Privacy Policy

We want everyone who comes to us for support, or supports us, to feel confident about how their personal information will be looked after or used when shared with us.

Richmond Borough Mind (RB Mind) takes great care to safeguard the personal data of our service users, carers, volunteers and our supporters, and to process this data fairly and lawfully in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998 and the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) 2018. This Privacy Policy sets out how we collect, use and store your personal information (this means any information that identifies, or could identify, you).

Information we collect about you and how we use it

Everything we do, we do to ensure that we can help people experiencing a mental health issue get both support and respect. When joining one of our services or becoming a supporter of our organisation, all individuals will be informed of the information that we will hold, and the reasons for doing this.

The core information we will collect will be personal data, but may also include special category data for individuals receiving a service from us.

Personal Information

The personal information we collect includes details such as your name, date of birth, email address, postal address, and telephone number. It might also include any information about you relating to any of our services you may have been referred to, or accessed. This information will be gathered at the point of referral to our services.

One of the lawful reasons that allow us to process your personal information is legitimate interest. Much of the data that we collect from our service users falls under this category. This means that the reason that we are processing information is because there is a legitimate interest for RB Mind to process your information, to help us to achieve our vision of providing effective and person centred support for individuals with mental health issues, and carers.

Whenever we process your personal information under the legitimate interest lawful basis we make sure that we take into account your rights and interests and will not process your personal information if your rights and interests would be harmed.

Sensitive Personal Information

Data Protection Law recognises that some categories of personal information are more sensitive. This Special Category Data can include information about a person’s health, race, ethnic origin, political opinions, sex life, sexual orientation or religious beliefs. Due to the nature of our services, we are likely to collect information on individual’s demographics as well as their mental health, to enable us to provide appropriate support.

If you provide us with any sensitive personal information by telephone, email or by other means, we will treat that information with extra care and confidentiality and always in accordance with this Privacy Policy, as well as our Data Protection Policy and Confidentiality Policy (available on our website or by request to [email protected]).

Individuals will need to consent to providing this information.  In some cases, if you do not consent to providing this information, we may not be able to provide support or involve you with our organisation.  Our team will be able to talk to you about this if you have any concerns, and we will also offer to signpost you to appropriate alternative services where possible.

We will mainly use the information you provide for the following purposes:

• For the direct provision of support and services
• To make informed decisions regarding the most appropriate support
• To provide information that you have requested
• To manage risks to your own and others’ wellbeing
• To compile anonymous data for the purposes of reporting to funders and commissioners about our services
• To evaluate and monitor the quality of RB Mind’s services.

Occasionally we like to share the stories of our service users and supporters, to demonstrate our impact.  When doing this we will always approach you and work with you to form a case study, and you can of course decide if you want to remain anonymous.

Receiving communications from RB Mind

We may also use your personal information to contact you about our work and how you can support RB Mind.

As an organisation we offer subscription to our ‘What’s On’ newsletter, our e-newsletter and general communications, and, in addition, many of our services will communicate their own updates and newsletters to their members. We only ask for your name and email address for our e-newsletter and general communications, and your name and postal address for the print version of ‘What’s On’. You can unsubscribe at any time using the link at the bottom of the emails you receive, or by contacting our communications team at [email protected]

We use a third party, MailChimp, to provide this service. The company provide a secure service compliant with relevant data protection legislation. In addition to sending the emails, they provide analysis for us on click rates, open rates, and information on the sharing and forwarding of emails. This helps make sure that we are providing information that is relevant to our subscribers and measures the effectiveness of our marketing and communications.

How we use cookies on our website

Our website, http://www.rbmind.org/, uses cookies to:

• Help us monitor and understand how people use the website
• Identify returning or repeat visitors
• Manage the security of the website
• Manage people logging in or out of the website.

You can block these cookies using the appropriate desktop and mobile apps for your software and system.

How visitors use this website

We use Google Analytics and page tagging techniques to understand how this website is used by visitors. Find out more about what information Google collects, and how it uses and protects this information here: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/6004245?hl=en-GB. The link also provides information on how you can opt-out of Google Analytics.

Google Analytics and this website can collect information such as:

• Visitor IP address, web browser, or device(s) used
• How people came to our website, and time spent on web pages
• Whether a visitor is logged into a restricted part of the website
• If a visitor has come to the website recently.

This information helps us:

• Make sure our website meets visitor and technological needs
• Understand if we are providing information the visitor needs or finds useful
• Make best use of our charity resources to promote what we do and support people who need our services.

Contacting us via the website

We can personally identify you if you leave a comment, submit a form or click an email link when you use the website. This includes information such as your name, IP address, email address, telephone number and any other information you provide to us. We do try to keep the information we collect to the minimum needed to allow us to respond to your feedback, messages, comments or queries.

Sharing of Information

The personal information we collect about you will mainly be used by our staff (and volunteers) at RB Mind so that they can support you.

The information you provide to us will only be used for the above purposes and not sold or rented to any third party individuals, organisations or companies.

RB Mind will not send information to an area outside the EEA (European Economic Area) without ensuring the appropriate level of protection for this information.

Occasionally we may be required to share information internally within the organisation if you are accessing more than one service, and for the purposes of decision making and risk management. We may also need to share information with partner providers where the service or support is provided by more than one organisation, or with non-partners such as your GP. Where this is the case we will inform you at the point of accessing a service.

We will not pass on your details to anyone else without your express permission except in exceptional circumstances. This will include when a member of staff has reason to believe that an individual is in danger of harming themselves or others, or if there are concerns of a criminal nature.

In such a situation, efforts will be made to persuade the person to contact the appropriate statutory authorities or support (this may include their GP or a mental health professional). If they are unwilling to do this, staff will attempt to seek agreement from the individual to make this contact on their behalf. If the individual cannot be contacted or refuses to give permission for RB Mind to contact the statutory authorities, staff may decide the concerns are sufficiently serious to contact the authorities themselves with their concerns.

Storing your information

Keeping your personal information safe is very important to us. We have implemented appropriate physical, technical and organisational measures to protect the information we have under our control from improper access, use, alteration, destruction and loss.

The transmission of information via the internet is never completely secure. Although we will do our best to protect your personal data, we cannot guarantee the security of your electronic information transmitted to us and any transmission is at your own risk.

For information on how long we retain information, please refer to our Data Protection Policy, which is available on our website. 

Your rights

You have the right to request copies of your personal information within our control, and details of how we use that information.

A copy of the information must be provided free of charge. Please note that we may, where permitted under applicable law, charge a small administrative fee and/or request proof of identity before accessing records. The fee may apply where the request is manifestly unfounded or excessive, particularly if it is repetitive. The fee may also be applied to further copies of the original material.

We will respond to your requests within all applicable timeframes (in accordance with the Information Commissioner’s Office guidelines).

RB Mind will always endeavour to keep accurate and up to date information on you, but if you think any of the personal information we hold about you is inaccurate, you may also request it is corrected.

For more information on these rights, as well as your right to withdraw consent when providing some information, please refer to our Data Protection Policy, or email us: [email protected]

Contact Us

If you would like to know more, have any concerns about how your information is being processed, or would like to request to see the information we hold about you, please contact:

Data Controller
Richmond Borough Mind
32 Hampton Road,
Twickenham,
TW2 5QB

Tel: 020 8948 7652
Email: [email protected]  

For further information please refer to our Data Protection Policy and Confidentiality Policy, which are available on our website, http://www.rbmind.org/

You can also make a complaint through our normal complaints procedure, details of which can also be found on our website.

Additionally, you have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues. For more information go to https://ico.org.uk/