Eco Dharma Centre | Radical Ecology Radical Dharma

privacy policy

At the Ecodharma Centre we respect your privacy and understand how important it is that your personal information remains secure. h3. We will not reveal information about you without your permission and will never disclose your attendance on a course or training unless we are required to do so for legal reasons or by the emergency services. h3. We hope that this statement answers any questions you may have regarding our care of your information but if you have any further questions please contact [email protected].

1. What information does the Ecodharma Centre collect about me?

Coming on trainings
In order to complete your booking we ask for the following information from you:

  • Name
  • Age
  • Country of Residence
  • Gender pronouns
  • Phone number
  • Email address
  • Gender identity
  • Whether you have any specific needs relating to a disability or health condition
  • Your aspirations for attending the training
  • Your previous experience of social change practice
  • How you aim to feed back what you will learn
  • Dietary requirements
  • Accommodation preferences
  • What you can donate as a contribution

We need this information in order to communicate with you about your booking and to help with room allocation. We do not collect sensitive information about you unless there is a clear reason for doing so, such as ensuring we meet specific needs you may have. We need this information to ensure that we can fulfil our duty of care to you and ensure expectations are met.

2. Who at the Ecodharma Centre has access to my data?

Course booking information
The information we store on our booking system is accessed by our Events Coordinator, Centre Coordinator and the Programme Director, as required as part of their duties.
The information you provide regarding your aspirations, previous experience and aims, along with any other related training needs is accessed by the facilitators who are running the course and the Programme Director.
Other members of staff may retrieve information from the booking system as part of their duties, for example to access numbers of bookings, for future programme planning, or in the event of an emergency when next-of-kin contact details may be needed.
In addition, our IT Consultants have access to our systems in order to provide us with the support we need.
We ensure that any third party we employ has a robust privacy policy and that appropriate compliance contracts are in place.
All of our staff – residential, non-residential and our IT Consultants – are aware of the importance of confidentiality and your right to privacy, and receive appropriate training on this issue.

Donation information
Donation information is accessed by our Events booking team as required as part of their duties, and for the purposes of issuing thank you communications.

3. How do you use my information to keep me up-to-date with Ecodharma Centre news and activities?

From May 2018, in line with our commitment to best practice around data protection, we will only contact you about our news, activities and fundraising appeals if you have specifically said you agree to us doing this, and we will only contact you in the way(s) you have agreed to.
Our communications consist of a quarterly e-newsletter and occasional emails from Ecodharma Centre on other news, activities and fundraising appeals which we send by email.
As of May 2018, you will only receive these communications if you have opted in. When opting in you can choose how you want to be contacted – whether by post, email, phone, or a combination of all three. It’s entirely up to you.
If you want us to keep you updated on our news, activities and fundraising appeals but haven’t yet opted in, you can do so here.
What if I want to change my communications preferences at a later date?
Every email message or e-newsletter we send includes a link to opt out of receiving future emails.
You can also let us know of any changes to your communications preferences by emailing [email protected]. You can contact us at any time to notify us of changes such as a new address or email address.
If you opt out of receiving our communications at any point, we will record this request on our database. This will ensure that you do not receive any further communications from us, unless in relation to any course bookings or donations.

4. Do you ever share my information with third parties?

We will not at any time sell or exchange your information. We may use other companies to provide services on our behalf. These are trusted partner organisations that work with us in connection with our charitable purposes. We only provide these partners with the information they need to deliver the required service. We ensure that any third party we employ has a robust privacy policy and that appropriate compliance contracts are in place. The third parties that we currently use are:

MailChimp – to distribute our e-newsletters. MailChimp’s Privacy Policy.
We do not share your information for any other purposes.

5. How is my credit/debit card information processed?

Online transactions
If you use your credit or debit card to donate to us, or pay for a course registration online those payments are currently processed by a secure third party website: www.paypal.com
We do not receive full credit or debit card details, following the completion of your transaction. Please review the Privacy Policy of Paypal should you wish to know how they manage your personal information.
Transactions made over the phone or via a Dana form following your retreat
If you use your credit or debit card to pay for a course or make a donation to us via a Dana form, we will ensure that this is done securely and in accordance with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard. Only staff authorised to process payments are able to see your card details.
After your transaction has gone through, your payment details are detached from the form and securely disposed of. This information is stored with our accounts in locked locations.
Standing Order forms
If you send us a Standing Order form by post, your form is stored by our Finance Department in a secure location for as long as your payments are active, after which point your form is securely disposed of.

6. How secure is the information I give you?

The Ecodharma Centre takes the care of your data seriously and undertakes to protect your personal information by putting in place appropriate physical, electronic, and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure the data we collect.
In today’s cyber environment it is unfortunately not possible to completely guarantee against loss, misuse or alteration of data, for example in the event of a successful cyber-attack. However, should this scenario arise, we have a robust data breach notification procedure in place and will contact you as soon as possible giving full details of any data that has been compromised.

7. How long will you keep my information?

Course booking information
The information you disclose in relation to your booking is held on our database to assist with your current booking and any future bookings. Building up historic information on the course you have attended helps us fulfil our duty of care to you and ensure your training needs are met.
Donation information
Your donation information is held on our database for financial auditing purposes and so that we can keep a record of your support for us.

8. The right to be forgotten

You have the right to be ‘forgotten’, which means that if you request us to, we will remove all the data that we hold on you from our systems. Complete removal of information from our systems will result in the loss of all historical data. If you decide to come back to the Ecodharma Centre at a later date, we will re-start the booking process and, if necessary, ask you to provide us with your previous experience again.
If you have made a booking or donation within the last 12 months we are required to retain your details for two years for administrative purposes. Records of financial transactions will need to be held for seven years for accountancy and audit purposes.

9. How can I see what information you hold on me?

Under the Data Protection Act 1998 and the General Data Protection Regulation you can request a report detailing the information we hold about you. You are welcome to contact us at [email protected].
We aim to issue an initial response to all enquiries within five working days, and will offer a full response to all information access requests within a month. If we require additional time we will keep you informed.
The following information will be required before access is granted:

  • Full name and contact details of the person making the request
  • Their relationship with the organisation
  • Copy of passport or national ID card

10. Cookies on the Ecodharma Centre website

This website uses cookies – small text files that are placed on your device to help the site provide a better user experience. In general, cookies are used to retain user preferences, store information for things like shopping carts, and provide anonymous tracking data to third party applications such as Google Analytics. As a rule, cookies will make your browsing experience better.

Embedded content from other websites
Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. YouTube videos etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.
These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracing your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.

Disabling Cookies
If you prefer to disable cookies on this site and on others, the most effective way to do this is to disable cookies in your browser. Consult the Help section of your browser or take a look at the All about Cookies website which offers guidance for managing cookies.

11. Who can I contact for further information?

Our processing of data is overseen by the Project Management team at the Ecodharma Centre. The person to contact regarding day-to-day data protection issues is Drew at [email protected]