Introduction and general terms
City Sikhs promises to take great care with your personal data. Our relationship with our supporters and the public at large is of great importance to us.

We commit to protecting any personal information we obtain about you, whether you are a member, financial donor, volunteer or partner. This policy sets out the basis by which any personal data we collect from you, or that you provide to us, will be processed by us and for which City Sikhs is the Data Controller.

Who we are
City Sikhs is the trading name for City Sikhs Foundation, registered charity number 1160843. Further details are available here.

City Sikhs’ purpose and overall mission is to support the Sikh and South Asian communities in Britain and around the world through a variety of projects and initiatives including advancing education, volunteering, community capacity building and promoting equality and diversity.

Our supporters help us to achieve this in a variety of ways, primarily by:

  • Volunteering through the City Sikhs ambassador programme or advisory group
  • Donating money on a recurring or one off basis

We take active steps to make sure that our supporters are aware of the ways in which they can help us achieve our overall purpose.

What information do we collect?
We only collect personal data relevant to the type interaction you have with City Sikhs and we ensure this will be minimal and linked to the purpose for which we need it.

We may collect personal data about you when you engage with us for a number of reasons including if you sign up for our newsletter, apply for a volunteering position such as a City Sikhs ambassador or advisory group member, make a donation, attend one of our events, engage with our social media, enquire about our activities or apply for a job with us.

This can include information such as your name, email address, phone number, postal address, age bracket and other information if relevant. When you make a donation to us, we also ask if you are a UK taxpayer and would like us to claim Gift Aid on your donation and we record this information. If you attend an event hosted by City Sikhs or one of our partners, photographs or video may be taken. Images or video may be used in promotional materials for the charity on our website, social media channels and online and offline marketing.

We do not usually collect ‘sensitive personal data’ such as political opinions, trade-union membership etc from you unless there is a clear reason and we have your explicit consent to do so.

Use of Cookies
This website uses cookies to better the users experience while visiting the website. Cookies are small files saved to the user’s computer hard drive that track, save and store information about the user’s interactions and usage of the website. This allows the website, through its server to provide the users with a tailored experience within this website.

Users are advised that if they wish to deny the use and saving of cookies from this website on their computer hard drive they should take necessary steps within their web browsers security settings to block all cookies from this website and its external serving vendors.

This website uses tracking software to monitor its visitors to better understand how they use it. This software is provided by Google Analytics which uses cookies to track visitor usage. The software will save a cookie to your computer hard drive in order to track and monitor your engagement and usage of the website, but will not store, save or collect personal information.

How we may use your personal data

We may use your personal data for a number of purposes, including the following:

  • To provide you with information about our work and activities through e-newsletters, invitations to events and details of funding or sponsorship opportunities.
  • To support volunteers
  • To support community based fundraising and campaigning
  • To claim gift aid on donations
  • To fulfil contractual obligations entered into with supporters or funders
  • To comply with legal obligations
  • To manage our organisation

How we may contact you
By email – we primarily contact members by email via the City Sikhs newsletter to provide updates about upcoming events, opportunities, fundraising campaigns and news.

By post/telephone/whatsapp – where we have legitimate interest to contact you such as our volunteering base with whom we are working to collectively further the charitable aims of City Sikhs.

If you have not given us your data yourself and we have not received it from a third party, we will only contact you if we have a legitimate interest to do so and you fall into one or more of the categories below:

  • You are a known philanthropist or connected with a trust or foundation, and/or
  • You are a publicly recognisable figure.

If we are communicating to you on a ‘business to business’ basis we will contact you by post or email, unless you have let us know that you would prefer us not to do so.

City Sikhs Newsletter
City Sikhs operates an email newsletter, used to inform members and others about upcoming events, opportunities and news. Users can subscribe through an online automated process should they wish to do so at any time.

All personal details relating to subscriptions are held securely and no personal details are passed on to third parties nor shared with companies / people outside of the charity.

Email marketing campaigns may contain tracking facilities within the actual email. Subscriber activity is tracked and stored in a database for future analysis and evaluation. Such tracked activity may include (as part of a non-exhaustive list); the opening of emails, forwarding of emails, the clicking of links within the email content, times, dates and frequency of activity. This information is used to refine future email campaigns and supply the user with more relevant content based around their activity.

Social Media Platforms
Communication, engagement and actions taken through external social media platforms that this website and its owners participate on are custom to the terms and conditions as well as the privacy policies held with each social media platform respectively.

Users are advised to use social media platforms wisely and communicate / engage upon them with due care and caution in regard to their own privacy and personal details. This website nor its owners will ever ask for personal or sensitive information through social media platforms and encourage users wishing to discuss sensitive details to contact them through primary communication channels such as by telephone or email.

Links
This website may contain links to third party websites. You should refer to the privacy policy relating to those websites to understand how your personal information is managed by those third parties or how they use cookies. We cannot accept any responsibility or liability for the privacy practices of such third-party websites and your use of such websites is at your own risk.

Updating your contact preferences
You have the right at any time to ask us to amend or stop using your personal information, including for marketing purposes.

You can opt out of newsletter emails at any time by clicking the ‘unsubscribe’ link located in the footer of our newsletters. You can also unfollow any of our social media channels at any time.

Requesting a copy of your personal data
You have a right to request a copy of the personal information we hold about you and to have any inaccuracies corrected or your data erased. We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month. Occasionally it could take us longer than a month if your request is particularly complex or you have made several requests. In this case, we will notify you and keep you updated. Please provide as much information as possible about the nature of your contact with us to help us locate your records. We may charge a reasonable fee for your request.

Please contact us by email info@www.citysikhs.com for any requests or related enquiries.

You have the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority such as the Information Commissioner’s Office at https://ico.org.uk/.

Changes to this policy
We may update the terms of this policy at any time, so please do check it from time to time. By continuing to engage with us through our services and our website you will be deemed to have accepted such changes.

This privacy policy was last updated in January 2021.