How we use your information
Last updated, 13 Jan 2023
About this policy
At any one time CSE has up to 100 different and separately funded projects underway, all of which support our mission to tackle the climate emergency and end the suffering caused by cold homes. A significant proportion of these projects involve the acquisition and processing of some personal data, even if this is just gathering email addresses to keep project partners in touch with our work.
We’re committed to processing this data lawfully, safely and securely and have stringent data security and data protection practices in place. This policy gives a broad overview of how the organisation as a whole processes personal data, but if you would like to find out how the project you are involved in is processing your personal data, please contact privacy@cse.org.uk and someone will be in touch (within 30 days) to answer your questions.
References to ‘we’ or ‘us’ are to the Centre for Sustainable Energy, registered charity number 298740, registered company number, 2219673. Our registered offices are at St James Court, St James Parade, Bristol BS1 3LH.
Why we process data
There are many reasons why we process personal data, including but not limited to:
- Giving advice on keeping warm at home and energy efficiency improvements.
- Administering grants, funds and loans.
- Providing mentoring or advice to groups or individuals on topics like community energy, low carbon planning and community development.
- Organising and holding events, workshops and consultations.
- Carrying out energy audits, technical assessments or measuring energy usage.
- Carrying out research such as surveys and interviews.
- Contacting others working in the energy sector and those who we work with collaboratively to influence policy.
- Updating people about the work we are doing through our e-news, ‘Energise’ newsletter and annual report.
- Evaluating and improving the services we offer and the work that we do.
- Supporting human resources and administrative functions – like processing payments and recruiting staff.
The lawful basis for processing
The lawful basis for processing your data will depend on how you are interacting with us and what your relationship is with us. Below is a short overview of the different lawful basis we are using to process personal data:
Consent
In some situations we will ask for your consent to process your data. This applies to our e-newsletters. It may also apply in some of our other projects or activities.
Contractual obligation
Because we have a contractual obligation, for example to provide you with something you have purchased from us or contracted us to provide.
Statutory obligation
We are obliged by law to process certain types of personal data, for example, processing salary information for taxation. In some extremely limited circumstances we may rely on vital interests. This would only be in situations where we needed to process data in order to protect someone’s life.
Our legitimate interests
These include:
Providing comprehensive advice through our advice services
In order to provide comprehensive advice on energy it is necessary for us to collect certain personal information so that we are able to give accurate information and relevant support. There’s more detailed information available on how this data is used below.
Maintaining relationships with relevant business contacts
This includes people working within our sector or with whom we have a professional relationship. We may process personal information in order to inform people of our work, events and activities, coordinate collaborative work, or to invite people to participate in research or policy work. It also includes processing personal data for the purposes of highlighting the need for and benefits of policy change e.g. to MPs, relevant local authority personnel or other policy makers. It further includes occasionally sending materials about our work by post (e.g. our Energise newsletter and annual report).
Human resources
It’s necessary for us to process certain types of personal data in order to manage our relationships with our employees, volunteers and trustees. We also consider it in our legitimate interests to process personal data for the purposes of recruitment. General operation and administration This includes responding to solicited requests and enquiries, complying with internal and external governance procedures, financial reporting and communicating for purposes such as facilities management.
Carrying out research to support our charitable objectives
We consider it to be within our legitimate interests to invite people to participate in research projects that work towards achieving our charitable mission. Contacting people to inform them about services of benefit to them This includes contacting people to let them know about services, specific activities, projects or events which may be of direct benefit to them or where they are likely to have a professional interest e.g. contacting neighbourhood planning groups to inform them about financial support for their activities.
We have balanced our legitimate interests against the rights and freedoms data subjects have enshrined in law through the General Data Protection Regulations and consider that they have a minimal privacy impact. However, you have the right to opt out or object to our processing of your data on the basis of legitimate interests. You can do so by emailing privacy@cse.org.uk and we’ll respond within 30 days.
Futureproof
CSE is the Data Controller for Futureproof. When you submit a form on the Futureproof website, you are confirming that the CSE has your permission to contact you about the Futureproof service. If you are a building contractor registering your interest, you also consent to sharing this information with our project partners The Green Register for the purposes of contacting you to provide training.
We may also share your contact details to trusted third parties or funders for the purpose of evaluating the effectiveness of the Futureproof service. They will only contact you for the purpose of evaluation or improving the service and you are under no obligation to take part in the evaluation when contacted.
When you contact Futureproof through our advice line we will collect certain personal information so that we are able to give accurate information and relevant support.
Sharing and storing data
In some situations for some projects we will share your information with other organisations. This may include the funder or other project partners (e.g. to obtain a grant or help from them). We will make it clear whether we intend to share your data when we obtain it from you.
We take data security very seriously and are certified on the Cyber Essentials scheme, the Government-backed and industry supported scheme to guide businesses in protecting themselves against cyber threats. We store and process most of the personal data we hold on our secure, internal system which is hosted on servers located in the UK. When we keep paper records, they are stored in locked cupboards accessible only to limited members of staff.
When we use third parties to process your data (e.g. for e-mail news distribution) we only do so if they are based in the EU, registered in the EU-US Privacy Shield Framework, or in a country described as having adequate data protection by the European Commission.
How long we keep your data for will depend on the purposes for which we are using it, which will vary from project to project. Our internal policy and governance procedures describe the maximum amount of time we will keep your data; these are available on request.
When we destroy or delete your data we will do so securely.
Contact us with any questions
We’re happy to answer any questions you have about how we are using your data. You can ask us to:
- Tell you what data we have about you.
- Stop using your data in a certain way.
- Withdraw your consent for us to use your data (if consent is the lawful basis for processing).
- Object to our definition of our legitimate interests or opt out of us processing your data on this basis.
- Delete your data.
- Correct your data.
You can do any of the above by contacting us at privacy@cse.org.uk or ringing our main switchboard on 0117 934 1400. We won’t charge you for this service. If you aren’t happy about how we have used your data, you can make a complaint via these contact details. You can also contact the Information Commissioner’s Office if you aren’t satisfied with our response.
Home Energy Services
This information is for people who have contacted CSE’s Home Energy Services for energy advice.
The Home Energy team at CSE collects your data so we can help you with your energy bills, keep you warm at home, deal with other problems that you might be experiencing and evaluate and improve our service. We might collect this information over the phone when you call the advice line, when we ask you to fill out a paper form, or if you fill out a form online. Your data is collected on the basis of legitimate interest.
We only ask for the information that we need in order to help you. Exactly what this involves depends on the problems you are experiencing and what you want us to help with.
Data we might ask for in giving this advice includes
Your name and contact details
We’ll ask for this so that we can keep in touch with you about your case.
Personal details
This may include information about your finances (your salary, benefits, if you are in debt etc); about your health (including mental health); about your living situation (how many people you live with, if you are renting or own your own home etc); about the services you use (your energy supplier and how and how much you pay for your gas or electricity); about your home (its general condition, if its insulated or not, how it is heated etc).
We do this so that we can help you with the problems you’re experiencing, for example by checking your eligibility for benefits or other financial support; checking your eligibility and arranging for you to have home improvements made; dealing with your energy supplier on your behalf to help resolve debt issues; checking if you could save money on your energy bills by finding a better deal or using less energy; or referring you to other in-depth support organisations.
Information about your nationality, ethnicity or sexual orientation
We collect this information so that we can monitor who accesses our services and ensure that they are accessible for everyone; because we are running a project to help a specific group of people and we want to know if you can get extra help through this project; because we can organise a translator to help you or to connect you with a support organisation who help people of particular nationality or ethnicity.
There are some situations in which we might be able to offer you more support if we share your data with other organisations, for example:
- Bodies such as Citizens Advice, debt advice charities, health charities, council support services.
- Energy efficiency installers – if you’re eligible for free energy efficiency improvements in your home we may pass on your details to installers to get quotes or to arrange for installation with your agreement.
- Your gas or electricity supplier.
But we won’t do this without having asked your permission first – for example through the tick box on the data protection statement on a form that you fill in.
Sometimes, our funders require us to share some information with them about how the projects they fund are going. We’ll let you know if this is likely to happen, and when we do this we will have checked that the organisation we are sharing your data with with are going to keep it safe and will only use it for the reasons we have specified. We check that they are compliant with the law that describes how personal data should be protected (the General Data Protection Regulations).
There are a few situations where we might process your data outside of the time when we are giving you advice directly, for example to invite you to participate in research or to let you know about new funds, grants, schemes or services that may be of benefit to you. If we do this we will always make sure we are doing this lawfully, fairly and securely.
In a few very unlikely situations we might process your data without your permission, for example to comply with the law or to defend our legal rights. This is called ‘vital interests’.
Embedded content from other websites
Articles on this site may include embedded content (e.g. videos, images, articles, etc.). Embedded content from other websites behaves in the exact same way as if the visitor has visited the other website.
These websites may collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, including tracking your interaction with the embedded content if you have an account and are logged in to that website.
Cookie policy
Cookies are small text files that are used to store small pieces of information. They are stored on your device when the website is loaded on your browser. These cookies help us make the website function properly, make it more secure, provide better user experience, and understand how the website performs and to analyse what works and where it needs improvement.
As most of the online services, our website uses first-party and third-party cookies for several purposes. First-party cookies are mostly necessary for the website to function the right way, and they do not collect any of your personally identifiable data.
The third-party cookies used on our website are mainly for understanding how the website performs, how you interact with our website, keeping our services secure, providing advertisements that are relevant to you, and all in all providing you with a better and improved user experience and help speed up your future interactions with our website.
Manage cookie preferences
You can change your cookie preferences any time by clicking the button on the bottom left of your screen. This will let you revisit the cookie consent banner and change your preferences or withdraw your consent right away.
In addition to this, different browsers provide different methods to block and delete cookies used by websites. You can change the settings of your browser to block or delete the cookies. Listed below are the links to the support documents on how to manage and delete cookies from the major web browsers.
If you are using any other web browser, please visit your browser’s official support documents.
How do we use cookies?
As most of the online services, our website uses first-party and third-party cookies for several purposes. First-party cookies are mostly necessary for the website to function the right way, and they do not collect any of your personally identifiable data.
The third-party cookies used on our website are mainly for understanding how the website performs, how you interact with our website, keeping our services secure, providing advertisements that are relevant to you, and all in all providing you with a better and improved user experience and help speed up your future interactions with our website.