Privacy Notice
Metropolitan & City Catholic Police Guild (METCPG) are committed to protecting personal information and we take our responsibilities regarding the security of supporter and volunteer information very seriously.
​
This privacy notice explains what personal data we collect about you, how and why we use it, who we disclose it to and how we protect it.
What’s included in this privacy notice
-
Who is Metropolitan & City Catholic Police Guild?
-
Who is responsible for your data?
-
Personal data we collect about you
-
What data we collect and when
-
Sharing your personal data
-
How and why we use your personal data
-
Legal basis for processing your personal data
-
Profiling and research
-
Children and vulnerable people
-
How long do we keep personal data?
-
Your rights
-
Requesting access to your personal data
-
Security of your personal data
-
Cookies or other tracking technologies
-
Updates to our Privacy Notice
-
Contact information and telling us when things have changed
1. Who is Metropolitan & City Catholic Police Guild?
METCPG is the oldest apostolate for Catholic Police Officers and staff in Great Britain. Formed on the Feast of Corpus Christi, Thursday, 11th June 1914 the Guild is proud to be a haven of the Faith for Catholics in Policing, promoting virtues for the common good of all in society. By serving communities, we serve our Creator.
​
2. Who is responsible for your data?
Our Privacy Notice applies to the personal data that METCPG collects and uses. References in this Privacy Notice to “METCPG,” “we,” “us” or “our” mean the METROPOLITAN & CITY CATHOLIC POLICE GUILD. We are the “data controller” for the purposes of the Data Protection Act 2018. METCPG has a designated Data Protection Officer who can be contacted via dpo@cpg.london.
​
3. Personal data we collect about you
When using the term “” in our Privacy Notice, we mean information that relates to you and allows us to identify you, either directly or in combination with other information that we may hold.
We collect some personal data from you, for example, when you donate to us, use our website, use our subscription services or contact us.
​
4. What data we collect and when
We may collect and process the following categories of information about you:
​
4.1 Personal information, including contact details
For example, your name, postal address, telephone number and date of birth (where relevant). We collect this when you contact us or donate by post, telephone or on our website.
​
4.2 Bank details
We and our authorised third-party payment processors (Wix Payments) collect your banking information (name, sort code and account number) or credit card details (name, number, CVV code or date of expiration). We collect this when you make a donation online or by phone, set up a regular gift (e.g., direct debit or standing order) with us or send us a cheque in the post. We only retain your financial information for the purposes of collecting a direct debit but not when it is processed by an accredited third-party payment processor. All credit/debit card financial information processed by METCPG is redacted.
4.3 Communications
We may collect information about you whenever you interact with us by email, post or phone. For example, when you contact METCPG regarding our activities, send or receive information, register for an event or to receive news updates, make a donation.
4.4 Third-party information
We collect contact details and other information indirectly from third parties such as:
Our online donations provider, Wix Payments, capture and share information with us about the METCPG webpage, email, QR code, Meta (Facebook, X, Instagram), Google or other social advertising you clicked from to arrive at our donation page. We use this data to measure and improve the effectiveness of our marketing efforts.
Event organisers or fundraising sites where you have agreed to support METCPG.When you have provided permission for a company or other organisation to share your data with third parties, including charities. This could be when you buy a product or service or register for an online competition.
4.5 Non-personalised data
> Websites - We collect non-personalised information about how our website is used, such as your searches for information, non-personal data such as Internet Protocol (IP) addresses, details of webpages visited and files downloaded. Website usage information is collected using cookies. Please see the section on cookies below. This information is collected when you use our websites.
> Social media - We collect your posts and messages when you interact directly with METCPG on social media. This information is collected when you use platforms such as Meta’s Facebook, X (formerly known as Twitter), Instagram or LinkedIn.
4.6 Recruitment
We collect personal data as part of our volunteer recruitment processes. This information is collected when you apply for volunteering opportunities with METCPG.
​
4.7 Legacy administration
We collect personal data necessary for legacy administration. This information is collected when a supporter or member has died, leaving a legacy to METCPG, and you are the executor, or you have an interest in the estate.
4.8 Special Category data
We collect and use personal data that you provide to us, as METCPG supporters and members, to contact you and inform you about METCPG’s activities. We recognise that many of our supporters and members (but not all) hold religious beliefs and, as this is defined as a special category of personal data, we put in place procedures to ensure that additional security and access restrictions are applied to all the personal data METCPG holds, in accordance with UK GDPR data processing principles and the Data Protection Act 2018.
5. Sharing your personal data
METCPG does not share your data with any other charity, public body or commercial organisation for their marketing purposes.
We may disclose your personal information to third parties if we are under a duty to disclose or share your personal data in order to comply with any legal obligations, or in order to enforce or apply any agreements; or to protect the rights, property, or safety of the organisation, or others. This includes exchanging information with other companies or organisations for the purposes of safeguarding or other statutory regulations we have to comply with.
​
We will share your personal information with those organisations with whom we have reciprocal agreements for providing services for fulfilment, joint campaigns or other actions in line with our charitable purposes.
​
6. How and why we use your personal data
We use your personal data for the following purposes:
​
6.1 To manage your donations, requests or calls to action
When you interact with us, we use your information to perform our services in relation to your donation, to deal with your queries and requests and to process responses to our campaigns or advocacy work.
6.2 To fundraise and promote METCPG’s work, in both financial and non-financial ways
We know how fundamental our supporters and donors are to the work we do. In order to develop and foster your ongoing support, we want to keep in touch with you through feedback and further opportunities and invitations to support our work in both financial and non-financial ways. Under our lawful basis of legitimate interest, METCPG will contact you by postal mailings and, occasionally, an introductory telephone marketing call. However, we will always seek your consent to send emails, SMS messages, or make further marketing calls.
6.3 To communicate with you and manage our relationship with you
Occasionally, we may need to contact you by mail, email and/or telephone for administrative or operational reasons – for example, to send you confirmation of your donation or your World Gifts orders. Please be aware that these communications are not made for marketing purposes and as such, you will continue to receive them even if you opt out of receiving marketing communications from us.
We will also use your personal data if we contact you after you have sent us a request, filled in a web form through our website or contacted us on social media.
Your views and opinions are very important to us, so we may send you a survey to seek your feedback.
We will use the communications you exchange with us and the feedback you may provide to manage our relationship with you as a supporter of METCPG and to improve our services and communications.
6.4 To inform you about our news and ways you may be able to help METCPG
We may send you marketing communications by post. We may send you marketing communications by email, if you have consented that you are happy to receive these – for example, when you have donated or completed a campaign action and you have opted into receiving such communications.
You can choose to opt out of receiving email marketing communications at any time by clicking on the relevant unsubscribe link at the bottom of any marketing related email you may receive from us.
If you do not want to receive marketing communications from us, you can also tell us by contacting our Data Protection Officer by email to dpo@cpg.london
6.5 To manage our volunteers
We need to keep some personal information in order to recruit and manage people who volunteer for METCPG.
6.6 To maintain and improve our own accounts, records and organisational processes, to fulfil our administrative purposes and protect our charitable interests
The purposes for which we will use your information includes accounting, billing and audit, credit or other payment card verification, fraud screening, safety, security and legal purposes, statistical and marketing analysis, legacy administration, systems testing, maintenance and development.
​
7. Legal basis for processing your personal data
The Data Protection Act 2018 requires organisations to consider the legal basis on which they process personal data. METCPG will process personal data under the following lawful basis:
​
7.1 Agreement
Where it is necessary for us to fulfil a contract with you: for example, when you make a World Gifts purchase.
7.2 Legitimate interests
When it is in our legitimate interests to do so as part of our efforts to build long-term relationships with our supporters. In such instances, we will send you communications and marketing material via post and make initial telephone contact, unless you have told us you do not wish to receive these communications.
7.3 Consent
With your consent, we will send you emails or SMS or make marketing telephone calls.
We maintain a range of communication preferences and options, so you can choose both the type of material (whether that is fundraising activities, our campaigns work or prayer resources), and the most convenient channel(s) for you to receive information from us (eg email, post or SMS).
​
8. Research
​
We use automated profiling and targeting tools and systems to help us understand our supporters and members needs better and ensure our communications (eg our emails) and services (eg our website) are relevant, personalised and interesting to you. This also helps us to keep our costs down.
​
8.1 Emails
We use email analytical systems to monitor how you interact with the emails we send you (for example when you click on a link). This allows us to understand better your interests and preferences and tailor our communication programme to suit them. In doing this, we obtain information such as but not limited to:
-
Time of receipt
-
Time of opening
-
Which parts of the email you interacted with
-
To opt out of our email analytics tracking you can update your email service and web browser settings
-
If your email provider is not listed or you need support to apply any desired changes, please contact our Data Protection Officer by email to dpo@cpg.london for further guidance
-
If the solutions suggested above are not suitable, you can always unsubscribe from METCPG email communications. There are links in all METCPG marketing emails to allow you to easily unsubscribe.
8.2 Surveys
We occasionally conduct surveys with our supporters, members, customers and volunteers to get feedback on their experience with us. We use this feedback to improve the experiences we offer and ensure we know what you find relevant and interesting.
​
If you choose to take part in research, we will tell you when you start what data we will collect, why and how we will use it. All the research we conduct is optional and you can choose not to take part. For some of our research we may ask you to provide sensitive personal data (for example, ethnicity). You do not have to provide this data and we also provide a ‘prefer not to say’ option. We only use it at an aggregate rather than individual level (for example, for reporting on equal opportunities).
We may share some of your personal data (for example, contact information) with a research agency so that they can carry out research on our behalf.
If you do not wish to receive an invitation to take part in our surveys or market research you can contact our Data Protection Officer by email to dpo@cpg.london
​
8.3 Social media advertising
If you have agreed to receive emails from us, we may securely share your email address with social media platforms like Meta (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp), X (formerly known as Twitter), or Google in order to exclude you from METCPG appeals being advertised on that platform. We have processes in place to safeguard your data throughout this sharing process. Your data will not be used for any other purpose and will be deleted immediately after use.
If you wish to avoid the sharing of your details for social media advertising, you can contact our Data Protection Officer by email to dpo@cpg.london
8.4 Due diligence
We also use publicly available sources to carry out due diligence on donors in line with our Fundraising Policy Gift Acceptance and to meet money laundering regulations.
We are committed to working in a transparent, ethical, responsible and honest way. To reflect this commitment, we are registered with the Fundraising Regulator and are committed to the Regulator’s Code of Practice.
9. Children and vulnerable people
​
9.1 Children
We are committed to protecting the privacy of the young people who engage with us through our website and at our events. If you are under 18 and would like to get involved with our work, please note we will request consent from a parent or guardian before we take your information.
Some of our young people’s events, such as our volunteer police cadets’ activities, request specific information about the age of participants and we may require explicit parental consent for this. When we collect information about a child or young person aged under 18, we will make clear the reasons for collecting this information, as well as how the information will be used.
9.2 Supporters in vulnerable circumstances
We are committed to protecting vulnerable supporters and members. Our volunteers who come into regular contact with supporters and members are trained to be aware of, and to identify signs of, people in potentially vulnerable circumstances.
​
10. How long do we keep personal data?
We will keep your personal data only for as long as we consider it necessary to carry out each processing activity.
We maintain data retention criteria to help implement this. This takes account of our legal and accounting obligations, balancing this with what would be considered reasonable.
​
We are required to keep details of financial transactions, including donations, for seven years to meet accountancy and HMRC requirements. We will anonymise or delete personal data if, after a period of seven years, we have not had any contact or communication from you (this will be measured over a rolling seven-year period) – subject to special circumstances concerning legacies.
​
Many supporters and members tell us that they have kindly included a gift to METCPG in their Will, or that they intend to do so. We retain their personal information indefinitely so that we can keep in touch during their lifetime and provide a caring and efficient legacy administration service.
​
11. Your Rights
METCPG actively supports the principle of “fair and transparent” processing of your personal information.
We support your rights in relation to your personal information under the Data Protection Act 2018, including the:
-
right to be informed
-
right of access
-
right to rectification
-
right to erasure
-
right to restrict processing
-
right to data portability
-
right to object
-
rights related to automated decision-making including profiling.
If you wish to exercise any of these rights, please contact the Data Protection Officer by email to dpo@cpg.london.
12. Requesting access to your personal data
​
You have a right to request access to the personal data that we hold about you. If you would like to request a copy of your personal data or have any questions in relation to your personal data, please contact the Data Protection Officer by email to dpo@cpg.london.
​
13. Security of your personal data
In accordance with the Data Protection Act 2018, we are committed to taking appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect your personal data against unauthorised or unlawful processing and against accidental loss, destruction or damage. When you provide your personal data through our websites, this information is transmitted across the internet securely using high-grade encryption.
METCPG takes particular care with online giving. METCPG uses providers offering secure payment processing, which specialise in the secure capture and processing of online transactions. The online donation form is secure, and your information is encrypted and stored on a secure database. METCPG does not retain any card payment information.
The data that we collect from you will be processed at servers based in the UK. It may also be processed by specialist organisations operating in the European Economic Area (EU/EEA), or other countries i.e. the USA, that METCPG has instructed. If your data needs to be transferred outside of the EU/EEA, or to a country that has not been granted a finding of adequacy by the UK , we will transfer your data using ‘appropriate safeguards’ ie Binding Corporate Rules (BCR) or Standard Contract Clauses (SCC) (also known as Model Contract Clauses) etc, or we will seek your consent, on a case-by -case basis, and where appropriate to do so.
14. Cookies or other tracking technologies
In order to improve our services, to provide you with more relevant content and to analyse how visitors use our websites, we may use technologies, such as cookies or other tracking software. Please be aware that in most cases we will not be able to identify you from the information we collect using these technologies, as this is based on your Internet Protocol (IP) address only.
14.1 Google Analytics
The METCPG website uses Google Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Google. Google Analytics uses cookies, which are text files placed on your computer, to help the website analyse how users use the site. The information generated by the cookie about aggregated use of the website (including your IP address) will be transmitted to and stored by Google on servers in the United States.
Google will use this information for the purpose of evaluating your use of the website, compiling reports on website activity for website operators and providing other services relating to website activity and internet usage. Google may also transfer this information to third parties where required to do so by law, or where such third parties process the information on Google’s behalf.
Google will not associate your IP address with any other data held by Google.
Opt out of Google Analytics tracking in your browser
14.2 Control website tracking permissions in your browser and on your device
14.3 Cookies for checkout and donations
METCPG Website online shopping and donation process via our supplier Wix Payments also use cookies to store your purchase or donation amount preferences as you move to checkout and make payments.
14.4 Opting out of cookies
You may refuse the use of cookies by selecting the appropriate settings on your browser.
However, please note that if you do this, you may not be able to use the full functionality of our website or our online donation process. Without cookies enabled, you may be unable to purchase a World Gift, or make a donation.
15. Updates to our Privacy
We will make changes to this Privacy Notice from time to time, as and when required, and we will publish any new version of this Privacy Notice on this page.
If you have any complaints about our use of personal data, please send an email with the details of your complaint to the Data Protection Officer by email to dpo@cpg.london.
​
You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the UK data protection regulator, the Information Commissioner's Office (“ICO”). For further information on your rights and how to complain to the ICO, please refer to the ICO website.
​
Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
Tel: 0303 123 1113
16. Contact information and telling us when things have changed
METCPG will occasionally provide you with the opportunity to opt-in to receiving certain types of communication. If you are already receiving such communication, you do not need to opt-in again as your existing preference will persist until you provide explicit instruction that you want to opt-out.
​
You can change your preferences on what you receive from METCPG at any time, including fundraising and marketing materials or how we contact you. Contact the Data Protection Officer by email to dpo@cpg.london.
We also welcome any questions, comments and requests regarding this Privacy Notice and these should be addressed to the Data Protection Officer by email to dpo@cpg.london.
​
​