Privacy policy

Present Aid is owned and managed by Christian Aid, registered charity no. 1105851.

Christian Aid is committed to protecting your privacy. We ensure that all your personal information is held securely and safely.

This privacy policy explains how we collect, use and store information, and what that might mean for you.

Christian Aid holds and processes personal details in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998 and is registered with the information commissioner (registration no. Z7037769) as a data controller. Christian Aid Ltd, the trading arm of Christian Aid, is also registered with the information commissioner (registration no. Z7037801).

If you have any questions about how your data is handled, please contact us on dataprotection@christian-aid.org or telephone us on +44 (0)20 7620 2315 between 8 am and 6 pm GMT.

Your rights

It is your right to request details of the information we hold about you. For a copy of your personal information held by us, write to

Michael Griffiths
Data controller
PO Box 100
Christian Aid
London SE1 7RT
United Kingdom

together with a cheque for ?10 made out to 'Christian Aid' (to cover administrative costs). We will respond within 40 days of receiving your letter. Make sure you also send proof of identity, such as a photocopy of your passport or UK or Irish driver's license, to ensure that there's no mix-up between your identity and someone else's.

For more information about data protection and your rights, see the information commissioner's website at www.dataprotection.gov.uk

What information we collect

We collect data from our website for a number of reasons, primarily to provide you with the most useful and relevant information and services from Present Aid, Christian Aid and Christian Aid Limited. We do this through collecting and analysing both anonymous, or aggregate, data, and personal data volunteered by you online.

In some areas of our website, for example forms, orders, emails, polls and survey submissions, we will collect personal data such as your name, address, telephone number and email. We will use this information only for the reason you have supplied it or any other reason for which you have given us permission to do so.

Where relevant, information is provided to explain why the data is being collected and how it will be used. In some cases we may ask you to 'opt-in' to receive future communications including email, or text marketing. In other cases, when we ask you for information about yourself you may, by ticking the appropriate box provided, tell us that you do not want future communications from us.

Should it be necessary to collect sensitive personal data, such as religious affiliation, you will be asked for your consent for us to process this data. We will also explain why we are asking for it.

In addition to information given explicitly by you, we also collect information about your visit to our website.

Customer tracking and cookies

We may use technology to track the patterns of behaviour of our visitors to Present Aid (for example, the date and time of your visit and the pages that you view). This information is not connected to you personally, and is in aggregate form. This kind of data helps us to understand how our visitors use the site so that future website development can better meet your needs, deliver appropriate products or special offers to you.

In some circumstances, we collect this data using cookies. A cookie is an alphanumeric text file that is sent from a website and stored on your computer's hard drive by your web browser. Cookies allow a website to remember who you are, so that when you visit them again, they recognise you as a visitor and can help you with personalised information in filling out forms, for instance, or signing in. Most browsers allow you to turn off the cookie function. To do this, look at the help menu on your browser.

From time to time, we may use cookies to limit the number of times you are exposed to pop-up windows or other advertising. We also sometimes use cookies to track popular points of entry to our sites and routes around areas of our sites (that is, click paths) during specific appeals or campaigns.

As with other statistics about visitors to our sites, this tracking is anonymous and aggregate and does not relate to any information we might hold about individuals. If our usage of cookies changes in the future, this will be explained in our privacy policy.

www.cookiecentral.com is a good place to look if you want more information.

Why we're interested

The information we gather helps us to send you the right thing at the right time - to fulfil orders, send you updates and appeals for emergencies, and provide you with products or services.

We may also use your details to contact you some time in the future to tell you about our work. If there's a disaster overseas, we may write to you to tell you about the need for more funds, or we may write to tell you about a big campaign about which we think you might want to know more.

Our policy is to email you only if you have said that you want electronic communication from us. This is in accordance with the Privacy and Electronic Communication Regulations. All our emails will offer you the chance to decline future emails. If you are on our mailing list but no longer wish to receive information from us, customers can be removed from our records by call to our Customer Services team at (44) (0)20 7523 2280.

Respecting your privacy

As a matter of Present Aid and Christian Aid policy, we do not sell, rent or pass on any information about you to other organisations. However, we may share your data with subsidiary companies of Christian Aid and, if necessary to provide you with information or services that you have requested, with our partners or affiliates with whom we work or who work for us. If you do not wish us to use this information in this way, please email us at: info@christian-aid.org. We may also need to pass on information when required by law or by a regulatory body (for example, for a Gift Aid audit by the Inland Revenue or if asked for details by a law enforcement agency).

We may provide third parties with overall information about visitors and users to our site, but this information, as explained above, is both aggregate and anonymous. Your privacy is protected. Occasionally, we employ agents to carry out tasks on our behalf, such as fulfilling orders or processing donations. These agents are bound by our data handling policy to protect your privacy just as we would ourselves.

Checking and correcting your personal information

We want to make sure the information we hold about you is accurate and up to date. You can check the information that we hold about you by logging in to your Present Aid account. If you find any inaccuracies, or your contact details change, you should delete or correct it promptly. Similarly, if you do not wish to receive information about Present Aid, Christian Aid or Christian Aid Ltd, let us know. You can contact our Customer Services team at info@christian-aid.org.

Safe and secure

The personal information we have about you is held securely in accordance with our internal security policy and the law. As such we maintain a high level of physical and electronic security in relation to the collection, storage and disclosure of your information. When processing financial transactions, we use Secure Socket Layer (SSL) software, which encrypts information given over the internet. The software scrambles data transmitted between your computer and our server, where it is unscrambled securely.

However, as we all know, the internet carries risks. While we make every reasonable effort to ensure that information sent to us is done so securely, we cannot warrant the security of information transmitted to us through the internet. When you transmit information to us via the internet, you do so at your own risk.

Changes to Present Aid's privacy policy

From time to time, we will make changes to this policy to keep it up to date and relevant. Please make sure you check regularly to see what's changed. If you carry on visiting our site after an amendment has been made, this will constitute your acceptance of any amendments we have made to our privacy policy.

Present Aid/Christian Aid 2005