

  • Advertising and Social Media cookies, including Meta, LinkedIn, and Google Advertising cookies, to allow us to provide targeted advertising and to allow you to connect to social media services 

Strictly necessary cookies are always enabled. But we only use Functionality and Advertising and Social Media cookies with your consent.  

All computers have the ability to decline cookies. You can easily decline or remove cookies from your computer using the settings within the Internet Options section in your browser control panel. 

List of pixels’ on-site generating cookies: 

  • Meta 

  • LinkedIn 

  • Google Ads 

  • Google Tag Manager 

  • Google Analytics 

By using our site, you agree to accept this privacy policy and are aware that our policy may change with time. Any changes to this policy will appear on this web page. 

Retention of personal data

We will keep your personal data for as long as you are an applicant to or a participant in the programme, a part of the Now Foster Network, a supporter, or for as long as you remain affiliated to a partner organisation. When determining how long we will retain your data beyond this period, we take into account our legal obligations and the expectations of regulators, as well as how long we need to retain that data for our internal audit purposes. 

Your rights over personal data

Please let us know if any of your personal data that we hold about you changes so that we can correct and update the information on our systems. You have the right to require Now Foster to delete or update your personal data, including if and in what format you would like to be sent marketing communications. 

You also have the right to ask us for a copy of the information we hold about you or ask us to correct it if you think it is wrong. In certain circumstances you may object to specific processing activities, require us to restrict how we process your personal information and ask us to share your personal information in a usable format with another company. Where you have given your consent to a particular type of processing, you may withdraw that consent at any time. 

To exercise any of the above rights, please contact us by emailing data@nowfoster.org or by clicking on ‘Contact Us’ in the navigation bar and using the contact options there. 

How to make a complaint

If you are unhappy with the service we provide in relation to your personal details, please contact us by emailing data@nowfoster.org or by clicking on ‘Contact Us’ in the navigation bar and using the contact options there. You have the right to complain to the Information Commission. The Information Commissioner can be contacted via: 

  • http://www.ico.gov.uk/complaints.aspx 

  • Phone: 0303 123 1113 

Contact us and changes

If you have any questions regarding this policy, you can hello@nowfoster.org  or click on ‘Contact Us’ in the navigation bar and use the contact options there.   

You may request a copy of this privacy statement from us by emailing data@nowfoster.org or by clicking on ‘Contact Us’ in the navigation bar and contacting us.   

We may modify or update this privacy statement from time to time. You will be able to see when we last updated the privacy statement because we will include a revision date. Changes and additions to this privacy statement are effective from the date on which they are posted. Please review this privacy statement from time to time to check whether we have made any changes to the way in which we use your personal information.