Privacy

Universal Credit Essentials educates, informs and supports those who are claiming or investigating how to claim Universal Credit.  We aim to provide this education, information and support so individuals can take control of their claim.  We believe that providing this service allows individuals greater control of their claim and improves expectations and accuracy.  We are committed to keeping your data safe, making it clear what information we collect from you, and how we use it.  
This page, together with our terms of use and cookies policy, sets out how we use and protect your data. Universal Credit Essentials is a charity registered in Scotland (registration number SC050201).

You can change how we contact you at any time, by simply emailing us with the request.  

What data we collect and how we use it 
The type and quantity of data we collect and use depends on why you have provided it. 
We will only collect, use and otherwise handle your personal data: 

• where you have consented to this for specified, explicit and legitimate purposes 

• where this is necessary to fulfil legal obligations that apply to us 

• where it is necessary for our legitimate interests relating to running our daily operations, as long as, in each case, these interests are in line with applicable law and your legal rights and freedoms. 

Volunteers 

• If you volunteer with us, or enquire about our volunteering opportunities, we will usually collect your name, contact details, emergency contact details, contact preferences, ethnicity, gender, availability to volunteer, disability (including physical and mental conditions) and criminal convictions. 

• We collect this data so that we can contact you about volunteering opportunities that come up; so that we ensure the safety of our volunteers, staff and customers; can pay expenses if appropriate and to help us anonymously measure our inclusion and accessibility across our volunteering programmes. We will keep this data for two years after you stop volunteering for us. 

Online Community 

• Universal Credit Essentials is primarily an online service including a community space for individuals to gain information and support from others in similar situation.  This service is anonymous and no personal data is stored. 

• Posts will be kept indefinitely. 

Services 

• Universal Credit Essentials aims to offer a variety of information and advice services to claimants and prospective claimants of Universal Credit.  We also offer training and advice for other agencies and professionals regarding Universal Credit.  We will collect your contact details and preferences, and any other data that is relevant to delivering the service to you. This information will only be used for the purposes of the service and not shared elsewhere.   

• We will keep the data for up to six years, in line with contracts and government regulations. 

 Complaints 

• Should you wish to register a complaint we will collect your name, contact details and details about the complaint to enable us to respond, monitor and improve our organisation. This data will be shared if appropriate with any third parties who are involved in resolving the complaint, for example, agencies that we have partnered with. 

• We will hold this data for six years. 

Website 

• When someone visits www.uceplus.co.uk  we use a third-party service, Google Analytics, to collect standard internet log information and details of visitor behaviour patterns. We do this to find out information, such as the number of visitors to the various parts of the site. 

• If we want to collect personally identifiable information through our website, we will be upfront about this. We will make it clear when we collect personal information and will explain what we intend to do with it. We will collect any questions, queries and feedback you leave. This will include your email address if you send us an email, your IP address, and which web browser (and version) you use. Information on how people use the site, through cookies and page tagging, helps us improve our website and our services. Find out more about our Cookie Policy. 

• We may also pass on your personal information to online advertising tools, including Facebook Custom audiences, Google AdWords Match and Google Analytics to carry out ‘remarketing activities’. These third-party vendors may use cookies to serve these ads based on your previous visits to our website. 

• We might also obtain your personal data through your use of social media such as Facebook, depending on your settings or the privacy policies of these social media and messaging services. To change your settings on these services, please refer to their privacy notices, which will tell you how to do this. 

Your rights 
We will only collect the data that we need to carry out the purposes you have contacted us for, or given us permission to use it for. 
To enable us to carry out the purposes you have contacted us for, there will be occasions when we will make some data collection mandatory i.e. your name and address, or your email address to access our services. If you don’t provide this data, we cannot carry out the purposes you have contacted us for. We will always tell you why these fields are mandatory. 
At any time that you wish you can: 

1. gain access to your personal information 

2. object to the processing of your personal information 

3. object to the use of automated decision-making and profiling 

4. restrict the processing of your personal information 

5. ask for a copy of your personal data (known as data portability) 

6. rectify or correct your personal information 

7. have your personal information removed (known as Erasure or the ‘right to ​be forgotten’). 

Where you have provided consent to be contacted or to receive a service, you will be entitled to withdraw that consent at any time. 
If you are at any point unhappy with the way that we handled your personal data, you can make a complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office. 
To make changes to how we contact you, please contact UCE at info@uceplus.co.uk