Privacy Policy

ASH is committed to protecting the privacy of your data, being open and transparent about how we use your data and giving you an simple way to tell us how you want your data to be used.

This privacy policy tells you what to expect when ASH collects personal information. If you don’t want your data to be used in the ways described in this policy, write to us to let us know at the address below, or email us on enquiries@ash.org.uk.

You can download a copy of our Privacy Policy here.

ASH issues a range of materials for subscribers and people who have contacted us regarding specific projects for distribution both electronically by email and in hard copy by post or by phone. We will only contact you with such material by each channel if you have asked us to do so. We might use personal information you have provided to us, or which is in the public domain, to select which communications you receive, or to tailor our communications to you. This may include:

• your contact details (e.g. formal titles or professional details you share with us – and from which we may derive gender; email address information; post code etc.);
• any connection to smoking related illness or addiction you may have shared with us if you have given us permission to use in this way;
• other preferences expressing interest in particular aspects of our work and activities.

ASH does not use any personal information for fundraising.

We will always use this information with care and consideration. If you’d like to change how we communicate with you, or would like us to remove your details, email us on enquiries@ash.org.uk.

Communication by email
We only email newsletters and other general communications to those who have subscribed either on ASH owned platforms or on our partner websites. The opportunity to unsubscribe is provided on every email we send.

We gather statistics around email opening and clicks using industry standard technologies including clear gifs to help us monitor and improve our email communications; this may include tailoring emails to reflect what we identify to be of particular interest to an individual or what we know about their previous engagement with ASH. All our emails include a two click option to unsubscribe from future emails.

We may ask you for your connection with tobacco and smoking in order to better target our email communications, and this information may be classed as sensitive personal data in the Data Protection Act. Providing such information is always optional and is only used to target relevant advice and information.

Communication by post
We send magazines, publications, event information and invitations by post to people who have asked to receive post from us. All such communications include details on how to stop receiving these in future by phoning, emailing or writing to us.

Communication by phone
We only phone people who have consented to hear from us by phone and this may be to give you updates about or to ask for feedback on our work.

When someone visits www.ash.org.uk we use third-party services, Google Analytics, to collect standard internet log information and details of visitor behaviour patterns. We do this to find out things such as the number of visitors to the various parts of the site, what page elements they click on, how long they stay on the site and what pages they visit. This information is only processed in a way which does not identify anyone. We do not make any attempt to find out the identities of the people visiting our website.

We also track which pages users visit when they click on links in ASH emails. We use this information to personalise our websites and emails with relevant content.

Site search
Our website search is powered by Google. Search queries and results are logged anonymously to help us improve our website and search functionality. No user-specific data is collected by either ASH or any third party.

Security and performance
ASH uses third-party services to help maintain the security and performance of its website. To help us to deliver this service, we capture the IP addresses of visitors to the ASH website.

Information provided as part of an application for a job at ASH will only be used to process the application and to monitor recruitment statistics. Taking up references will only be done with specific permission of the job applicant. Personal information about unsuccessful candidates is held for 12 months after the recruitment exercise has been completed, after which it is deleted. We may retain de-personalised statistical information about applicants to help inform our recruitment activities, but no individuals are identifiable from that data.

Once someone is employed by ASH, we hold data relating to their employment. This information is kept secure and only used for purposes relevant to that person’s employment. Data is kept for the duration of a person’s employment.

When someone leaves the employment of ASH, we retain the employment related data in accordance with our data retention policies (generally informed by our legal obligations as an employer) before deleting it.

We retain data from subscribers, people who have contacted us regarding specific projects and people who have interacted with us for 2 years.

Data on Trustees is retained for 20 years after retirement as a Trustee.

Data on former employees is generally kept for seven years after ceasing employment.

You have the right to request a copy of the information that we hold about you and we want to make it as easy as we can for you access this. You can make a ‘subject access request’ to find out what personal information we hold about you. We would give you a description of the data held; tell you why we are holding it; tell you who it could be disclosed to and let you have a copy of the information in an intelligible form. We will respond within one month as required by data protection legislation.

If you want to make a ‘subject access request’ please write to us at the address below or by emailing enquiries@ash.org.uk. You are also able to ask us to correct any mistakes in the information we hold or ask for the data to be deleted (assuming we have no other obligation to keep it; we would encourage you to let us use it for suppression purposes only).

If you have a complaint in respect of our handling of your data please contact us using the contact details below.

If you are not satisfied with the way your complaint was handled, you can refer your complaint to UK Information Commissioner’s Office.

Action on Smoking and Health
Unit 2.9
The Foundry
17 Oval Way
London
SE11 5RR

Last revised 2019-05-13