Privacy notice

At West Kent Mind we want everyone who supports us, or who receives a service from us, to feel confident about how we use and protect any personal information that you share with us. This privacy notice is intended to explain how we collect and process data in compliance with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) of 2021 and the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025.

At West Kent Mind we want everyone who supports us, or who receives a service from us, to feel confident about how we use and protect any personal information that you share with us. This privacy notice is intended to explain how we collect and process data in compliance with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) of 2021 and the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025.

Leave a Gift in Your Will

We are committed to protecting your personal data and making sure that we collect only the data that we need, that it is processed in a fair, transparent and lawful manner, that it is kept no longer than necessary and that it is thereafter securely destroyed. We will never sell or share your personal data with other organisations for marketing purposes.

We’ve implemented appropriate physical, technical and organisational measures to protect the personal data we have under our control, both on and off-line, from improper access, use, alteration, destruction and loss.

Supporters

Following the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025, charities can now make use of a ‘soft opt-in’ for certain types of email and SMS marketing.
This means that if you choose to support us, for example, by donating, volunteering, attending an event, or signing up to hear from us, the lawful basis on which we collect and use your data is generally ‘legitimate interests’. This enables us to process your engagement with us (for example, a donation, claiming Gift Aid, managing event attendance, or thanking you for your support). Under this lawful basis, we may also contact you by email about similar activities, services, campaigns, events, or other ways you can support our cause, without requiring explicit consent each time.
We will only do this if:
In certain circumstances, we may rely on ‘consent’, for example, when seeking permission to use your photograph, video, or personal story in our digital channels or promotional materials. Such consent will always be obtained through direct communication and will require your explicit opt-in.

Services

If we are providing you with a mental health service, the lawful basis on which we collect personal data is ‘legitimate interest’. The legitimate interest we have identified is the pursuit of our mission as a mental health charity – ‘to work with and on behalf of people with mental health problems, ensuring their fair and equal treatment, and to promote better mental health for all.’ To provide an effective and safe service we need to process information about your mental health. This is ‘special category’ data, and we will treat it with extra care and confidentiality. The lawful basis under which we process special category data is that we are providing health and/or social care services, and we process this data only so far as is necessary for the provision of these services.

If we have an agreement or contract with you to provide a specific service, for example a training programme or counselling, the lawful basis on which we collect and process data is ‘contract’. This means that we are processing data in order to fulfil – or respond to your request to determine if we are able to fulfil – our obligations to you under the agreement.

We will only use personal and special category data to provide and evaluate the services we provide. We will not pass on the data we have about you to anyone else without your express permission except in exceptional circumstances, the lawful basis of which is ‘vital interests’. Examples of these circumstances might include information that suggests you might be danger to yourself or someone else, or information about a child at risk of harm or neglect.

Your rights

You have the right to request access to a copy of the personal data that we hold about you, along with information on what personal data we use, why we use it, who we share it with, and how long we keep it for.

If you have given us your consent to use personal data (for example, for marketing), you can withdraw your consent at any time.

You can opt out of profiling activity at any time.

You can ask us to change or complete any inaccurate or incomplete personal data held about you.

You can ask us to delete your personal data where it is no longer necessary for us to use it, if you have withdrawn consent, or where we have no lawful basis for keeping it.

You can ask us to provide you or a third party with some of the personal data that we hold about you in a structured, commonly used, electronic form, so it can be easily transferred.

You can ask us to restrict the personal data we use about you where you have asked for it to be erased or where you have objected to our use of it.

Note that some of these rights only apply in certain circumstances and we may not be able to fulfil every request.

If you wish to exercise any of these rights, or if you want to discuss with us any aspect of our privacy practices or make a complaint, please contact our data protection lead as shown below.

Should you be unable to resolve a matter with us you can make a complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office. We are registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office under reference Z4696712.

Data Protection Lead
West Kent Mind
34 St John’s Road
Sevenoaks TN13 3LW

01732 744950
hello@westkentmind.org.uk