Privacy policy, cookies and social media policy

Citizens Advice Wokingham privacy policy

At Citizens Advice we collect and use your personal information to help solve your problems, improve our services and tackle wider issues in society that affect people’s lives.

We only ask for the information we need. We always let you decide what you’re comfortable telling us, explain why we need it and treat it as confidential.

When we record and use your personal information we:

  • only access it when we have a good reason
  • only share what is necessary and relevant
  • don’t sell it to anyone

We collect and use the details you give us so we can help you. We have a ‘legitimate interest’ to do this under data protection law. This means it lets us carry out our aims and goals as an organisation. We’ll always explain how we use your information.

At times we might use or share your information without your permission. If we do, we’ll always make sure there’s a legal basis for it. This could include situations where we have to use or share your information:

  • to comply with the law – for example, if a court orders us to share information. This is called ‘legal obligation’
  • to protect someone’s life – for example, sharing information with a paramedic if a client was unwell at our office. This is called ‘vital interests’
  • to carry out our legitimate aims and goals as a charity – for example, to create statistics for our national research. This is called ‘legitimate interests’
  • for us to carry out a task where we’re meeting the aims of a public body in the public interest – for example, delivering a government or local authority service. This is called ‘public task’
  • to carry out a contract we have with you – for example, if you’re an employee we might need to store your bank details so we can pay you. This is called ‘contract’
  • to defend our legal rights – for example, sharing information with our legal advisors if there was a complaint that we gave the wrong advice

We handle and store your personal information in line with the law – including the UK General Data Protection Regulation and the Data Protection Act 2018.

You can check our main Citizens Advice policy for how we handle most of your personal information. 

This page covers how we, as your local charity, handle your information locally in our offices.

What Citizens Advice Wokingham ask for

To find out what information we ask for, see our national Citizens Advice privacy policy

How Citizens Advice Wokingham use your information

To find out how we use your information, see our national Citizens Advice privacy policy

Working on your behalf

When you give us authority to act on your behalf, for example to help you with a Universal Credit claim, we’ll need to share information with that third party.

We regularly refer clients to services such as at Wokingham Borough Council, Wokingham Foodbank, other hardship and support charities – we only do this with your consent.

How Citizens Advice Wokingham store your information 

We use a casebook management system as joint data controllers with Citizens Advice.

Referrals made via our website are sent through to a secure spreadsheet and deleted after 30 days.

How Citizens Advice Wokingham share your information

We share client information with external organisations where we are making a referral with your consent.

We share non-confidential client information such as age ranges, gender, the types of issues we’ve helped with to our funders and other methods.

Contact Citizens Advice Wokingham about your information

If you have any questions about how your information is collected or used, you can contact our office.

Telephone: 0118 978 7258 and leave a voicemail

Email: admin@citizensadvicewokingham.org.uk

You can contact us to: 

  • find out what personal information we hold about you
  • correct your information if it’s wrong, out of date or incomplete
  • request we delete your information
  • ask us to limit what we do with your data – for example, ask us not to share it if you haven’t asked us already 
  • ask us to give you a copy of the data we hold in a format you can use to transfer it to another service
  • ask us stop using your information

Who’s responsible for looking after your personal information

The national Citizens Advice charity and your local Citizens Advice operate a system called Casebook to keep your personal information safe. This means they’re a ‘joint data controller’ for your personal information that’s stored in our Casebook system. 

Each local Citizens Advice is an independent charity, and a member of the national Citizens Advice charity. The Citizens Advice membership agreement also requires that the use of your information complies with data protection law. 

You can find out more about your data rights on the Information Commissioner’s website.

How we use cookies

When you use our website, we add cookies to your device to:

  • make sure the website works well for you
  • find out how you’re using our website so we can improve it

By using our website, we assume you agree to us adding cookies to your device. If you want to disable, block or remove cookies, you can do this at any time. The icon in the bottom left hand corner of the screen can help you do this.

If you disable all cookies you:

  • won’t be able to have your preferences remembered
  • won’t be able to fill in forms on our website
  • might not be able to use webchat or see content from other companies like Youtube videos or SurveyMonkey feedback forms
  • won’t be able to log in – if you work or volunteer for Citizens Advice

To block cookies, you should change the settings in your web browser. You can also delete cookies that have already been set. Click on ‘Help’ in your web browser and search for ‘cookies’.

Cookies from Google Analytics or Hotjar tell us how you’re using our site. You can opt out if you don’t want these cookies added to your device.

We use tools called Google Analytics and Hotjar to help us understand how you’re using our website.

They collect information by putting cookies on your device. They share that data with us and we use it to improve our website – for example, making popular pages easier to find or navigate.

Google Analytics and Hotjar collect information about:

  • which links you click on
  • where you move the mouse or cursor across the page
  • how much you scroll up and down the page
  • your browser, device and operating system
  • the language you’re using
  • your screen’s resolution
  • the length of time you’re on our website
  • your ISP and approximate ISP location (City, Region, Country)
  • how you got to our website

The data collected through cookies is all anonymous – you cannot be identified by it.

We store the information for 6 months and then delete it.

Read more about how Google Analytics use cookies (click here)
Read more about hotjar and their privacy policy (click here)

This cookies policy only covers citizensadvicewokingham.org.uk and its subdomains. Websites we link to should have their own cookies policy.

Social Media Policy

Advice requests

We are committed to people getting the most appropriate and high quality advice. Therefore we cannot give advice or respond to advice requests over social networks or through our blogs. If you do ask us for advice on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, we will try and refer you to the relevant service or source of information within three working days. We cannot guarantee when we will respond on other social networks as they are not monitored. If you do need advice, please head to the relevant section on our website.

Endorsement

Any follows, retweets, favourites, likes, shares, comments or other social media interactions should not be considered as an endorsement or agreement with the sentiment by Citizens Advice Wokingham.

Inappropriate behaviour

We encourage open conversation on our social media channels, and would love to hear your views and experiences. However, we ask that you abide by our community guidelines when you do so. By contributing to one of our online channels you agree:

  • To be solely responsible for the content of all information you contribute, link to or otherwise upload
  • To use language that is appropriate, respectful and polite
  • That use of trademarks or intellectual property belonging to another will not be used unless the owners’ prior permission has been given.

Any posts which contravene these guidelines or which we deem inappropriate may be hidden, deleted or lead to a ban. In most cases we will endeavour to inform the poster why their post or behaviour was inappropriate.

Inappropriate posts and behaviour may include:

  • Offensive language, profanity, personal attacks, illegal statements, discrimination of any kind
  • Content attempting to impersonate someone else
  • Advertisements for products and/or services
  • Misleading information, deliberately or accidentally
  • Contacting people privately or separately from the original discussion and using offensive or aggressive language

We will not remove posts because they are critical of Citizens Advice Wokingham, unless they also match any of the criteria above. If your post was removed and you wish to question our decision, please get in touch with us.