Energy Projects Plus is a registered charity (charity number 1080137) and a company limited by guarantee (company number 3176917).

We are committed to providing support to our beneficiaries appropriate to their needs whilst at all times protecting their privacy.

This privacy policy applies to information we collect about individuals who interact with our charity. It explains what personal information we collect, how we collect it, and how we use it. If you have any comments or questions about this notice, feel free to contact us at advice@epplus.org

1.      Personal data that we process

Our service is available to beneficiaries through telephone, postal, email, face to face, and web routes. We will always obtain explicit consent from you to hold and process your personal data before doing so.

1.1 Information provided by you

Beneficiaries

In order to provide our advice, information, and support service we require some basic personal information about you. This will include, where relevant, name, address, telephone number, email address.

We may also provide more in-depth support to you such as applying for grants or assessing eligibility for benefits or third party schemes. In order to provide this support we will need to obtain further personal data, which may include date of birth, gender, income and savings, benefit details, employment, health conditions, tenure or other data items required for a specific grant or service. We will only collect data appropriate to your circumstances and need.

Where personal information of other household members is required you must have their explicit consent before providing it.

Employees

In order to comply with employment law, health and safety requirements and operational requirements as an employer we will hold personal information including name, address, email address, telephone number, N.I. number, emergency contact, health conditions, employment history (before and during current employment), bank details, medical practice, DBS records, training records, other records required by law.

Potential employees

In order to process applications for employment by you we will hold personal information, which can include name, address, telephone number, email address, employment status and history, date of birth.

General enquiries

In response to general enquiries about our charity and its services we will hold name, email address, telephone number in order to respond to your enquiry in the way that you would expect.

Website

We do use cookies and web analytics to help us make our website as easy for you to use as possible.

Cookies are small text files that are stored on your computer’s hard drive by websites you visit to enable the site to ’remember’ who you are. We use the cookies on this website to ‘remember’ information so that it can be passed from page to page and to collect site statistics. We may also collect your I.P. address for statistical reporting.

You should be able to accept, delete or reject cookies if you wish by adjusting the settings on your browser. This will, however, affect your use of the areas of our site that use cookies.

1.2 Information provided by referring organisation

Referring organisations must have the explicit consent of their beneficiaries before making a referral and providing beneficiaries’ personal information to our charity. Where such consent is obtained the referring organisation may provide similar personal details as beneficiaries where relevant and appropriate to the beneficiaries’ needs and circumstances. We will also hold the name, email address, and telephone number of the referrer where provided.

2.      How we use your personal data

We undertake to protect your personal data in a manner consistent with the General Data Protection Regulation and will take all reasonable security measures to protect your personal data in storage.

As a data controller we will only use your data for the purpose it was provided. This will include:

• Providing advice and information to you
• Assessing your eligibility for support, grants, benefits or other services appropriate to your needs and circumstances
• Referring you or applying on your behalf (with your prior explicit consent) to grant providers, other associated service providers, installers or utilities for measures or tariffs, registration with support schemes appropriate to your circumstances.
• Where applying for employment only for the assessment and process of recruitment
• Where an employee for any operational requirements as an employer, including processing of salaries, tax and pension payment.

3. When we share your data

Our service includes making applications for grants and funding on behalf of beneficiaries, referring beneficiaries to other organisations for support including measures to their home, benefits or debt support, switching energy supplier.

We will only pass your data to third parties in the following circumstances:

• You have provided your prior explicit consent for us to pass data to a named third party relevant and appropriate to your needs and circumstances
• We are required by law to share your data
• Any mailing or printing agents e.g. mailchimp, contractors or advisors that provide a service to our charity on the understanding that they keep the information confidential and secure and comply with the General Data Protection Regulation

We do not pass data to third parties outside of the European Union (EU), however should circumstances arise where it becomes necessary we will only pass data to third parties outside of the EU where appropriate safeguards are in place as defined by Article 46 of the General Data Protection Regulation.

4.      How long we keep your data

We take the principles of data minimisation and removal seriously and have internal policies in place to ensure that we only ever ask for the minimum amount of data for the associated purpose and delete that data promptly once it is no longer required.

Funders and grant providers may have varying requirements of data retention for audit and compliance purposes, which we are required to comply with. Once these periods have elapsed we will remove the data as appropriate.

Where data is collected on the basis of consent, we will seek renewal of consent at least every three years.

5.      Rights you have over your data

You have a range of rights over your data, which include the following:

• Where data processing is based on consent, you may revoke this consent at any time and we will make it as easy as possible for you to do this (for example by putting ‘unsubscribe’ links at the bottom of all our marketing emails)
• You have the right to ask for rectification and/or deletion of your information
• You have the right of access to your information
• You have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner if you feel your rights have been infringed

A full summary of your legal rights over your data can be found on the Information Commissioner’s website here: https://ico.org.uk/

If you would like to access the rights listed above, or any other legal rights you have over your data under current legislation, please get in touch with us at advice@epplus.org

Please note that relying on some of these rights, such as the right to deleting your data, will make us unable to continue to deliver some services to you, and certain pieces of information may also be required to be retained in line with our data retention policy outlined in section 4.

6.      Modifications

Our privacy policy is regularly reviewed to make sure it remains up to date and appropriate to our charity’s programmes and services. Should we modify our policy it will be published at https://www.epplus.org.uk/privacy-policy/

Where the modified policy significantly affects your rights we will inform you and obtain your permission to continue to hold your data.

Energy Projects Plus

Latest version published 24th May 2018

Latest version last reviewed 8th February 2024