Privacy Policy

This policy statement is made in the light of the requirements of the Data Protection Act 1998.

The SMA Trust values your privacy and we intend to do our best to safeguard it. Our charity is founded on the trust that we have developed with our supporters over the years. We want you to understand how we will use and look after your personal information. This is explained in this privacy policy.

The SMA Trust is a charity registered in England no. 1097765. By sending your personal information to us, you explicitly consent to its transfer to and use by us in the UK.

Data supplied by you will only be used by The SMA Trust to supply you with information on, or concerning, Spinal Muscular Atrophy, its research and its fundraising activities. We will communicate with you by telephone, letter, email or other reasonable means.

You have the right to ask for a copy of the information we hold on you and to have any inaccuracies corrected, and to tell us in writing if you do not wish to receive further correspondence from us by mail, telephone, email or other means.

Please help us to keep your information up to date by notifying us of any changes in your personal details by telephone, letter or email.

We reserve the right to amend this privacy statement at any time. If we do so, we will post notice of the change on our website and you will be deemed to have accepted such changes if you continue to use the website.

For further information please contact info@smatrust.org

We may change this policy from time to time by updating this page. You should check this page from time to time to ensure you are happy with any changes. This policy is effective from 1st January 2011.

What information do we collect?

In general, you can use this website without giving us any information. However, we do receive and store any information you enter on the website or give us in any other way. You provide this information when you provide information on the website, or communicate with us by phone, e-mail or otherwise in relation to it.

In addition to personal information which you provide to us directly and of your own volition including your name and contact details, we may request and collect from you the following information

• your name and contact information, including email address and company details
• billing information, transaction and credit card information
• information regarding your personal or professional interests, demographics, experiences with our services and contact preferences in order to provide you with further correspondence about our services

Please be aware that we will not retain information provided to us by you, if it is not relevant for the services we provide (as set out in this policy) or otherwise unlawful in your jurisdiction.

What do we do with the information we collect?

We use this information as requested by or agreed with you and in particular for the following reasons

• to improve our services
• to deal with your queries and/or provide information to you
• for administration and financial management purposes
• for internal record keeping
• to prepare statistical analyses for marketing purposes and to contact you for marketing purposes
• to provide information for information technology and web site administration and security. Personal information will be used anonymously for any published information derived in this way
• to comply with legal or regulatory requirements

Direct Marketing

We would like to provide you with information about new services, promotions and other information which we think you may find interesting. We may send you such information by mail and/or telephone, unless it would be unlawful to do so in your jurisdiction. When you provide us with information, you will be given the option to let us know that you do not want your information used for direct marketing purposes. If you request this option, we will not send you any direct marketing.

You can change your preferences in this regard at any time by contacting our data protection compliance officer at info@smatrust.org

Email marketing

We would also like to provide you with the information above by email. However, we appreciate that email “spam” has become a problem in recent years.

If you have previously asked us for information on our services, we may send you information on services by email, unless you have asked us not to do so.

If the reason you have given us personal information is to receive email information from us, we will continue to provide this information by email unless you ask us not to do so.

Otherwise, when you provide us with personal information, we will ask you whether or not you are happy for us to send you this kind of information by email.

If you decide at any time that you no longer wish to receive marketing emails from us, please contact our data protection compliance officer at info@smatrust.org

Whom do we share this information with?

Unless your personal information with us is subject to other terms and/or policies which state otherwise, we will not transfer, disclose, sell, distribute or lease your personal information to third parties unless we have your permission, or are otherwise permitted to do so by law without your permission. We may release your personal information to our authorized service providers to help us provide any requested or agreed service(s) to you.

Security

We are committed to ensuring that your information is secure. In order to prevent unauthorized access or disclosure we have put in place appropriate physical, electronic and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure the information we collect on line. We use encryption when collecting or transferring data such as credit card information through third party services.

Linking

We may link to other websites which are not within our control. Once you have left our website, we cannot be responsible for the protection and privacy of any information which you provide. You should exercise caution and look at the privacy statement applicable to the website in question.

Cookies

We use cookies for certain areas of our website. Cookies are files that store information on your hard drive or browser that means that our website can recognise that you have visited our website before. They make it easier for you to maintain your preferences on the website, and by seeing how you use the website, we can tailor the website around your preferences and measure usability of the website. You can, should you choose, disable the cookies from your browser and delete all cookies currently stored on your computer. On Microsoft Internet Explorer, this can be done by selecting “Tools/Internet Options” and reviewing your privacy settings or selecting “delete cookies”. This may prevent you from taking full advantage of services that we can provide on the website. You can find out how to do this for your particular browser by clicking "help" on your browser's menu or by visiting www.allaboutcookies.org/manage-cookies/index.html