The Data Protection Act

Under the Data Protection Act, we have a legal duty to protect any information we collect from you. We use appropriate technologies to safeguard your data, and keep strict security standards to prevent any unauthorised access to it. We do not pass on your details to any third party unless you give us permission to do so. We do not send you subsequent communications unless you give us permission to do so.

What information do we collect?

Across the Age Concern England site, there are several forms that allow users to request further information, purchase a book, make a donation, etc.

Unless you have given us permission to contact you in the future, the only way in which we will use this information is to fulfill your query.

Financial information that is collected for the purpose of donations or bookselling is kept secure using advanced encryption technology.

We use "session cookies" on our website, which store some of the visitor’s "preferences" while they move around the site (i.e. font sizes). Cookies are pieces of data created when users visit a website. Visitors can set their computer not to accept cookies. Session cookies are deleted when visitors leave the site. They do not contain any personal information about users, and do not hold any information about which sites they visited before the Age Concern England website.

We collect log file information from all our visitors, which we use to make changes to the layout of the site and to the information in it, based on the way visitors move around it. Log files allow us to record visitors' use of the site. Our hosting provider, Star Internet, uses the log file information to provide us with website usage information.

What happens when visitors link to another site?

Age Concern England website contains links to other websites. This privacy policy applies only to our site, so visitors should always be aware when they are moving to another site and read the privacy statement of any site which collects personal information.

We do not pass on any personal information about our visitors to any other site.

Access to your information

The information we hold should be accurate and up to date. Visitors may check the information that we hold about them by e-mailing us. If visitors find any inaccuracies we will delete or correct them promptly.

Users 16 and under

If you are aged 16 or under, please get your parent/guardian's permission beforehand whenever you provide personal information to the Age Concern England website. Users without this consent are not allowed to provide us with personal information.

Changes to this privacy policy

If this privacy policy changes in any way, we will place an updated version on this page. Regularly reviewing this page ensures visitors are always aware of what information we collect, how we use it and under what circumstances, if any, we will share it with other parties.

E-Communities

For some areas of the Age Concern England websites, such as e-communities and the time capsule website, it is necessary for a user to register before posting messages or other content. During the registration process, the user must create ‘nickname’ and provide basic personal details such as name and an email address.

If they wish, they may also provide further details such as their interests and further information about themselves, which is known as a profile. This profile can be shared with other users, or hidden at any time so that no other members of the view it.

Users of this service can have all of their details kept private except their username, which appears on the board when they post a message, or when their name is mentioned in a post. It is the user's choice as to whether they want any details known publicly about themselves.

With exception to the secure areas, the ACE websites are indexed by search engines. The reason for this is to make it easy for people who would like to find out more about Age Concern’s work. Information that search engines will locate includes usernames and, for those that have chosen to share them, profiles.

Search engines cannot access any further information that users have not already agreed to be public. If a user chooses not to share their profile, then a search engine will not be able to access that profile, just as a user on the board would not be able to access that profile.

There is no information a search engine can display that has not been made public by a registered user.