Privacy Policy

The Birchgrove group of companies act as the ‘Data Controller’ of the personal data that you (‘you’ means the person whose data is being processed) provide to us. We are committed to protecting your data and your rights in line with the UK Data Protection Act 2018 and the EU General Data Protection Regulation 2016. This notice explains how information about you is used by us.

This Privacy Policy applies to those making enquiries with Birchgrove, prospective residents and residents of Birchgrove operated communities.

Birchgrove's Privacy Priniciples

We know that your information privacy is very important to you. We promise that it is even more important to us.

This is central to Birchgrove’s values as an organisation. We want everyone who has any dealings with us, from our customers, our employees and members of the public, to feel confident about how any personal information they share will be looked after or used.

You can be confident that:

• We only use personal information in the ways we need to and that is expected of us.
• We will use your information to keep you up to date, for example to let you know how we are progressing with your enquiry, to provide any service you may need, to improve all of our services as well as our ongoing service provision.
• But, we only use your personal information to do this if you have previously given us your permission to do so.
• We will make it easy for you to tell us how you want us to communicate with you, including how to opt out from future communications - and we promise we will always comply with your request. Please note that you may continue to receive communications for a short period while our systems are fully updated.
• We will never release your information to organisations outside Birchgrove for their marketing purposes.
• We will be especially careful and sensitive when engaging with vulnerable people or those we have reason to believe might be vulnerable.
• We take all reasonable care to safeguard all your personal information through security policies and secure business processes. We take extra care to ensure all sensitive personal information is properly looked after.
• We respond quickly, efficiently and lawfully if you have any queries or complaints, or if you wish to amend your records.
• We fully respect your rights relating to the personal information we process about you - we will always provide easy ways for you to contact us. Our Data Protection Officer is happy to answer any queries you have.

How we collect personal data about you

We may collect personal information from you when you interact with Birchgrove in order to provide support to you. This may happen, for example, if you enquire about our communities, register interest with us, let a property, if you choose to provide some optional feedback or otherwise provide us with personal information. This may be when you phone us, go onto our website, through email or the post, in person, or through our own observations.

What information do we collect about you?

To help Birchgrove to provide you with the services you have asked for, we may process the following information:

• Your personal details – such as your name, date of birth and your nationality
• Your contact details – such as your address, telephone, email address, and other information that you may provide in any correspondence between us
• Financial information you may provide to us – such as bank details, financial details and credit/debit card details (for example, if you are renting from us)
• Details of others such as 'next of kin' – this may be the contact details of a close relative or friend, or your solicitor or other agent/s
• ‘Special categories’ of data, for example, any health conditions and other health information that are needed to provide support to you
• Any preferences you may have, including whether you consent to any marketing contact
• We also collect general information about the use of our websites, such as which pages users visit most often, and which services, events or facilities are of most interest. We may also track which pages users visit when they click on links in Birchgrove emails. We may use this information to personalise the way our websites are presented when users visit them, to make improvements to our websites and to ensure we provide the best service for users. Wherever possible we use aggregated or anonymous information which does not identify individual visitors to our websites

The provision of information by you is needed so that we can provide you with the contractual service you have asked for or so that we can legitimately fulfil your request. Where necessary, we will ask for permission to process data and your consent is requested when we ask for your data.

We may also obtain information about you from third party organisations such as estate agents, independent financial advisors, referral agents, list brokers, recruitment agencies, service providers and data agents.

Information about third parties

Information we process as described in this notice may also include information about third parties such as your friends and relatives, references and referrals whose details you supply to us.

A special note about the sensitive information we hold

Birchgrove prides ourself on high service standards to each valued customer. To enable us to do this we may need to ask you to provide us with details of a sensitive nature, such as any medical conditions, their treatment and medication. This may extend to other sensitive information such as racial or ethnic origin, religious or similar beliefs, or criminal record. We may gather this data in order to provide the support to you, or to provide other customer services such as religious service or equal opportunities monitoring.

When you share this with us, we usually ask for your explicit consent to process it for these purposes; However, occasionally we may do so without consent where required or permitted to do so by applicable law (e.g. to comply with diversity reporting requirements). Your sensitive information will not be used for any other purpose.

We will not pass on your details to anyone else without your permission except in exceptional circumstances. Examples of this might include sharing medical data with the doctor or hospital in cases of serious medical conditions, posing a threat to others, and sharing other serious issues.

If you provide us with any sensitive personal data by telephone, email or by other means, we will treat that information with extra care and always in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

Systems and applications used to process data

We store and process your information using a number of systems and applications. These may include, for example:

• Computer networks and connections
• Systems and applications needed to provide our services (this includes Sherpa CRM and LifeLoop)
• CCTV and access control systems
• Communications systems
• Email and instant messaging systems
• Intranet and internet facilities
• Telephones, voicemail, mobile phone records
• Social media platforms
• Face to face customer service
• Other hardware that we own

Where systems and applications are provided by third party suppliers, we always ensure these are from reputable suppliers. All suppliers will be subject to a GDPR compliant contract between Birchgrove and that third party that will safeguard your privacy rights.

Cookies

When you use our website, we may gather information about you through internet access logs, cookies and other technical means. Cookies are text files placed on your computer to collect internet log information and user behaviour information. These are used to track website usage and monitor website activity and for other data processing reasons below.

Our site may place and access certain first party cookies on your computer or device. First party cookies are those placed directly by us and are used only by us. We use cookies to facilitate and improve your experience of our site and to provide and improve our products and services. We have carefully chosen these cookies and have taken steps to ensure that your privacy and personal data is protected and respected at all times. All cookies used by and on our site, are used in accordance with the current Cookie Law. We may use some or all of the following types of cookie:

Strictly Necessary Cookies - A cookie falls into this category if it is essential to the operation of our site, supporting functions such as logging in.

Analytics Cookies - It is important for us to understand how you use our site. For example, how efficiently you are able to navigate around it, and what features you use. Analytics cookies enable us to gather this information, helping us to improve our site and your experience of it.

Third Party Cookies - Third party cookies are not placed by us; instead, they are placed by third parties that provide services to us and/or to you. Third party cookies may be used by third parties providing analytics services to us (these cookies will work in the same way as analytics cookies described above).

Persistent Cookies - Any of the above types of cookie may be a persistent cookie. Persistent cookies are those which remain on your computer or device for a predetermined period and are activated each time you visit our site.

Session Cookies - Any of the above types of cookie may be a session cookie. Session cookies are temporary and only remain on your computer or device from the point at which you visit our site until you close your browser. Session cookies are deleted when you close your browser.

Some of the cookies we use are essential for parts of the site to operate and have already been set. You may change your settings (in the ‘options’ or ‘preference’ menu of your browser) so that you delete and block all cookies from this site – although this may mean that parts of the site will not work. To understand these settings you can use the 'Help' option in your browser for more details.

We may alter this Cookie Policy at any time. Any such changes will become binding on your first use of our site after the changes have been made. You are therefore advised to check this page from time to time.

In the event of any conflict between the current version of this Cookie Policy and any previous version(s), the provisions current and in effect shall prevail unless it is expressly stated otherwise.

How do we use personal information?

Birchgrove processes your information for identified lawful and legitimate purposes. The purpose for processing may be for a statutory or contractual requirement: where this is the case, you have a choice as to whether you provide your information but not doing so may mean that we are unable to provide the service you have requested. On occasion, we may also process information based on your consent, or in someone’s vital interests.

For information on the conditions for processing, please contact the Data Protection Officer.

Examples of reasons for which we process your information include:

• To provide you with the services you have requested;
• For necessary disclosure (for example, to solicitors, to the police, to the Courts, to tribunals and enquiries, and to the Local Authority for council tax purposes)
• To help ensure safety and security, as well as to prevent and detect crime
• For fraud prevention, research and analysis, enhancing, modifying or improving our services

Confidential customer-identifiable information is only shared with other organisations where there is a legal basis for it as follows:

• When there is a Court Order or a statutory duty to share client data
• When there is a statutory power to share client data
• When the client has given his/her explicit consent to the sharing
• When the client has implicitly consented to the sharing for direct care purposes

Marketing and your choices

We would like to keep all of our customers up to date with community news, developments and our plans, as well as any events and special offers in our restaurants in which you may be interested. You can choose how we keep in touch with you (by post, phone, email, text and other electronic means). Where necessary, we ask for your consent to do this. You can change your mind and remove or add that consent at any time, simply by contacting us using the details below:

By email: hello@birchgrove.life

By post:

Data Protection Officer

Birchgrove Services LLP

Woodbank Apartments

Holly Bank Road

Hook Heath

Surrey

GU22 0AR

By phone: 020 3929 5599

We do not sell/share your personal information with any third party for their marketing purposes

Who sees your personal information

The personal information we collect about you will be used by our employees in Birchgrove in the UK so that they can support you and provide the services you request.

Birchgrove may share your information with our trusted partners and suppliers, some of which may be international organisations outside the EEA. Your information will only be shared to enable Birchgrove to provide services to you. These organisations include service providers; estate agents; independent financial advisors; security and CCTV service providers; marketing agencies and suppliers; system and applications providers; fitness services; and other representatives.

Examples of these third parties include:

• Marketing agencies if you consent to being contacted by post or email about community updates
• Suppliers of systems and applications used by Birchgrove to provide our services
• Care monitoring providers to provide emergency assistance to our residents
• Web development companies to host our website on our behalf
• Human resources and benefit service providers

Where we share your information, it is always carried out under our instruction, and is never for their marketing approaches. We ensure that we perform our due diligence on these third parties which includes storing the data securely and deleting it when it is no longer needed.

We may also disclose your information with law enforcement agencies and regulatory bodies as required by law.

Your information security

We take the security of your personal information extremely seriously.

We have implemented appropriate physical, technical and organisational measures to protect the personal information we have under our control, both on and off-line, from improper access, use, alteration, destruction and loss.

We store your personal data on secure servers.

Security of processing outside the EEA

On a few occasions, Birchgrove may store your personal information with international organisations outside the EEA. This includes locations such as the US. We comply fully with our legal obligations as a data controller and take all steps necessary to ensure that your personal information is treated securely and in accordance with legislation.

These international organisations comply with the local laws as applicable to them.

Any transfer of your data will be subject to a GDPR compliant contract between Birchgrove and that third party that will safeguard your privacy rights.

How long do we store your personal information?

We only keep your data for as long as is reasonable and necessary, which may be to fulfil statutory obligations. We ensure that any third parties that process information on our behalf adhere to these standards.

More information on our retention schedule can be found by contacting the Data Protection Officer.

Your communication with our teams at Birchgrove

Your communications with our teams (including by telephone or email) may be monitored and/or recorded for training, quality control and compliance purposes to ensure that we continuously improve our customer service standards.

Your rights and getting in touch with Birchgrove

If you wish to get in touch with our Data Protection Officer for any reason, including your rights below, please contact us at dataprotectionofficer@birchgrove.life so we can help.

Your right to request a copy of your information

You can request a copy of your information which we hold, free of charge (this is known as a subject access request). You will be asked to:

• Complete a request form
• Let us have proof of your identity and address (a copy of your driving licence or passport and a recent utility or credit card bill), and
• Let us know the information you want a copy of

We will then respond in full within one calendar month.

Your right to correct any mistakes, to erase, to restrict or to port your personal information

You can request that we correct any mistakes in your information which we hold, free of charge. You will be provided with a form to help us identify you and to inform us of the information that is incorrect and what it should be replaced with. You have the right to ask us to erase, restrict processing or to port your data. Please contact the Data Protection Officer.

Your right to ask us to stop contacting you with direct marketing

You can ask us to stop contacting you for direct marketing purposes. If you would like to do this, please get in touch using the below details.

By email: hello@birchgrove.life

By post:

Head of Sales

Woodbank Apartments

Holly Bank Road

Hook Heath

GU22 0AR

By phone: 020 3929 5599

How to make a complaint

If you are unhappy with the way your personal data has been processed, you may in the first instance contact the Data Protection Officer using the contact details below.

You can get in touch with Birchgrove as follows:

In writing:

Data Protection Officer

Woodbank Apartments

Holly Bank Road

Hook Heath

Surrey

GU22 0AR

By email: dataprotectionofficer@birchgrove.life

By phone: 020 3929 5599

If you remain unsatisfied with our response or believe we are processing your personal data not in accordance with the law, you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

Changes to our privacy policy

Our Privacy Policy is reviewed regularly to ensure that it reflects how we use your information. Any changes will be notified to you by updating this policy so please check this Policy to see if any changes have been made that are important to you. Where appropriate, changes will be notified to you by email.