Privacy Notice

1. INTRODUCTION

We are World Habitat (“we”, “our”, “us”) of Memorial Square, Coalville, Leicestershire, LE67 3TU (Charity Number 270987). Like most charities, we operate through a company limited by guarantee, the registration number of which is 1247918. For the purposes of data protection law, we will be a controller of the personal information we hold about you. This means we make decisions about how and why your information is used, and have a legal duty to make sure that your rights are protected when we do so.  Please read this policy in conjunction with our Terms and Conditions, which set out the terms on which you may access https://www.world-habitat.org/ (our “Website”).

World Habitat respects the privacy of visitors to our Website and is committed to protecting visitors’ personal data. As required by data protection law, we follow strict security procedures in our storage and disclosure of any information that you have given us. If you have any questions about our Privacy Policy, please contact us by writing to us at our registered address given above, telephoning us on 01530 510444 or contacting us via e-mail at info@world-habitat.org.

2. WHAT INFORMATION DO WE COLLECT?

When you visit our Website and sign up for our newsletter or calendar, we may ask for the following personal information about you:

• your name;
• your organisation;
• your email address;
• your address; and
• your position.

If you contact us for another reason, we will keep a record of that correspondence, but will not use your details to send you our newsletter or calendar unless you specifically ask to receive them.

World Habitat Awards and Peer Exchanges

If you apply for our annual World Habitat Award, or to attend one of our peer exchanges, we will ask for personal information about you as part of the application process. This may include:

• your contact details;
• details of your projects/activities in the housing sector;
• your bank information;
• your passport information; and
• your emergency contacts.

Sensitive Personal Information

We will not typically ask for information that is particularly sensitive – that is, information relating to your race or ethnic origin, political opinion, religious or other similar beliefs, trade union membership, physical or mental health, sexual orientation or criminal records. However, we may need to know sensitive personal data about you if you apply to attend one of our peer exchanges. This may include details about your medical health, in order to evaluate your suitability to participate in the exchange you have applied for.

Personal Information You Disclose About Other People

If you apply for one of our World Habitat Awards and your submission contains personal information about others, including sensitive personal information, it is your responsibility to ensure that the person you have provided personal information about has given you permission to disclose it to us, and is aware of how it will be used.

Technical data

When you visit our Website, we may collect technical data about the device you are using, including where available your IP address, operating system and browser type. This is used for system administration and to improve the look and feel of our Website.  See section 3 (Use of Cookies) for more about the technical data we collect through cookies.

3. USE OF COOKIES

Cookies are small pieces of information that are stored on your browser on the hard-drive of your device.

We use the following types of cookies:

(a)          Strictly necessary cookies. These are cookies that are required for the operation of our Website. These essential cookies are always enabled because our Website won’t work properly without them. They include, for example, cookies that enable you to log into secure areas of our Website, or to remember who you are as you progress through the pages of one of our application forms.

(b)          Analytical/performance cookies. These cookies allow us to recognise and count the number of visitors and to see how visitors move around our Website when they are using it. This helps us to improve the way the Website works, for example, by ensuring that users are finding what they are looking for easily.

(c)           Social Media Sharing Buttons. We do use sharing buttons in order to make it easier for you to follow our content via your social media pages. These buttons are third-party cookies which are placed onto your device when you visit our Website. Even without you clicking on the relevant sharing button, these sites are aware that you have visited our Website, and may use this information when building their profile of you, and deciding what advertisements you might like to see. You should check the respective policies of each of these social networks to see how exactly they use your personal information. This process does not involve us collecting or storing any of your personal information ourselves.

Google Analytics

Our Website uses Google Analytics for internal analysis of visitor behaviour and trends, to evaluate traffic flow (e.g. busiest times of day/week) and to assess the relative popularity of different parts of our Website. We use the information we collect to monitor the number of visitors to the different sections of our Website, and to help us make it more useful to visitors. We do not share individual data or track user behaviour after you have left our Website.

Any information collected will be used in accordance with our own privacy policy and Google’s privacy policy. If you do not wish to participate, you can:

• opt out of Google’s use of cookies through Google’s Ads Settings; or
• refuse the use of cookies by downloading and installing the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on.

4. OTHER SITES

Our Website may contain links to other sites. These are outside of our control and are not covered by this Privacy Policy. If you access other sites using the links provided, the operators of these sites may collect information from you, which will be used by them in accordance with their own privacy policies, which may differ from ours.

5. HOW WE USE YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

We will only use your personal information when the law allows us to. Most commonly, we will use it in the following circumstances:

• where we have your consent, e.g. if you sign up for our e-newsletter, the e-mail address you supply will only be used to send you information on World Habitat activities;
• where we need to perform a request from you e.g. when you request World Habitat documents, your provided email address will be used to follow up that request, but for no other purpose;
• where it is necessary for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests (see the “Legitimate Interests” section below); or
• where we need to comply with a legal or regulatory obligation.

We retain only your email address in order to notify you of new publications and we do not sell, rent, loan, trade or lease email addresses to any third party.

We may use personal information held about you in the following ways:

• to send you news and information on World Habitat activities and upcoming events in the form of an e-newsletter;
• to evaluate and progress applications for one of our peer exchange programmes;
• to deal with your enquiries, comments or requests; and
• to follow up a feedback form, in order to get a better picture of our visitor’s needs.

World Habitat Awards

If you apply for one of our World Habitat Awards and submit your project proposal to us, we will use your personal information to:

• process your submission;
• share your submission with the judges (all personal contact data will be hidden);
• communicate with you about the awards event; and
• if you are a finalist or a winner, your submission will be published on our Website.

6. LEGITIMATE INTERESTS

We may rely on legitimate interests to process your personal information, provided that your interests do not override our own.

Where we rely on legitimate interests, these interests are:

(a)          to keep our records updated and to study how our Website and other services are used;

(b)          to administer and protect our business and web presence (including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, system maintenance, support, reporting and hosting);

(c)           to inform our marketing strategies; and

(d)          to grow our business.

7. KEEPING YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION SAFE

We employ a variety of physical and technical measures to keep your personal information safe and to prevent unauthorised access to, use or disclosure of it. We control who has access to your data (using both physical and electronic means). We have a set of detailed data protection procedures, which they are required to follow when handling personal information.

8. STORAGE AND RETENTION

We typically store your personal information on servers located within the UK and/or the European Economic Area (“EEA”). However, there are times where the information that we collect from you may be transferred to, and stored at, a destination outside the UK or the EEA e.g., if you participate in one of our peer exchange events, we will need to transfer your personal information into the jurisdiction where the event is due to take place. We will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that any personal data transferred outside the UK or the EEA is treated securely and in accordance with applicable data protection laws. Please contact us if you want further information on the specific mechanism used by us when transferring your personal data out of the UK or the EEA.

How long we keep it

We collect and store personal information for purposes connected with our business. As such, we will only retain your personal information for as long as is reasonably necessary for those purposes. If you would like further information concerning details of retention periods for different aspects of your personal data, please contact us using the details given in section 1 (Introduction).

9. THIRD PARTIES

We will not disclose your personal information to any third party for marketing purposes. However, if you are partaking in a peer exchange or are one of the winners of our World Habitat Awards, we may share your personal information as follows:

• in order to book relevant travel services on your behalf (e.g. flight or hotel services if appropriate);
• for purposes connected with the award e.g. if you are a finalist or winner, we will publish details about your project on our Website; and
• with peer exchange hosts or other participants.

We may also share your personal data with third parties to whom we may choose to sell, transfer or merge parts of our business or our assets. Alternatively, we may seek to acquire other businesses or merge with them. If a change happens to our business, then the new owners may use your personal data in the same way as set out in this privacy policy.

We require all third parties to respect the security of your personal data and to treat it in accordance with the law.

10. DISCLOSURES REQUIRED BY LAW

We are subject to the law like everyone else. We may be required to give information to legal authorities if they so request or if they have the proper authorisation such as a search warrant or court order.

We also may need to retain and disclose certain personal information about you to regulatory authorities and to appropriate agencies to conduct anti-money laundering and trade sanction checks and to assist with fraud prevention. We will disclose this information as is required by law.

11. FAILURE TO PROVIDE PERSONAL DATA

Where we need to collect personal information by law, or under the terms of a contract we have with you, and you fail to provide that information when requested, we may not be able to perform the contract we have or are trying to enter into with you (for example, sending you our newsletter, or evaluating and progressing your application for one of our peer exchange programmes). We will notify you if this is the case at the time.

12. ACCESS TO YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

We want you to remain in control of your personal information. Part of this is making sure you understand your legal rights, which are as follows:

• where your personal information is processed on the basis of consent, the right to withdraw that consent;
• the right to confirmation as to whether or not we are holding any of your personal information and, if we are, to obtain a copy of it;
• from 25 May 2018, the right to have certain data provided to you in a portable electronic format (where technically feasible);
• the right to have inaccurate personal information rectified;
• the right to object to your personal information being used for marketing or profiling, or on the basis of our or a third party’s legitimate interests;
• the right to restrict how your personal information is used; and
• the right to be forgotten, which allows you to have your personal information erased in certain circumstances (though this is not an absolute right and may not apply if we need to continue using it for a lawful reason).

If you would like further information about any of your rights or wish to exercise them, please contact us using the details given in section 1 (Introduction).

Please keep in mind that there are exceptions to the rights above and, though we will always try to respond to your satisfaction, there may be situations where we are unable to do so (for example, because the information no longer exists or there is an exception which applies to your request).

If you are not happy with our response, or you believe that your data protection or privacy rights have been infringed, you should contact the UK Information Commissioner’s Office, which oversees data protection compliance in the UK. Details of how to do this can be found at www.ico.org.uk.

13. UPDATING THIS NOTICE

We may update this Policy at any time. When we do, we will post a notification on the main page of our Website and we will also revise the updated date at the bottom of this page. We encourage users to frequently check this page for any changes to stay informed about how we are helping to protect the personal information we hold.

This policy was last updated on 7 November 2023.