CHSS Advice Line
No one should have to recover alone. We’re here to support you with our services, resources and health information.
Resources Hub
Download and order a range of resources to help you manage your condition.
Scotland’s Stories
Read the inspiring stories of the amazing people who are living life to the full with a long-term health condition.
Get free, confidential advice and support from our Advice Line practitioners. No question is too big or too small.
Advice Line
Every day people in Scotland are leaving hospital feeling scared and alone. But you can help us change this.
Fundraising Events
Join Scotland’s Fundraising Heroes by getting involved with one of our exciting events or challenges!
Visit our charity shops
Use our Store Finder to find your local shop or boutique and pop in to see us today.
You can make sure stroke survivors in Scotland like Tim get the support they need after returning home from hospital.
Donate
We are Scotland’s largest health charity working to help people with chest, heart and stroke conditions live life to the full.
Social Media – @chsscotland
Incredible impact
Find out about the incredible impact your support is having and the amazing things you’re helping to achieve.
Search our current job opportunities to find a new role that’s rewarding, exciting and allows you to make a real difference every day.
Work With Us
This privacy notice describes how we collect and use personal information about you when you interact with us, in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
It applies to all members of the general public who engage with us either virtually or in person.
CHSS is a “data controller”. This means that we are responsible for deciding how we hold and use personal information about you. We are required under data protection legislation to notify you of the information contained in this privacy notice.
This notice applies to all members of the general public who engage with us either virtually or in person. We may update this notice at any time but if we do so, we will provide you with an updated copy of this notice as soon as reasonably practical.
It is important that you read and retain this notice, together with any other privacy notice we may provide on specific occasions when we are collecting or processing personal information about you, so that you are aware of how and why we are using such information and what your rights are under the data protection legislation.
1. Used lawfully, fairly and in a transparent way.2. Collected only for valid purposes that we have clearly explained to you and not used in any way that is incompatible with those purposes.
3. Relevant to the purposes we have told you about and limited only to those purposes.
4. Accurate and kept up to date.
5. Kept only as long as necessary for the purposes we have told you about.
6. Kept securely.
There are “special categories” of more sensitive personal data which require a higher level of protection, such as information about a person’s health or sexual orientation.
We will collect, store, and use the following categories of personal information about you:
We may also collect, store and use the following “special categories” of more sensitive personal information:
We collect personal information about the general public who engage with us through the use of Microsoft or other forms on our website or at events, referrals from other organisations, or via data being added directly to our databases.
We may also use your personal information in the following situations, which are likely to be rare:
1. Where we need to protect your interests (or someone else’s interests).
2. Where it is needed in the public interest or for official purposes.
We need all the categories of information in the list above primarily to allow us to perform our contract with you and to enable us to comply with legal obligations. In some cases we may use your personal information to pursue legitimate interests of our own or those of third parties, provided your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests. The situations in which we will process your personal information are listed below.
Some of the above grounds for processing will overlap and there may be several grounds which justify our use of your personal information.
As a fundraising organisation, we undertake in-house research and from time to time engage specialist agencies such as Prospecting for Gold to gather information about you from publicly available sources, for example, Companies House, the Electoral Register, company websites, ‘rich lists’, social networks such as LinkedIn, political and property registers and news archives.
We may also carry out wealth screening to fast track the research using our trusted third-party partners. You will always have the right to opt out of this processing. We may also carry out research using publicly available information to identify individuals who may have an affinity to our cause but with whom we are not already in touch. This may include people connected to our current major supporters, trustees or other lead volunteers. We also use publicly available sources to carry out due diligence on donors in line with the charity’s Gift in Kind Policy and to meet money laundering regulations.
This research helps us to understand more about you as an individual so we can focus conversations we have with you about fundraising and volunteering in the most effective way and ensure that we provide you with an experience as a donor or potential donor which is appropriate for you. We shall be relying on legitimate interest to conduct this research.
If you would prefer us not to use your data in this way, please email us at fundraising@chss.org.uk or call us on 0131 297 2750.
If you fail to provide certain information when requested, we may not be able to perform the contract we have entered into with you (such as providing you with the services that you require), or we may be prevented from complying with our legal obligations (such as to ensure the health and safety of the people at our events).
We will only use your personal information for the purposes for which we collected it, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose. If we need to use your personal information for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and we will explain the legal basis which allows us to do so.
Please note that we may process your personal information without your knowledge or consent, in compliance with the above rules, where this is required or permitted by law.
We may process special categories of personal information in the following circumstances:
Less commonly, we may process this type of information where it is needed in relation to legal claims or where it is needed to protect your interests (or someone else’s interests) and you are not capable of giving your consent, or where you have already made the information public.
We will use your particularly sensitive personal information in the following ways:
We do not need your consent if we use special categories of your personal information in accordance with our written policy to carry out our legal obligations. In limited circumstances, we may approach you for your written consent to allow us to process certain particularly sensitive data. If we do so, we will provide you with full details of the information that we would like and the reason we need it, so that you can carefully consider whether you wish to consent. You should be aware that it is not a condition of your engagement with us that you agree to any request for consent from us.
If we make an automated decision on the basis of any particularly sensitive personal information, we must have either your explicit written consent or it must be justified in the public interest, and we must also put in place appropriate measures to safeguard your rights.
You will not be subject to decisions that will have a significant impact on you based solely on automated decision-making, unless we have a lawful basis for doing so.
We require third parties to respect the security of your data and to treat it in accordance with the law.
We do not currently transfer your personal data to countries outside of the EU apart from where it is necessary for data processing purposes, and in all instances the data protection addendum is compliant with the UK GDPR.
If this changes, you can expect a similar degree of protection in respect of your personal information.
We will share your personal information with third parties where required by law, where it is necessary to administer the engagement that we have with you or where we have another legitimate interest in doing so.
“Third parties” includes third-party service providers (including contractors and designated agents). The following third-party service providers may process your data on our behalf: Splice, PayPal, the HMRC, Access Paysuite, and the Charities Trust for the management of your financial information. Mailchimp, Mail Marketing and J Thomson Printers for the administration of our email distribution lists. We also utilise Dataro and Prospecting for Gold for the processing of our marketing and fundraising information. We utilise the services of Derek Anderson for photography for our marketing information. We also have data sharing agreements in place with the NHS boards in Scotland and Scottish Opera in order to provide an integrated service with them for our service users. This list will be subject to review.
All our third-party service providers are required to take appropriate security measures to protect your personal information in line with our policies. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes. We only permit them to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.
We may share your personal information with other third parties, for example in the context of the possible expansion of service provision in the charity. In this situation we will, so far as possible, share anonymised data with the other parties before the transaction completes. Once the transaction is completed, we will share your personal data with the other parties if and to the extent required under the terms of the transaction.
We may also need to share your personal information with a regulator or to otherwise comply with the law.
Third parties will only process your personal information on our instructions and where they have agreed to treat the information confidentially and to keep it secure.
We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal information from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal information to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal information on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.
We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected data security breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected breach where we are legally required to do so.
We will only retain your personal information for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements. To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal requirements.
In some circumstances we may anonymise your personal information so that it can no longer be associated with you, in which case we may use such information without further notice to you.
It is important that the personal information we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your personal information changes during your relationship with us.
Under certain circumstances, by law you have the right to:
If you want to review, verify, correct or request erasure of your personal information, object to the processing of your personal data, or request that we transfer a copy of your personal information to another party, please contact the Data Team.
No fee usually required
You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal information (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request for access is clearly unfounded or excessive. Alternatively, we may refuse to comply with the request in such circumstances.
We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access the information (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is another appropriate security measure to ensure that personal information is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it.
In the limited circumstances where you may have provided your consent to the collection, processing and transfer of your personal information for a specific purpose, you have the right to withdraw your consent for that specific processing at any time. To withdraw your consent, please contact the Data Team. Once we have received notification that you have withdrawn your consent, we will no longer process your information for the purpose or purposes you originally agreed to, unless we have another legitimate basis for doing so in law.
We have appointed a Data Protection Officer to oversee compliance with this privacy notice. If you have any questions about this privacy notice or how we handle your personal information, please contact the Chief Operating Officer. You have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues.
We reserve the right to update this privacy notice at any time, and we will provide you with a new privacy notice when we make any substantial updates. We may also notify you in other ways from time to time about the processing of your personal information.
If you have any questions about this privacy notice, please contact Allan Cowie, Chief Operating Officer, Chest Heart & Stroke Scotland, 2nd Floor Hobart House, 80 Hanover Street, Edinburgh, EH2 1EL. Telephone 0131 346 3650. Email: data@chss.org.uk
We may change this Privacy Policy from time to time. If we make any significant changes in the way we treat your personal information, we will make this clear on the CHSS website or by contacting you directly.
Revised December 2024