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Privacy policy

Metroland Cultures Privacy Policy

Metroland Cultures (METROLAND) is committed to protecting the privacy of our supporters and stakeholders. Please read this policy which explains how we collect, manage, use and protect your personal information.

1.1 Who are we?

Metroland is an arts and cultural organisation based in the London Borough of Brent, and is a registered charity – charity number 1185414

As a charity we rely on a range of supporters, stakeholders and staff to deliver our mission and vision. To achieve this, we need to undertake a number of activities that make use of personal and anonymous information.

Metroland’s Privacy Policy explains what personal data we collect, what we do with the information you give us and your rights over that data.

We are committed to protecting the privacy and confidentiality of your personal information and we aim to ensure that all personal information in our possession is processed in accordance with the principles of the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR) and the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

Depending on which experiences and services you use, we will hold different kinds of information from or about you.

1.2 Our Details

Metroland Cultures is a charitable company limited by guarantee.
Company number: 11876428
Charity number: 1185414
ICO registration number: xxx

1.3 Contacting us

Please contact Data Controller if you would like to:

update or opt out of receiving marketing communications
make an enquiry about data protection or change the way we process your information
make a request to access the information we hold about you
raise a concern about how your personal information has been used

See section 7 on more details on your rights to accessing, changing or deleting your data, and Metroland’s complaints process. Alternatively, you are entitled to raise a concern to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) without first referring your complaint to us.

What information do we collect?

Personal information is collected directly from you when you interact with Metroland, and this will change depending on the experiences or services you are accessing. Typically, we collect your name, contact details, address, access requirements and where necessary payment details when you:

Ask us for information
Sign-up to a project
Applying for funding
Send us an email
Use, register or sign-up into the website
Join a Membership Scheme
Make a donation to us
Enter a competition
Take a survey
Participate in an event
Apply for a job/volunteer opportunity
Make a purchase

To help us report to funders and to safeguard minors (under 18’s) participating in our programmes we may collect further information such as date of birth, age, sex, disability, race, sexual orientation, access needs when you:

Register for certain programmes/events
Apply for a job/volunteer opportunity
Participate in a project
Participate in an evaluation or research survey

Information may be collected in person, over the phone, through our website, social media, mobile devices or from something you posted to us.

The payment card information you supply to us for any online transaction is used solely for the purpose of processing that transaction.


How do we use your information?

We use your information, both personal and anonymised, in these ways:

Provide an experience or service you have requested
Communicate with you
Sharing marketing and fundraising materials with you
Build an understanding of audiences, improve existing experiences or create new ones
Raise awareness of our charitable work and ways you can support it
Measure the effectiveness of our digital marketing
Report anonymised statistics and impact to our funders
3.1 Provide an experience or service you have requested

We offer a range of experiences and services where you will have provided information to us.

We will also use information to:

Administer gifts, bequests, donations and legacies made by you on your behalf
Manage your attendance on a project or event

If you are making a donation and choose to include Gift Aid, then we will ask for your address and UK taxpayer status as this information is required by law. You can read more about how Gift Aid works here. This information is needed for us to fulfil our obligations under tax (sections 413 to 430 Income Tax Act 2007) and charity law. Information associated with Gift Aid declarations must be retained for 7 years. This information will be shared with the HMRC for tax regulation purposes and may also be shared with the Fundraising Regulator and the Charity Commission in the event of an enquiry or investigation.

3.2 Communicating with you

There are a number of ways that we may communicate with you. We use information you have provided to:

communicate with you by telephone, text, email and/or post about our activities, promotions and events in accordance with any preferences you have set.
deliver service emails such as confirmation emails and show/event/project time changes or cancellations.
contact you and ask you to respond to surveys such as post event, creative programme evaluations and surveys.
inform you about events or projects we think you may be interested in, if you have opted to receive such notifications.
respond to a question, comment, compliment or complaint that you have sent to us, in this situation we will also keep a record of this correspondence and any associated documents so that we have the information available in the event of a follow-up, dispute or investigation.
inform you if we make significant changes to our policies which may affect you.
support you in participating in or attending an event/project that we have organised, this may require us to ask you to provide information to make sure we can manage the event/project safely and efficiently. We may also ask you for details of any accessibility need which you have, so that we ensure it is inclusive, in line with the provisions of the Equality Act 2010.
we may use your information to invite you to become involved with us in new ways, raise funds and group our supporter base.

3.3 Sharing marketing materials with you

Marketing materials that we might share with you include information about our activities, our news, events and other ways you can become involved with us.

Where you have provided your postal address or telephone number we may send information to you by post or by calling your telephone if you have consented to this. We may also email you this information or send by SMS if you have agreed for us to do so.

You can let us know at any time if you’d prefer to change how we share this information with you or stop it altogether. Simply use the details we’ve provided in Section 1.3 ‘Contacting Us’ to let us know your preferences. If you receive our e-newsletters, you can also use the unsubscribe link in the emails we send.

We will keep your personal information for no longer than is necessary for the purposes for which it is processed which will be reviewed every 4 years. If you ask us not to contact you, we will keep some basic information about you on our suppression list in order to avoid sending you unwanted materials in the future or delete your information completely if requested.

3.4 Sharing Fundraising information with you

Fundraising materials we may share with you include information on our activities, the impact of our work and fundraising appeals. You can let us know at any time if you’d prefer to change how we share this information with you as detailed in Section 1.3.

3.5 Building an understanding of audiences, improve existing experiences or create new ones.

We undertake various research and analysis of our audiences such as event attendees and project participants. We do this because it allows us to understand our audience members and the people who support us, and helps us to send appropriate communications and make appropriate requests to those who may be able and interested in attending or giving more than they already do.

We also perform analysis on the experiences, services and projects we offer. We do this so we can understand how well we are performing and to help create a better experience for you.


3.6 Targeting our communication and researching our supporters

As a charity, we have a duty to make sure that we’re spending your donations wisely, and that means doing some research and analysis to inform our decisions. We want to send the most effective messages we can in the most efficient way possible. In order to work out who to contact, what to say and when to get in touch, we carry out the following activities:

Analysing how emails are opened and read – we track emails which we have sent to you to see which messages have the highest response rates and whether there are messages that resonate with particular groups of people. We do this by logging whether emails we send have been opened, deleted and interacted with (for example, by clicking on links within the emails).

Segmentation – this is where we analyse information such as postcodes, and whether you interact with us on regular basis. This helps us to tailor appropriate communications to you.

Analysing our supporter base to send different communications to people who might choose to give further donations and engage other organisations or freelance contractors to help us identify people who may be able to support us or those who may be able to make larger gifts; using information you have given us and publicly available records such as electoral roll, land records, ‘rich lists’, Who’s Who publications and Companies House records. We may also collect information on your interests, for example board membership, hobbies, or articles about you in newspapers or magazines. We use this information to tailor our communication with you and invite potential supporters to meetings, groups and events which may be of interest to them.

When might we add information to your record that you may not have given to us directly?

We may also add information or update you record with us, from publicly available sources. This may include your telephone number, address related information, or information mentioned in section 3.6 ‘Targeting our communications and researching our supporters’. We use this information to tailor our communications with you and send you more appropriate information.

These activities form a vital part of keeping support for our work going forward. You can request more information on these activities, or change your preferences, by using the information in the ‘Contacting us’ section at the beginning of this document.

We may use your information to enforce and comply with the law.

We ensure that our activities comply with the law. Therefore, we may need to share or use your personal information if we are required to do so by law (for example; in response to a warrant or court order) and we may use information from other sources for the purposes of fraud prevention, for example to comply with money laundering regulations, or to protect people’s rights, property or safety.

3.7 Measuring the effectiveness of digital marketing

Where we advertise upcoming projects and events on the internet, we use cookies and other technologies such as pixel tags and tracking links to help measure the effectiveness of our advertising campaigns.

3.8 Reporting to our funders

We provide anonymised statistics on our events and programmes and any funding from donations to meet specific funding requirements. We also analyse the performance of services and projects and provide information to our stakeholders, funders and community partners as part of our ongoing relationships with them.

Visiting our website

When you use our website, some cookies are saved to your computer that do lots of different jobs. We log the IP address of the computer you are using in order to protect our servers against abuse and malicious activity. The logs are deleted every 30 days. Other information is used to measure the performance of the website, how site users move around the site and what sort of users the site attracts, manage the volume of traffic that the site receives and send information back to online advertising services such as Google and Facebook. Please see our website and cookies policy here.

4.1 Website and Cookies Policy

What are cookies?

‘Cookies’ are small text files that are stored by the browser on your computer or mobile phone. Websites are able to read and write files, allowing them to store things such as personalisation details or user preferences. Cookies provide a “memory” for the website, enabling it to recognise a user and respond appropriately. Many cookies are automatically deleted after you finish using the website, although some can exist for longer.

Cookies do not give us access to your computer.

The cookie settings on this website are set to ‘allow all cookies’ to give you the very best experience. If you continue without changing these settings, we assume you consent to this – but if you do want to disable cookies on your browser you can.

How does Metroland Cultures use cookies?
Our website uses cookies to enable online transactions (first party cookies) and to track website usage patterns and inform our digital advertising (third party cookies). We may also track receipt, opening, click-through, purchase and unsubscribe information for the emails we send.

We use Google services, including Analytics and AdWords, which sets cookies to enable us to see which pages on our website people are visiting and whether transactions have been made. This data is anonymous and allows us to better understand our audiences and therefore provide them with a better service. It helps us ensure that our campaign work is effective and that we are spending money in the right places. We only use this Google Analytics information for statistical purposes. Full information about the cookies that are used by Google Analytics can be found on their website, including the option to opt out of Google Analytics.

We use social media cookies, including Facebook’s Pixel, to measure the effectiveness of our social media posts and advertising and ensure paid adverts are being shown to the correct audiences. You can update these preferences by going to the Privacy Settings on your social media profile.

On pages that have videos, YouTube might set cookies to remember which videos you have played, and to remember settings such as the volume level and video quality you have selected.

How can I remove cookies?

You can choose to decline cookies by modifying your browser settings (although declining cookies may cause parts of many websites to stop working). For more information on how to do this or clear cookies which have already been set, please visit www.aboutcookies.org.uk
How do we store your data securely?

Your data is always held securely. We maintain a Customer Relationship Management system called CiviCRM and access is strictly controlled to people who need it to do their job. Certain data, for example sensitive data or data pertaining to a minor has additional controls and is only made visible to members of staff who have a reason to work with it. All of these staff members have been DBS checked. In addition, we protect your personal information in a range of ways including secure servers, firewalls and SSL encryption.

When do we share your data with other organisations?

We commit to making all reasonable efforts to keep your details secure and will only share them with partners, suppliers or professional agents working on our behalf, for example when an event is run in partnership with them. Any personal information you provide to us will be shared with these partners and their subcontractors for the purpose of providing a service you have requested or signed-up for. We will only share information with them if we are confident that they will protect it, and we have a contract in place with them that assures this.

We will only disclose your information to companies who act as a ‘data processor’ on our behalf, some of whom may be outside the UK/EEA.
We will only share your details for marketing purposes if you have given explicit consent to do this. We will never sell your personal information to any third party organisation.
We may need to disclose your details if required to police, regulatory bodies or legal advisors.
We will only ever share your data in other circumstances if we have your explicit and informed consent.

Certain third party organisations collection information on our behalf as well as for their own use. We may receive your personal details from other organisations for our marketing or monitoring purposes where you have consented for this information to be shared for example Just Giving or Eventbrite. These organisations have their own data protection and privacy policies and we urge you to make yourself aware of these before signing up. If you participate in an event organised by an external party or make a donation through a processor like JustGiving, your information may be passed to us by the processor. We would only use it for marketing purposes if you have given your consent for this.

We may also use other companies to provide experiences or services and process your personal information on our behalf, including delivering postal mail, making telephone calls, sending emails, sending SMS messages, processing card payments and analyse our supporter information as outlined above, to help us offer you communications that are most appropriate to you and your interests. In some cases, our suppliers may use software which analyses publicly available information to build up a picture about you based on the factors set out in 3.6 ‘Targeting our communications and researching our supporters’ section.

More about our direct marketing

You may indicate your preference for receiving direct marketing from us, our affiliates or any partner organisations with whom we may work and whose goods or services we think may be of interest to you. You will be given the opportunity to indicate that you no longer wish to receive our direct marketing material or that sent by third parties on our behalf each time we contact you. Once properly notified by you, we will take steps using your information in this way.


What are your rights to your information?

You have the following rights related to your personal data:

The right to request a copy of personal information held about you and for it to be provided in a format that can be shared by you with others
The right to request that inaccuracies be corrected
The right to be forgotten and request under certain circumstances that we erase any information we hold about you
The right to request us to stop or restrict the processing of your personal data
The right to withdraw consent and object to certain processing such as direct marketing
The right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office or Fundraising Regulator


7.1 Subject Access Request

A ‘Subject Access Request’ is a request for all the information we hold about you. You have the right to ask for a copy of all of the information related to you that we are processing. You can request this by emailing xxx

7.2 Request to amend or delete your information

If your information is incorrect, out of date or if there is no longer justification for us to hold it, you can ask for it to be updated, removed or blocked from our use. You can request this by emailing xxxx

7.3 Request your information so that you can use it elsewhere

You can ask for a copy of any personal information that you have provided to us in the past. We will provide it in a clear and easy to follow format. Please note that if you ask for the material to be sent electronically but prefer not to use a secure file transfer, Metroland cannot be held responsible for the security risk to your information as it travels across the internet.

7.4 Asking us to ‘forget’ you

Under GDPR you have the right to ask to be forgotten. This allows you to ask us to delete all personally identifiable data that we hold about you. There are a few legal exemptions that require us to keep some data for a set period of time, such as if you have given us a Gift Aid Declaration to allow us to claim Gift Aid against any donations you have made to us, then we are required by HMRC to keep this declaration for 7 years. Or, if you have tickets for an event we would need to keep your details until after the event has taken place in order to inform you of any changes.

Our legal basis for contacting you and using your personal information

When you sign up to a newsletter or opt-in to our communications using our forms (e.g email subscription) or in person/over the phone, then you are giving your consent to send you marketing and/fundraising materials by the methods you have chosen (e.g email or phone call). We will never send you information by email or SMS without your consent, and you can withdraw your consent at any time.

If you have provided us with your postal or telephone contact details, but haven’t specifically opted-in to receive our communications (for example , event marketing or making a donation by post), then we will carry out an assessment of whether it would be fair and reasonable to use them to send marketing or fundraising information to you without your explicit consent (i.e it is in the interests of our aims as a charity and will not cause undue prejudice to you). This is called a ‘legitimate interests assessment’. You can opt out of our marketing and fundraising communications at any time if you don’t want to receive them.

We will ensure we have a legal basis to use your personal information for the other purposes mentioned in this policy (usually with your consent, further to a legitimate interests assessment or because the use of your data is necessary to comply with a legal obligation).

Further information

You can find out more about your data protection rights on the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) here.

You can find out about data protection law here.

Data Protection Act here.

General Data Protection Regulation here.

Changing our policy


Metroland Cultures reserves the right to make alterations from time to time be that as our provision and services change or legislative requirements change. We will place any updates we make to this policy on our website.
Policy updated 24/05/2021