Introduction

At the Benefits Training Co., we provide training, advice and information to ensure professionals and volunteers are able to give people who claim benefits well-informed, updated and effective benefits advice. We also advise family law firms to establish and protect their clients’ welfare rights.

In order to effectively run our training courses, we collect delegates’ email addresses in so that we can send them joining instructions, certificates, benefits news updates and ascertain eligibility for access to our advice team for 12 months following the course.

We also maintain contact with individuals who have booked or enquired about in-house courses on behalf of their organisations, those who have given consent to receiving more information on a training course and those who have chosen to subscribe to our regular news updates via our website.

We are committed to protecting your personal information and being transparent about what information we hold. We have developed the following policy to help you understand how your personal information will be treated as you engage with us both online and off. It’s important that you know how we record your personal data when you do things like visit our website or use our services so that you can trust us with that information.

We ensure that we use your information in accordance with all applicable laws concerning the protection of personal information. This privacy policy explains all you need to know about:

  •  what information we may collect about you;
  •  why we collect it;
  •  what we do with it;
  •  when we may share it with others; and
  •  how you can access and update your information.

By subscribing to our news updates, booking training or using any of our advice and consultancy services, you accept this privacy policy and authorise the Benefits Training Co. to collect, store and process your information in the ways explained.

If you have any questions about this privacy policy or would like more information on our legal basis for processing your data, or to change how we use your personal data, please contact us using the details below.

You are in control of how we contact you. If you want to stop receiving email, click the ‘unsubscribe’ link at the bottom of any of our group emails. If you would like to make changes to the type of communications you get from us, or if your personal details change, please get in touch using the details in the ‘Contact’ section of our website.

Why is the Benefits Training Co. establishing a privacy policy now?

On 25th May 2018, one of the biggest changes to UK data privacy law came into effect. The General Data Protection Regulation (or GDPR for short) is a positive step towards you having more control over how your data is used and how you are contacted. The changes will also help to better protect your personal data. We have established a privacy policy to reflect these changes.

Changes to this policy

This policy may change, but we will always have the latest version available for you on our website. It there are any major changes, we will add a notice on our website or contact you. This policy was last updated on 5th June 2018.

Who we are

The Benefits Training Co. is a limited company registered as Redstick Solutions Limited in England and Wales (registration number 294841). Our registered offices are c/o Denmark Forrester Accountants, Office 12 Bentalls Shopping Centre Maldon Essex CM9 4GD England

Within the context of this privacy policy, ‘we’, ‘us’, ‘our’ or ‘BTC’ refers to the Benefits Training Co.

How we collect information about you.

We collect information in the following ways:

When you give it to us DIRECTLY

We collect personal information for many reasons, including to provide you with services, communicate with you and send you information that you have requested, and to run campaigns and process donations. Depending on how you interact with us, we may process data when you:

  • register as a subscriber on our website
  • request a service from us such as training, benefits news, training updates, advice or consultancy;
  • book onto one of our training courses;
  • attend one of our training courses;
  • apply for jobs or volunteer placements, or act as a freelancer for us;
  • complete a survey or take part in research.

This information may be collected via any paper forms you complete, telephone conversations, emails, face-to-face interactions, digital forms completed via our website, online surveys, information provided by partner (host) organisations, publicly available sources or communication via social media.

When you give it to us INDIRECTLY

Your information may be shared with us by independent event organisers or third party agencies, for example by one of our partner (host) organsations, law firms or other advice agencies we are working with. These independent third parties will only pass on your information with your consent. We may also receive information from online services you use such as Facebook or Twitter if you have given them permission to share this with us. You should check their Privacy Policy when you provide your information to understand fully how they will process your data.

When you give permission to OTHER ORGANISATIONS to share or it is available publicly

We may combine information you provide to us with information available from external sources in order to gain a better understanding of who we are supporting and to improve our products and services. The information we get from other organisations may depend on your privacy settings or the responses you give, so you should regularly check them. This information could come from social media accounts, for example Twitter or Facebook. We may also access information available publicly, such as via Companies House or information that has been printed in newspapers. 

When we collect it as you use our WEBSITE

Like most websites, we use cookies to help us make our website better. Cookies mean that a website will remember you. They’re small text files that websites transfer to your computer, phone or tablet. They make your visits to websites faster and easier, for example by automatically filling your name and address in the text fields.

We use cookies, like most websites, to help us provide you with the best experience when you visit our site. Some cookies are essential to the smooth running of our website, for example our donations pages rely on them. Other cookies allow us to understand how visitors are interacting with our website, so that we can improve it.

We also use cookies to ensure that any investments that we make in online advertising are as cost-effective as possible, by tracking how adverts perform. These cookies do not contain information that can personally identify you.

All browsers allow you to control which cookies you accept and which you delete. For more information about cookies, please see http://www.allaboutcookies.org/.

What types of information do we collect?

Non-personal information

This type of information does not tell us who you are, but it does help us to improve our services. When you visit and look around our website, we record things like your IP (internet protocol) address – the unique number of the device you are using to access our website, which pages you visit (on our website only), when they were visited, and the type of device you were using. This information helps us create a better experience for everyone who uses our website. Examples of the type of information that can be collected using your IP address include the type and version of your browser, and the location from which you are accessing our site. This helps us improve how our page templates appear and change content to make it relevant to our website visitors.

Personal information

This means any information that may be used to identify you, such as your name, organisation, telephone number, postal and email addresses.

  • Your full name
  • Contact details including your postal address, telephone number(s) and email address
  • Records of your correspondence and engagement with us, including email
  • Any joining instructions, certificates, post course support and any subscriptions you hold or have held with us
  • Information you may enter on the BTC website
  • Occupation or other biographical information
  • Other information you share with us
  • Details of your case when we are providing you with advice or services for your client

We sometimes also collect sensitive information about your clients in order for you to represent them or offer them advice. This can include information about income, health, religion, sexuality, ethnicity, political and philosophical beliefs, and criminal records. We will normally only record this data where we have your consent and in order to support you in your work, unless we are permitted to do so in other circumstances under data protection law.

How we use your personal data

Course support

We keep information about our course participants so that we can support you before, during and after the course, using a range of methods to contact our supporters, including our website, email and occasional telephone calls. We also send our course participants benefits news updates and information about future courses, including discounts, unless you choose to opt out.

Benefits news and training updates

We like to keep our benefits news subscribers up to date with changes in benefits law, new guidance, training courses and other benefits-related news.

We also want to inform you about our forthcoming courses in order for you to be able to make the most of our ongoing support service. We will send you benefits news, training and marketing information about forthcoming courses or services by email, unless you opt out (see Unsubscribe options below).

Why should you subscribe to hear from us?

  • So that you will still hear from us! If you don’t let us know your contact preferences, you could miss out on post course support, the latest benefits updates, training course information, certificates or course discounts.

We send the following marketing email communications from time to time:

  • information including news updates on our website and links to other websites and publications which can inform you in your work;
  • updates about forthcoming BTC training courses
  • information about discounts and price reductions related to our courses
  • appeals and fundraising activities, including requests for donations for individual charities we choose to support as an organisation.

We will never share or sell your personal data to a third-party organisation for its campaigning, marketing or fundraising purposes.

You can withdraw your consent, unsubscribe, or update your marketing preferences at any point by using the contact details in the ‘Unsubscribe’ section of our website. If you make any changes to your consent, we will update your record as soon as we possibly can. If you unsubscribe from all our mailings via the ‘Unsubscribe’ button at the bottom of a group email, they will be stopped immediately. Unsubscribing from individual mailing lists and other updates to contact preferences sent by email may take up to one week to process.

Administrative communications for course support

In addition to the news update communications that you receive, we may also communicate with you by post, telephone and email to deal with any administrative matters. Even if you opt out of marketing or other communications from us, we may still need to communicate with you occasionally for administrative purposes. For example, we may contact you to confirm your attendance on a course or if there is a problem with a payment.

Business services and professional contacts

We may collect data about the professional contacts and partners we work with, or who have used our services such as those who have attended workshops, training courses or conferences. Personal data collected in this way will be processed according to data protection law and this policy.

We may send our professional contacts information and updates about our work by email or by post. You can opt out of receiving this information at any time. You can withdraw your consent, unsubscribe, or update your preferences at any point by clicking on the relevant option in the ‘Unsubscribe’ section below. If you make any changes to your consent, we will update your record as soon as we possibly can. Email communications will be stopped immediately. It may take up to 28 days to stop any postal communications from being sent to you.

Services for beneficiaries and advice workers

If you have let us know that you are interested in particular kinds of information or if you have signed up to specific newsletters, you will only receive communications relating to the option you have signed up for. You can withdraw your consent, unsubscribe, or update your preferences at any point by using the contact details in the ‘Unsubscribe’ section below. If you make any changes to your consent, we will update your record as soon as we possibly can. Email communications will be stopped immediately. It may take up to 28 days to stop any postal communications from being sent to you.

If you have attended one of our courses in the past 12 months and are receiving advice or representation from us on behalf of someone else, we will need to store and process your or their data because of your specific relationship with us. We keep the information you provide to see the history and relevant details of your case. This ensures that we can provide you with appropriate and accurate advice and representation. Sometimes we advise that individuals’ cases are escalated with other bodies such as the Department for Work and Pensions, local authorities or HMRC: we always keep you up to date with the actions and progress on your case on request. We take information security very seriously and no one is allowed to access our system or files unless they need this to provide the service to you or to regulate the quality of the service.

When you call or email our advice service for advisers to seek help with your casework, our advisers may take notes on the information you give us. This information may be used anonymously for training purposes. We may also use your data for statistical reports. These statistics will not include information that could be used to identify any individual.

Job applicants and volunteers

When you apply for a job or volunteer placement with BTC, your personal data will be collected to monitor the progress of your application. Where we need to share your data, for example to gather references, you will be informed beforehand unless the disclosure is required by law. These checks are only done after a position has been offered to the successful candidate. Basic personal data (name, organisation, telephone number, email, website) about unsuccessful applicants is transferred to our news and marketing database. You can unsubscribe or ask for us to remove your data at any time if you do not want us to hold it.

Our legal basis for processing personal data

We need a lawful basis to collect and use your personal data under data protection law.. This includes information that is processed on the basis of:

  • a person’s consent, for example, to send you direct marketing by email;
  • a contractual relationship, for example, to provide you with goods or services that you have purchased from us including attendance on a training course
  • BTC’s legitimate interests: please see below for more information.

Personal data may be legally collected and used if it is necessary for a legitimate interest of the organisation using the data, if its use is fair and does not adversely impact the rights of the individual concerned. When we use your personal information, we will always consider if it is fair and balanced to do so, and if it is within your reasonable expectations. We will balance your rights and our legitimate interests to ensure that we use your personal information in ways that are not unduly intrusive or unfair. Our legitimate interests include the administration and operational management of our training and consultancy business, including responding to solicited enquiries, providing information and services, research, events management and administrating recruitment processes for staff, volunteers and freelancers.

If you would like more information on our uses of legitimate interests, or to change our use of your personal data in this manner, please get in touch with us using the details in the ‘Contact’ section below.

When we may disclose your personal data

We will not share any of your personal data to any third party – except where:

  •  the transfer is to a secure data processor, which carries out data processing operations on our behalf, for example to process a Direct Debit or credit card payment or to manage a fundraising mailing;
  • we are required to do so by law, for example to law enforcement or regulatory bodies where this is required or allowed under the relevant legislation;
  •  it is necessary to protect the vital interests of an individual – i.e. to protect someone’s life; or
  • we have obtained your consent.

We will never share or sell your personal data to a third-party organisation for marketing or campaigning purposes.

How we keep your data secure

We use appropriate technical and organisational measures and precautions to protect your personal data and to prevent the loss, misuse or alteration of your personal data. For example, we use trusted third-party suppliers to provide secure pages for financial transactions taking place on our website, meaning that your details are safe when you buy place(s) on our open training courses online.

Unfortunately, sending information via the internet is not completely secure. Although we will do our best to protect your personal data, we cannot guarantee the security of the data sent to our website on standard pages (any pages other than when you are booking a course or buying course places online). Once we have received your information, we will use strict procedures and security features to try to prevent unauthorised access.

We encourage you to review the privacy policy statements of websites you choose to link to from the BTC website, so that you can understand how those sites collect, use and share your information.

How we use data processors

We use third-party suppliers to provide secure pages for transactions and donations, website hosting and database hosting. This means that your data will be captured and processed by these suppliers. We may also use a third-party supplier to conduct surveys. We actively check these companies to ensure your privacy and security is protected. These third-party suppliers are only permitted to use the data in accordance with data protection law, under instruction from us, and in accordance with a data processing agreement made between BTC and the supplier.

You can find out more about the suppliers we use by getting in touch with us using the details in the ‘Contact’ section below.

How long we keep your data

We will store your information until you unsubscribe, ask for your personal data to be removed from our databases or until it is removed due to lack of use, whichever is sooner.

If you ask not to be contacted by us, we may keep some basic information about you on to avoid sending you unwanted materials in the future.

Your rights to your personal information

You have a right to request a copy of the personal information we hold about you, and to have any inaccuracies corrected. You also have the right to request that we erase your personal information, restrict our processing of your personal information or to object to our processing of your personal information.

If you wish to exercise these rights, we may need you to prove your identity with two pieces of approved identification. Please submit requests using the contact details below and we will respond within 28 days. Please provide as much information as possible about the nature of your contact with us to help us locate your records, including all of the email addresses you have used when in contact with us. We reserve the right to charge a fee of £10 for this process.

Where you have provided your consent for us to use your personal information, you always have a right to withdraw your consent at any time.

Your ability to edit and delete your account information preferences

The accuracy of your personal information is important to us. You can edit your account information, including your address and contact details at any time. If you would like to change your preferences or update the details we hold about you other than online, please get in touch using the details in the ‘Contact’ section of our website. If you would like changes to be made to your personal details, please tell us all of the email addresses you have used when in contact with us so we can locate all of your details.

How you can find out more about your rights

The way we collect and use personal data on this site is in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Data Protection Act. Your rights will be observed and honoured at all times. Please visit the Information Commissioner’s Office for further information at www.ico.org.uk. 

Unsubscribe

If you wish to receive some emails and not others, you can click on the individual options below to unsubscribe:
 
Unsubscribe from course support emails
(For no access to post-course advice service, certificates, joining instructions, course administration)
 
Unsubscribe from benefits news and training updates
(For no newsletter, benefits training information and related activities)
 
Unsubscribe from information about future courses
(No more emails solely about future course dates, discounts and promotion codes)


Or, you can unsubscribe from everything or update your subscription preferences at any time by using the unsubscribe button at the bottom of any of our group emails.
 

Contact us

If you have any questions about this policy, would like more information, or want to exercise any of your rights in relation to data protection, you can get in touch with us in the following ways:

  • Message us via our website
  • Email us at info@benefitstraining.co.uk
  • Write to us at our registered offices:  The Benefits Training Co., c/o Denmark Forrester Accountants, Office 12, Bentalls Shopping Centre, Maldon, Essex, CM9 4GD, England