WHO WE ARE

Girl Effect is a non-profit organisation committed to protecting and respecting the personal data that we hold. This privacy notice describes why and how we collect and use personal data and provides information about individuals’ rights. It applies to personal data provided to us, both by individuals themselves and by others. We may use personal data provided to us for the purposes described in this privacy notice or as made clear before collecting personal data.

WHAT IS PERSONAL DATA?

Personal data is any information relating to an identified or identifiable living person. When collecting and using personal data, we are transparent about why and how we process personal data. We process personal data for a number of purposes, and the means of collection, lawful basis of processing, use, disclosure, and retention periods for each purpose are set out in the relevant sections below.

The personal data that is provided to us is provided either directly from the individual concerned or from a third party acting on behalf of an individual. Where we receive personal data that relates to an individual from a third party, the third party should be aware that the individual may be informed of the necessary information regarding the use of their data. Where necessary, reference may be made to this privacy notice.

TYPES OF PERSONAL DATA WE PROCESS

We collect and process the following types of personal data:

• Names
• Addresses
• Phone numbers
• User names
• Email addresses and other contact information
• Records of your correspondence with us
• Details of your visit to the website
• Information about your experiences with our work
• Personal information you provide when you apply to work for us
• Any other information provided to us

HOW WE COLLECT PERSONAL DATA

We collect personal data:

• Through your engagement with our services and our interviews with you
• Through your registration for events
• Through your contacting us with enquiries and comments
• Through your request for publications, information, and news about our work
• Through your applications for jobs with us
• Through your request for information about our events
• Through our use of cookies and pixel tags (please see our COOKIES POLICY)

THE LAWFUL BASIS?

There are several reasons why we will process the personal data that you may provide to us:

• To provide advice and ongoing support
• To engage with you via the services we offer
• To undertake research and analysis
• To undertake recruitment exercises
• To manage an ongoing relationship such as attendance at events
• For marketing with your consent

Under the UK GDPR, the lawful bases we rely on to process personal data are:

• Your consent. You are able to withdraw your consent at any time and you can do this by contacting us at dataprotection@girleffect.org.
• We have a legitimate interest.

HOW LONG DO WE KEEP PERSONAL DATA FOR?

Any personal data will not be retained for any longer than is necessary for the lawful purposes for which it was collected and processed. We may, in some cases, keep personal data for longer to establish, exercise, or defend our legal rights. In addition, personal data may be securely archived with restricted access and other appropriate safeguards where there is a need to continue to retain it. While we retain your personal data, we will ensure that it is kept securely and protected from loss, misuse, or unauthorized access and disclosure. Once the retention period is reached, we will delete your personal data.

SHARING PERSONAL DATA

We will only share personal data with others when we are legally permitted to do so or where you have provided consent. These may include our technical and infrastructure partners. When we share personal data with others, we put arrangements and security mechanisms (a contract or a data-sharing agreement) in place to protect the personal data and to comply with our data protection, confidentiality, and security standards. This also includes Non-Disclosure Agreements.

PROCESSORS

We may contract with external organizations who act as a data processor on our behalf. This may include our website and chatbot platforms. Any personal data shared with a data processor for this purpose will be governed by appropriate safeguards and contracts under data protection law.

LOCATIONS OF PROCESSING

The personal data that we collect from you will be processed within the UK. However, it may be necessary, in some cases, to transfer personal data outside of the UK/EEA to other Girl Effect offices. Any such transfers will be fully compliant with the requirements of the legislation which includes having undertaken a Transfer Risk Assessment and having an International Data Transfer Agreement in place. We will take all reasonable steps to ensure that your personal data is treated securely, in accordance with this privacy notice.

INDIVIDUAL RIGHTS

Individuals have certain rights over their personal data, and Girl Effect is responsible for fulfilling these rights as follows:

• Individuals may request access to their personal data held by us.
• Individuals may ask us to rectify personal data submitted to us.
• Individuals may request that we erase their personal data.
• Individuals may have other rights to restrict or object to our processing of personal data and the right to data portability.
• Individuals may request information about, or human intervention into, any automated data processing that we may undertake.
• Where we process personal data based on consent, individuals may withdraw their consent at any time by contacting us.

OUR CONTACT INFORMATION

If you have any questions about this ‘Privacy Notice’ or how and why we process personal data, please contact us at dataprotection@girleffect.org or via mail at 151 Wardour Street, London W1F 8WE, or 228 Park Ave S, PMB 33237 New York, New York 10003-1502.

CHANGES TO OUR PRIVACY NOTICE

Updates to this Privacy Notice will appear on this website. This Privacy Notice was last updated in August 2024.

ABOUT THIS POLICY

This Cookie Policy tells you what to expect when our website collects personal information. It applies to the information we collect about our visitors, and those who login to our website.

WHAT ARE COOKIES?

A ‘cookie’ is a small text file that is delivered by our website server onto your computer whilst you visit our website, which can subsequently be used by the website to identify particular devices and thereby remember your website preferences and login details. Most cookies will not collect information that identifies you and instead will collect more general information such as how you arrived at and used our website, or your general geographical location.

TYPES OF COOKIES

Session cookies are temporary and expire once you close your browser (or once your session ends).

Persistent cookies encompass all cookies that remain on your hard drive until you erase them, or your browser does, depending on the cookie’s expiration date. All persistent cookies have an expiration date written into their code, but their duration can vary. According to the ePrivacy Directive (Directive 2002/58/EC), they should not last longer than 12 months, but in practice, they could remain on your device much longer if you do not take action.

First-party cookies, similarly to as the name implies, first-party cookies are put on your device directly by the website you are visiting.

Third-party cookies are placed on your device, not by the website you are visiting, but by a third-party like an advertiser or an analytic system.

WHY ARE COOKIES NEEDED?

Cookies make websites work better and they are a standard part of most modern websites. For example, they remember the items you’ve placed in your online shopping cart so that the items appear at the checkout when you make your purchase. Another example would be when you login to webmail services such as Hotmail or Gmail: on such occasions a cookie is generated that confirms you are logged in and when you log off, the cookie is deleted. This means if someone goes back to your webmail address on your computer, you will still be logged out – and they won’t be able to read your emails.

More detail on how businesses use cookies is available at: www.allaboutcookies.org

WHAT COOKIES DO WE USE?

We collect your data automatically via cookies when you visit our website, in line with the cookie settings in your browser, and through the cookies that you activated when you selected various options on our cookie banner i.e. your customised cookie settings.

We use cookies to track your activity to help ensure you get the best possible experience when visiting our website. For example, if you are using a shared computer, that you stay logged out when you leave our website.

We do not make any attempt to discover the identities of anyone who visits our website, and we will not associate any of the data gathered from our website with any personally identifiable information from any source. If we do want to collect personally identifiable information through our website, we will be up front about this. We will make it clear when we collect personal information and will explain what we intend to do with it.

STRICTLY NECESSARY COOKIES

Strictly necessary cookies (otherwise known as “Essential cookies”) enable core functionality such as page navigation and access to secure areas. These cookies do not gather information about you that could be used for marketing purposes and they do not remember when you have been on the internet. You may disable these cookies by changing your browser settings, but this may affect how our website functions during your interactions with us (see relevant section below).

NON-ESSENTIAL COOKIES

We collect data from you for the purposes shown below when you visit our website, but we can only do so if you have granted us permission to do so using our cookie preferences.

ANALYTICAL COOKIES

We’d like to set Google Analytics cookies to help us to improve our website by collecting and reporting information on how you use it. The cookies collect information in a way that does not directly identify anyone.

THIRD PARTY COOKIES

Third-party cookies are set by a domain other than the one the user is visiting. This typically occurs when the website incorporates elements from other sites, such as images, social media plugins or advertising. When the browser or other software fetches these elements from the other sites, they can set cookies as well.

‘Girl Effect’ does not control the use of these third-party cookies and cannot access them due to the way that cookies work, as cookies can only be accessed by the party who originally set them. Please check the third-party websites for more information about these cookies.

IF YOU DON’T CONSENT TO THE USE OF COOKIES – WHAT CAN YOU DO?

You can turn off cookies by accessing our Cookie Banner. You may also do this for a particular website or several sites, by adjusting your browser settings to prevent it from accepting cookies. However, it’s important to note that turning off cookies is likely to limit the functionality of not only our website, but also the functionality of a large number of the world’s websites, and accordingly, your experience of ours and other websites may be impaired because data is no longer being captured about your interactions.

ENABLING AND DISABLING BROWSER SETTINGS

You can enable and disable browser settings in the following browsers: Google Chrome, Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0, 7.0, 8.0, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Safari on OSX. Look for the “help” function in the browser or contact the browser provider.

I’M CONCERNED ABOUT SPYWARE – WHAT CAN I DO?

It may be that your concerns around cookies relate to so-called “spyware,” and in which case, rather than switching off cookies in your browser, you may find that anti-spyware software achieves the same objective by automatically deleting cookies considered to be invasive. Learn more about managing cookies with antispyware software here.

WHAT IF I WANT TO MAKE A COMPLAINT?

We hope you’ll never have reason for doing so, but if you wish to complain about our use of cookies and similar technologies, please email our Data Protection Contact at dataprotection@girleffect.org. Alternatively, you can submit your complaint by post to: 151 Wardour Street, London W1F 8WE or 228 Park Ave S, PMB 33237 New York, New York 10003-1502.

You may also have the right to lodge a complaint with the UK Regulator, the Information Commissioner’s Office (“ICO”). For further information about your data subject rights and how to complain to the ICO, can be found at: https://ico.org.uk/concerns

CHANGES TO OUR COOKIE POLICY

This ‘Cookie Policy’ was last updated January 2023.