About us
We’re here to support parents. We provide accurate, impartial information so that they can decide what’s best for them and their family. Much of what we do is about bringing parents together, in supportive, local networks that provide practical and emotional support.
We are a registered charity (in England and Wales, no. 801395 and in Scotland, no. SC041592), and a company (in England and Wales, no.2370573).
We are also registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) as a data controller1 and have a legal duty to protect the personal information2 that we collect and use.
Keeping your personal information safe is very important to us and we are committed to complying with privacy and data protection laws and being transparent about what we are doing.
Please contact dataprotection@nct.org.uk with questions about this policy or your data protection rights. You can also request a copy or more detail about the personal information we hold on you.
You also have the right to contact the Information Commissioners Office (ICO) if you have any concerns about Data Protection on 0303 123 1113 or at www.ico.org.uk.
This privacy policy
This policy explains what information we might collect from or about you, how we look after your personal information and what we do with it.
The policy applies to our use of personal information about our members, supporters, service users, people who work for us and those who volunteer with us. We take the responsibility to look after your personal information very seriously.
Read our Fundraising and Donor Privacy Policy
Read our Course Bookers Privacy Policy
Changes to this privacy policy
We might need to change this privacy notice from time to time. If we do we will update this page to reflect changes in the law and/or our privacy practices. We encourage you to check this privacy policy for changes whenever you visit our website – www.nct.org.uk – or you might want to bookmark this page.
The personal information that we collect
We collect information about our members, supporters, practitioners, subscribers, stakeholders, service users, volunteers and staff. This sometimes includes:
- a name
- contact details
- role and relationship with us
- date of birth
- gender
- ethnicity
- income bracket (for statistical purposes)
- education level (for statistical purposes)
- interests
- reasons for coming to us and personal stories
- anything that’s ordered, bought or borrowed from us
- bank account and credit card details.
We might also collect some information about the babies of our service users, for example age, gender, their estimated due date, when and where they were born and name. We will only collect this from the parent(s) of the baby, or anyone acting for them.
How we collect personal information
Most of personal information that we hold is given to us directly by our members, supporters, service users, staff and volunteers when interacting with our services, websites or fundraising activities. We collect personal information from people when they:
- Become a member
- Become a volunteer
- Apply for a job or to work with us
- Enquire about or register for one of our courses or events
- Purchase our services and products
- Complete our surveys
- Make a donation
- Participate in our research projects
- Sign up to receive one of our newsletters
How we use personal information
We use the personal information that we collect to:
- Provide people with the services, products or information that they ask for
- Manage membership payments, donations and other financial transactions, including rentals and processing gift aid
- Keep a record of our relationships with members, supporters, practitioners, stakeholders, service users, volunteers and staff
- Keep records relating to any donations, feedback or complaints
- Manage supporters and members’ communication and marketing preferences3
- Provide people with information about us and our work, including fundraising, events, courses and campaigns. We will do this when they have agreed to this or when we have a legitimate interest to do it
- Tailor online advertising according to someone’s interests, preferences and other characteristics
- Direct advertisements and other communications to people who might have similar interests or other characteristics to our members and supporters
- Invite people to participate in surveys and research
- Undertake research and equal opportunities monitoring
- Report on the services we have been commissioned to provide including aggregated personal data
- If you provide us with your child's estimated due date/birth date, we will use this to supply content and offers that are appropriate to your stage of pregnancy or your child's age.
We might not use your personal information for all of these purposes – it will depend on our relationship with you, and how you interact with our services, website, and activities.
We might analyse (or use outside services, including Artificial Intelligence, to analyse) our members and supporters’ personal information so that we can better understand the needs of new parents. This could involve carrying out research on the number and characteristics of supporters that live in particular areas, their interests, and what they do.
This helps us to get a better understanding and create profiles of interests and preferences. With this information, we can develop and improve our services, and the way we promote them. We can also better focus our communications and marketing, contacting people with information that is relevant to them.
Our lawful basis for processing
We need a lawful basis to collect and use your personal information.
Our lawful basis for the purposes that we process personal information is consent, for the performance of a contract, or for the legitimate interests of NCT (and where we are confident that the processing will not infringe on your rights and freedom).
Usually we will only process special category data4 if we have the explicit consent of those concerned. In extreme situations, we might share your personal details with the emergency or care services if we believe it is in your ‘vital interests’, or those of another person (i.e. a child), to do so. For example, if:
- someone is taken ill during one of our events,
- any safeguarding concerns are raised, or
- we are required to provide the NHS tracing services with details of individuals that may have come into contact with a member of our team that has since been diagnosed with Covid-19.
We may also share your personal information if the law says we have to.
We will always ask for your consent to send you marketing and fundraising emails, and text messages. You can withdraw consent for this at any time.
There are times when it is just not practical to ask a person for consent. In many situations, the best approach for NCT and our supporters, service users, and volunteers is to process personal data because of our legitimate interests, rather than consent.
The law allows personal data to be legally collected and used if it is necessary for a legitimate business interest of the organisation - as long as its use is fair and balanced and does not unduly impact the rights of the individual concerned.
We process employee personal information to meet our legal obligations as an employer.
Sharing and processing personal information
We will never sell personal information.
Sometimes we need to use outside organisations to process personal information for us, for example our membership mailing house. In these situations we put in place a contract to ensure that the personal information that we provide to them is properly protected and treated in accordance with the requirements of data protection legislation.
We might share some information with social media providers to help us ensure our posts reach individuals that are likely to be interested in them. This is to help us achieve our charitable objectives of supporting all new parents through their First 1,000 Days.
We do not pass on data to other organisations unless required by law or with your specific permission.
How long do we hold onto your personal information?
We will hold your personal information on our systems for as long as is necessary for the relevant activity.
In some circumstances, we might legally be required to retain your personal information for audit purposes. The table below outlines our retention periods for different kinds of personal information.
| Data | Retention period |
|---|---|
| Basic information about our members, service users, volunteers, practitioners and employees (including Contact, Identity, Financial and Transaction Data) | Six years plus current year for tax purposes |
| Informal case notes | 6 months after our last planned contact |
| Equipment hire records | Up to 21 years after hire ceases |
| Job applications and interview records of unsuccessful candidates | 6 months after notifying unsuccessful candidates |
| Employee and training records | While employment continues and up to six years after employment ceases |
| Any reportable accident, death or injury in connection with work | For at least three years from the date the report was made |
| Google user and event data | 26 months for cookies, user identifiers, or advertising identifiers |
Your data protection rights
We respect the privacy of our members, supporters and service users, and their right to decide how and if we can contact them. You are able to choose how you want to hear from us.
We will not contact you if you ask us not to, unless we need to legally or administratively – for instance, to follow up on a membership donation or provide details about the course you have booked.
Anyone can tell us about changes to the personal information we hold about them by contacting our Support line on 0300 330 0700. We will then update our records as appropriate. You can also:
- Request a copy of or more detail about the personal information that we hold and how we use it by emailing dataprotection@nct.org.uk
- Change the ways in which we communicate with you
- Withdraw consent for how we use your information
- Ask us to delete information which we have no valid reason for keeping
- Request us to stop processing personal information
- Object, on grounds relating to your specific situation, to any of our particular processing activities where you feel this has a disproportionate impact on you.
Cookies
Cookies are small data files which are stored on your computer when you use a website. Cookies make using a website much easier because they remember your personal settings such as your username and password, what’s in your shopping cart, what you just searched for, etc. This way, you don’t need to re-enter information on the site.
The cookies on our website do not allow us to identify you personally. They allow us to see the trends in how people use our site so we can make improvements and adjustments so your experience is better.
The cookies on the NCT website enable the three following features:
Storing information when you’re logged in
The cookies which store information during your visit essentially enable you to login with your username and password, and they remember your pregnancy/parenting stage as well as your local branch so that certain information on our website is relevant to you.
Social media and sharing tools
Our website allows you to ‘like’ our articles, events and information, and to share them on Facebook and Twitter with your friends. When you use these tools, the site sets a cookie. However, NCT does not control this functionality, so you’ll need to check on the external site if you want to know their cookie policy.
Website trends
NCT uses Google Analytics to get a better understanding of how people interact with our website so we can make it more user-friendly and easier to navigate. Our site uses cookies that help us track these trends but the information we get is completely anonymous and we are unable to identify visitors.
Controlling and deleting cookies on your computer
All web browsers allow you to manage which cookies you accept, reject and delete. Learn more about types of cookies at www.whatarecookies.com, and about individual browser settings at www.aboutcookies.org.
If you set your browser to not accept cookies from NCT’s website, some sections will not work properly, such as login, events search and pregnancy timeline.
Changes to this privacy policy
We might need to change this privacy notice from time to time. If we do we will update this page to reflect changes in the law and/or our privacy practices. We encourage you to check this privacy policy for changes whenever you visit our website – www.nct.org.uk – so you might want bookmark this page.
- A controller is an organisation which determines the purposes for which and the manner in which personal data is processed.
- Personal information includes personal and special category data. It is information, facts or opinion, which identifies a living individual.
- Also regulated by the ICO under its Guide to Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations
- Personal information relating to someone’s race or ethnicity, political opinions, trade union membership, health, religion, sex life, criminal proceedings or convictions
