Personal Data

The Social Democratic and Labour Party respects the rights of individuals to safeguard their personal data and information about them.

Where this policy refers to 'personal data' it is referring to data about you from which you could be identified – such as name, date of birth, email address etc.

This policy applies to all personal data processed by the SDLP about its members and members of the public.

This policy, which is our first privacy policy under GDPR legislation, was produced in April 2018. Any updates will be posted here.

How the SDLP may collect personal data:

• In person, when you speak to one of our representatives or volunteers;
• Through a telephone call, either where you call us or we call you;
• On paper, such as if you return a printed survey or a reply slip on a leaflet;
• Digitally, such as if you fill in a form on a website or interact with the party online;
• When you offer or ask about volunteering, or take part in party activities;
• When you enter into a transaction with the party, such as donating, joining as a member or volunteer, or paying for an event;
• Indirectly from other public records or sources, including the full electoral register which the party is legally entitled to hold,

The type of data we may hold:

• Name;
• Contact details (e.g. email address, address, telephone / mobile number);
• Date of birth;
• Future communication preferences;
• Information about your financial transactions with the SDLP;
• Political opinions expressed to the SDLP via canvassing;
• Issues you raise;
• Topics you have expressed an interest in;

How we may use your personal data:

We may use your personal data to further our objectives, share it with our elected representatives and/or contact you in future. Examples of the way we may use your data include to:

Contact you to canvass for political support;

Understand your views and issues important to you;

Process surveys you have participated in;

Tell you about policies, campaigns or individuals that may be of interest to you;

Respond to queries that you raise with us;

Administer offers or applications to volunteer for the SDLP or to become, remain or cease being a member of or candidate for the SDLP;

Conduct fundraising activities, including checking your eligibility to donate;

If you have provided us with your email, mobile phone number or landline phone number and we have a legal right to use them for such purposes, we may use that information to contact you to promote causes and campaigns that we support, such as by sending you an email, online advert, or a text message.

We will respect any registration you hold with the Telephone Preference Service (TPS) except where you have opted in to receive phone calls on that number from us.

You may opt out of communications from us at any time.

Depending on how and why you provide us with your personal data it may be shared within the SDLP (i.e. with our elected representatives or local party officers) or with companies that provide services to the SDLP ("service providers").

In addition, we may share your personal data with third parties when we are required to do so by law (for example, with the Police where they ask us to assist them with their investigations).

However, save for the limited circumstances noted above, we will never pass your personal data to any unrelated third parties unless you have given us your permission to do so. For example, where you have signed a petition and are clearly informed that this petition will be presented to a third party such as the Northern Ireland Assembly.

How the party will share your data:

The SDLP will not sell your personal data to third parties.

Depending on how and why you provide us with your personal data it may be shared within the SDLP (i.e. with our elected representatives or local party officers) or with companies that provide services to the SDLP ("service providers").

We may use service providers to undertake processing operations on our behalf to provide us with a variety of administrative, statistical, advertising and technical services. We will only supply service providers with the minimum amount of personal data they need to fulfil the services we request. We oblige all of our data processors to sign contracts with us that clearly set out their commitment to respecting individual rights, protecting your personal data – including not using it for any purpose other than providing us with an agreed service or fulfilling their legal obligations - and their commitments to assisting us to help you exercise your rights as a data subject.

Please note that some of our service providers may be based outside of the European Economic Area (the "EEA"). Where we transfer your data to a service provider that is outside of the EEA we seek to ensure that appropriate safeguards are in place to make sure that your personal data is held securely and that your rights as a data subject are upheld.

In particular, the SDLP and our candidates are required to submit records, including personal data, of donations above certain thresholds to the relevant regulatory authority. In some cases, some of these donation details are made public. For more details about this, please contact us on 02890 247700 or email [email protected]. However, save for the limited circumstances noted above, we will never pass your personal data to any unrelated third parties unless you have given us your permission to do so.

Additional details about cookies and technical information

A cookie is a small text file placed on your device when you visit a website. You can accept or decline cookies through your browser settings or other software. For more information about cookies, see Information Commissioner's Office's Cookies Information

When you visit one of our websites, we may place one or more cookies on your device. These are for purposes which include:

• Improving your experience of visiting the site, including providing personalised content;
• Gathering information you have submitted via the site;
• Processing requests for information or action that you have made through the site;
• Processing login requests;
• Enabling your activity in one place to be used to decide on what information, if any, to present to you in other places;
• Gathered statistical information about the usage of the site;
• Ensuring the smooth operation of online services;
• Remembering whether or not you have been shown a cookie notification message on an earlier visit to the site;
• By using one or more of our sites, you are consenting to our use of cookies in accordance with this Notice. If you do not agree to our use of cookies, then you should set your browser or other software settings accordingly.

We provide options to share content on social media which may result in your being directed to the social media network's own systems. If you proceed with this, those networks may gather personal data about you in line with their own privacy policies. On our websites or in other digital communications we may also use technologies variously described as web beacons, pixel tags, clear gifs or tracking pixels to provide us with information about how people have navigated through the site or responded to the communication.

Data retention policies

We only keep your personal data for as long as required to meet the purposes set out in this policy, unless a longer retention period is required by law. For example, this may include holding your data after you have ceased to engage with the party (such as by resigning or ceasing to be a member) where we have a legitimate interest in doing so, such as to enable us to respond effectively to grievances that may arise after you cease to engage with us. Where we collect and hold your details as part of our public interest work, this may also include retaining those details for as long as you remain a registered voter in Northern Ireland.

Where permitted by law, we may also save personal data for archiving purposes in the public interest, including historical research. This may involving passing such data to third parties who run historical archives.

Your rights over personal data

You have legal rights over any of your personal data that we hold.

Right of access

You may, at any time, request access to the personal data that we hold which relates to you (sometimes called a subject access request).

This right entitles you to receive a copy of the personal data that we hold about you. It is not a right that allows you to request personal data about other people, or a right to request specific documents from us that do not relate to your personal data.

Right to rectification and erasure

You may, at any time, request that we correct personal data that we hold about you which you believe is incorrect or inaccurate. You may also ask us to erase personal data (sometimes called the right to be forgotten).

Please note that we may ask you to verify any new data that you provide to us and may take our own steps to check that the new data you have supplied us with is accurate. Further, we are not always obliged to erase personal data when asked to do so; if for any reason we believe that we have a good legal reason to continue processing personal data that you ask us to erase we will tell you what that reason is at the time we respond to your request.

Right to restrict processing

Where we process your personal data on the legal basis of us having a legitimate interest to do so, you are entitled to ask us to stop processing it in that way if you feel that our continuing to do so impacts on your fundamental rights and freedoms or if you feel that those legitimate interests are not valid.

You may also ask us to stop processing your personal data (a) if you dispute the accuracy of that personal data and want us verify its accuracy; (b) where it has been established that our use of the data is unlawful but you do not want us to erase it; (c) where we no longer need to process your personal data (and would otherwise dispose of it) but you wish for us to continue storing it in order to enable you to establish, exercise or defend legal claims.

If for any reason we believe that we have a good legal reason to continue processing personal data that you ask us to stop processing, we will tell you what that reason is, either at the time we first respond to your request or after we have had the opportunity to consider and investigate it.

Right to opt out of processing relating to your political opinions

You may, at any time, write to us to ask us to cease processing your personal data which relates to your political opinions (such as how you have voted in the past, and things that you have told us about how you are likely to vote).

Please note that these requests can only be made about data which relates to your political opinions; they will not affect our right to use other aspects of your personal data.

Right to portability

Where you wish to transfer certain personal data that we hold about you, which is processed by automated means, to a third party you may write to us and ask us to provide it to you in a commonly used machine-readable format.

Right to stop receiving communications

Wherever possible, we will provide you with a choice about how we can contact you to share information about the Party. You can opt out of communications at any time by calling us on 02890 247700 or emailing [email protected]. It may take several days for requests submitted this way to become effective on our systems, or by the methods described below.

Email

If you provide us with your email address and indicate that we may do so (e.g. by subscribing to an email distribution list or by 'opting in' through the membership page) we may send you further information about the SDLP in the future. These communications will take the form of e-mails promoting us and our work.

You can request that you cease to receive these kind of communications from us at any time. The easiest way to do so is to use the unsubscribe link provided at the bottom of any e-mail messages that we send to you. You can also do so at any time by contacting us. It may take several days for requests submitted this way to become effective on our systems.

Post and Telephone

We may contact you by post or telephone using information provided to us through the electoral roll and other legitimate sources of contact information for the purposes of campaigning, notifying you of our values and policies, and checking your eligibility to donate.

We will respect any registration you hold with the Telephone Preference Service except where you have opted in to receive communications from us. Further, even if you are not on the Telephone Preference Service register you may ask us to stop making calls to you by telling one of our operators when we call you.

General

While all of our direct marketing communications contain details of how you can stop receiving them in the future you can either follow those instructions (such as using the unsubscribe link in an email or telling a telephone caller), or ask us directly using the contact details below. If you do the latter, please provide us with full details of the telephone numbers, postal addresses, email addresses and so on to which you wish us to stop sending communications to in order to help us deal with your request quickly and accurately.

Social Democratic and Labour Party

121 Ormeau Road

Belfast

BT7 1SH

Tel: 02890 247700 Email: [email protected]

We will process any requests to stop receiving communications as quickly and comprehensively as is practical although there may in some cases be further communications already on their way to you which cannot be stopped.

If you ask us to stop sending you information (e.g. by email, post, or phone), we may keep a record of your information to make sure we do not contact you again, up until the normal retention period for that type of data.

Please note that this right to stop communications does not apply to emails that we send to you that are a necessary part of us providing a service to you (such as messaging you about your status as a member or a volunteer) or us notifying you about how your personal data is being used.

In addition, the right to stop communications does not apply to the Election Address that we are permitted to send to you during certain elections.

Exercising your rights

You may exercise any of these rights by contacting us using the details below and providing the necessary details for us to be able to identify the relevant data and to act on your request accurately.

When you contact us making a request to exercise your rights we are entitled to ask you to prove that you are who you say you are. We may ask you to provide copies of relevant ID documents to help verify your identity.

It will help us to process your request if you clearly state which right you wish to exercise and, where relevant, why it is that you are exercising it. The clearer and more specific you can be the faster and more efficiently we can process the request. If you do not provide us with sufficient information then we may delay actioning your request until you have provided us with additional information (and where this is the case we will tell you).