Policy issued August 2026
Policy statement
We are committed to protecting your privacy.
This Policy sets out when and why we collect personal information, how we use it and how we keep it secure.
If you have any queries about this policy, please contact us at;
- Unit 4, Little Ann Street, St Judes, Bristol BS2 9EB
- info@faresharesouthwest.org.uk
- 0117 954 2220
Definitions for this policy
Who you’re talking to
‘FareShare South West’ is a trading name of Community Initiatives South West Limited; Company number 6130395, registered charity number 1125905, registered address Unit 4 Little Ann Street, St Judes, Bristol, BS2 9EB.
In this policy, any reference to “we” or “us” refers to FareShare South West.
‘Felix’ refers to the charity entity Felix, which recently merged the national charity FareShare with The Felix Project. FareShare South West is an independent charity which works in partnership with Felix. Felix provide FareShare South West with data management software in order to support our service. Your data may be held by both FareShare South West and Felix as a result.
This Privacy Policy relates only to data held by FareShare South West. For information about Felix’s handling of your data, please refer to Felix’s Privacy Policy.
Service (Site)
Service includes the faresharesouthwest.org.uk website operated by FareShare South West; the service we provide to member organisations (food and other kinds of support); the food rescue and redistribution service we provide to food suppliers; and our other activities including volunteering and employability programmes.
Personal Data
Personal Data means data about a living individual who can be identified from those data (or from those and other information either in our possession or likely to come into our possession). Special category data is personal data which needs more protection because it is sensitive. Non-personal data means data that is in no way personally identifiable.
Usage Data
Usage Data is data collected automatically either generated by the use of the Service or from the Service infrastructure itself (for example, the duration of a page visit).
Cookies
Cookies are small pieces of data stored on your device (computer or mobile device).
Data Controller
Data Controller means the natural or legal person who (either alone or jointly or in common with other persons) determines the purposes for which and the manner in which any personal information are, or are to be, processed.
For the purpose of this Privacy Policy, we are a Data Controller of your Personal Data.
Data Processors (or Service Providers)
Data Processor (or Service Provider) means any natural or legal person who processes the data on behalf of the Data Controller.
We may use the services of various Service Providers in order to process your data more effectively.
Data Subject
Data Subject is any living individual who is using our Service and is the subject of Personal Data. This term may also be used interchangeably collectively to refer to a website user, member, volunteer, employability participant, employee, or supporter whose data we are responsible for keeping secure.
User
A user is someone who browses our website.
Member
A member is someone who has registered with us to use our services.
Collecting personal data
We will collect personal information from you when you register to become a member, volunteer, or employability participant; sign up to receive news from us; make a donation to us; or otherwise provide us with personal information.
Types of Data Collected
Personal Data
While using our Service, we may ask you to provide us with certain personally identifiable information that can be used to contact or identify you (“Personal Data”). Personally identifiable information may include, but is not limited to:
- Email address
- First name and last name
- Phone number
- Address, County, Postal code, City
- Cookies and Usage Data
Usage Data
We may also collect information about how the Service is accessed and used (“Usage Data”).
This Usage Data may include information such as your computer’s Internet Protocol address, browser type, browser version, the pages of our Service that you visit, the time and date of your visit, the time spent on those pages, unique device identifiers, visit source, form completion, user journey and other diagnostic data.
Our email marketing campaigns contain tracking facilities. Tracked activity may include; the opening of emails, forwarding of emails, the clicking of links within the email content, times, dates and frequency of activity, and other activity. This information is used to refine future email campaigns and supply the user with more relevant content based around their activity.
Use of your Personal Data
We use the collected data for various purposes:
- To provide and maintain our Service
- To notify you about changes to our Service
- To allow you to participate in interactive features of our Service when you choose to do so
- To provide customer support
- To gather analysis or valuable information so that we can improve our Service
- To monitor the usage of our Service
- To detect, prevent and address technical issues
- To accept and respond to enquiries about volunteering, food delivery, events, and other aspects of our charity work
- To provide you with news, special offers and general information about other goods, services, and events which we offer that are similar to those that you have already purchased or enquired about unless you have opted not to receive such information
Consent and Communication
- By providing us with your personal information, you consent to the collection and use of that information for the purposes and in the manner described in this Privacy Policy. It is easy for you to change or withdraw your communication preferences with us at any time. You can contact us at any time to request changes to how we contact you – or to tell us not to contact you at all. We will always respect your wishes.
- We will not contact you for marketing purposes by phone unless you have given your prior consent, or unless this is reasonable based on our relationship and a balanced assessment of our legitimate interests.
- From 5 February 2026, changes to UK data protection law allow charities to use a new ‘soft opt-in’ for charitable purposes. This means that, where we have obtained your email address in the course of you expressing an interest in our charitable purposes or offering or providing support – for example by donating, volunteering, signing up for information, or requesting details about our work – we may send you emails relating to our work without needing your explicit prior consent. These communications will only ever relate to our charitable aims, including updates on our work and opportunities to support us. These rules only apply to contact details collected on or after 5th February 2026. To change your marketing preferences at any time please contact us using the details above.
- We will not contact you for marketing purposes by post if you have indicated that you do not wish to be contacted.
- We will not contact you via WhatsApp unless you accept an invitation to join a WhatsApp Community, for example to communicate with us about volunteering. Messages from us will only be sent via the Community and from a work phone. Your data (name, mobile number) will be kept secure from others in the WhatsApp Community unless they are already contacts stored by you in WhatsApp or your phone.
- Your personal information is kept private and stored securely. You have the right to ask for a copy of the information we hold about and to have any inaccuracies in your information corrected. Please see the Data Protection Policy for further information about Data Subject Access Requests and our responsibilities to you.
Legal Bases for Processing Personal Data under General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
If you are from the European Economic Area (EEA), FareShare South West’s legal basis for collecting and using the personal information described in this Privacy Policy depends on the Personal Data we collect and the specific context in which we collect it.
FareShare South West may process your Personal Data because:
- We need to perform a contract with you
- You have given us permission to do so
- The processing is in our legitimate interests, and it’s not overridden by your rights
- To comply with the law
Retention of Data
FareShare South West will retain your Personal Data only for as long as is necessary for the purposes set out in this Privacy Policy. We will retain and use your Personal Data to the extent necessary to comply with our legal obligations (for example, if we are required to retain your data to comply with applicable laws), resolve disputes, and enforce our legal agreements and policies.
FareShare South West will also retain Usage Data for internal analysis purposes. Usage Data is generally retained for a shorter period of time, approximately 50 months, except when this data is used to strengthen the security or to improve the functionality of our Service, or we are legally obligated to retain this data for longer time periods.
Transfer of Data
Your information, including Personal Data, may be transferred to and maintained on computers located outside of your state, province, country, or other governmental jurisdiction where the data protection laws may differ than those from your jurisdiction.
If you are located outside the United Kingdom and choose to provide information to us, please note that we transfer the data, including Personal Data, to the United Kingdom and process it there.
Your consent to this Privacy Policy followed by your submission of such information represents your agreement to that transfer.
FareShare South West will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that your data is treated securely and in accordance with this Privacy Policy and no transfer of your Personal Data will take place to an organization or a country unless there are adequate controls in place including the security of your data and other personal information.
Disclosure of Data
We do not sell, trade, or otherwise transfer your personal data to outside third parties.
We do reserve the right to release such personal data to provide you with the product or services you have requested (see Service Providers below)
Disclosure for Law Enforcement
Under certain circumstances, FareShare South West may be required to disclose your Personal Data to enforce our site policies, protect your rights or the rights of others’ property or safety if required to do so by law or in response to valid requests by public authorities (e.g. a court or a government agency).
Legal Requirements
FareShare South West may disclose your Personal Data in the good faith belief that such action is necessary to:
- To comply with a legal obligation
- To protect and defend the rights or property of FareShare South West
- To prevent or investigate possible wrongdoing in connection with the Service
- To protect the personal safety of users of the Service or the public
- To protect against legal liability
Security of Data
The security of your data is important to us but remember that no method of transmission over the Internet, or method of electronic storage is 100% secure. While we strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect your Personal Data, we cannot guarantee its absolute security.
Your Data Protection Rights Under General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR)
If you are a resident of the European Economic Area (EEA), you have certain data protection rights. FareShare South West aims to take reasonable steps to allow you to correct, amend, delete, or limit the use of your Personal Data.
Please see the Data Protection Policy for further information.
Service Providers
We may employ third party companies and individuals to facilitate our Service (“Service Providers”), to provide the Service on our behalf, to perform Service-related services or to assist us in analysing how our Service is used. We and our third-party vendors use cookies to inform, optimize and serve ads based on your past visits to our Service.
These third parties have access to your Personal Data only to perform these tasks on our behalf and are obligated not to disclose or use it for any other purpose.
Use of Cookies
‘Cookies’ are small files saved to your device that track, save, and store information about your interactions and usage of the website. Cookies are useful because they allow a website to recognise a user’s device and to provide you with a tailored experience within this website. You can find more information about cookies at https://ico.org.uk/for-the-public/online/cookies
Our website uses cookies to improve your experience and to ensure that you can interact with our website successfully. We also use cookies for advertising and remarketing purposes, in careful partnership with our advertising partners. The use of cookies does not give us access to the rest of your computer or to personal information about you.
For more information, check out our Cookie Policy.
Social Media
If you engage with us on social media and messaging services like Facebook, LinkedIn, or Instagram, you might give us permission to process information from those accounts. The data we are given access to by social media services will vary but will always be in line with the Terms of that particular service. We will not be able to access your private messages or photos. Our website and emails may use social sharing buttons which help share web content directly from web pages to the social media platform in question. Users are advised before using such social sharing buttons that they do so at their own discretion and note that the social media platform may track and save your request to share a web page respectively through your social media platform account.
External Links
Although this website only looks to include quality, safe and relevant external links, we cannot guarantee or verify the contents of any externally linked website. Users should therefore note they click on external links at their own risk, and we cannot be held liable for any damages or implications caused by visiting any external links on our website, emails, social media, and other platforms.
Children’s Privacy
Our Service does not address anyone under the age of 18 (“Children”).
We do not knowingly collect personally identifiable information from anyone under the age of 18. If you are a parent or guardian and you are aware that your Child has provided us with Personal Data, please contact us. If we become aware that we have collected Personal Data from children without verification of parental consent, we take steps to remove that information from our servers.
Changes to this Privacy Policy
We reserve the right to amend this Privacy Policy. The most up to date version will always be available on our website.
You are advised to review this Privacy Policy periodically for any changes.
