Advice Forums Privacy Policy

Family Rights Group is committed to ensuring that your privacy is protected and we will never release your personal details to any third party without your express consent.

We will use the information that we collect about you in accordance with, the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003, the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA) and any replacement laws and from May 2018, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

This privacy policy sets out how Family Rights Group (FRG) collects and uses and protects any information that you give us when you use our online advice forums. Family Rights Group has two online advice forums – a Parents Forum and a Kinship Carers Forum.

The legal basis on which we collect and use your personal information is ‘for the performance of a contract’. This means that when registering to use the advice forums you enter into an agreement with Family Rights Group about how the advice forums will be used by you and Family Rights Group including how your personal data will be collected and used.

The information we ask for

In order to post on our advice forums you will need to register as a user. When you register we ask you to provide:

• A username that you will use when posting on the forum
• Your email address.

What we do with the information we gather

• The demographic information (gender, ethnicity etc.) helps us to understand who is using our service. This helps us to provide you with a better service and also informs our promotional activities.
• With your permission (if you have ticked the box), we will occasionally use your email information to contact you for evaluation and/or research purposes. This may be to find out if you find our service(s) useful. Or for example, to ask your opinion on a particular policy proposal. We will never sell our users e-mail addresses.
• With your permission (if you have ticked the box), we will use your email information to send you our newsletter. Family Rights Group’s newsletters are sent 4-5 times a year. They contain information about campaigns we are running, events we are organising as well as relevant changes to law and practice.
• If you have previously agreed to us contacting you by email you may change your mind at any time by emailing: ychoudhury@frg.org.uk.
• Any personal information you provide to Family Rights Group will only be used internally. The only exceptions to this are set out in our Confidentiality and protection of children and vulnerable adults policy.
• We may use the information you post on the advice forums to assist us in research and development, and to provide in report format to our funders. Where we do this, all information will be completely anonymous.

Security

We are committed to ensuring that your information is secure. In order to prevent unauthorised access or disclosure, we have put in place suitable physical, electronic and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure the information we collect online.

Google Analytics, Cookies and links to other sites

Family Rights Group is committed to ensuring that your privacy is protected. We will never release your personal details to any third party without your express consent. We will use the information that we collect about you in accordance with, the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003, the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA) and any replacement laws and from May 2018, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Google Analytics:

A significant number of websites across the globe use Google Analytics in order to analyse data relating to the number of unique visitors visiting their websites on a daily basis. Google Analytics gathers information about website use by means of cookies. The information which Google provides enables companies to monitor the success of the website which in turn enhances the users visiting experience.

We use Google analytics as it enables us to monitor how long each user spends on an individual page. This means we can observe carefully, the length of time each visitor spends on each page. We can therefore remove any content which is not viewed. And then replace it with more helpful material. This helps us to enhance both the users visiting experience and the functionality of our website.

Cookies:

A cookie is a small file which asks permission to be placed on your computer’s hard drive. Once you agree, the file is added and the cookie helps analyse web traffic or lets you know when you visit a particular site. Cookies allow web applications to respond to you as an individual. The web application can tailor its operations to your needs, likes and dislikes by gathering and remembering information about your preferences.

We use traffic log cookies to identify which website pages are being used. This helps us analyse data about web page traffic and improve our website in order to tailor it to customer needs. We only use this information for statistical analysis purposes and then the data is removed from the system.

Overall, cookies help us provide you with a better website. This is because they enable us to monitor which pages you find useful and which you do not. A cookie in no way gives us access to your computer or any information about you, other than the data you choose to share with us.

You can choose to accept or decline cookies. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually modify your browser setting to decline cookies if you prefer. This may prevent you from taking full advantage of the website.

Links to other sites:

Our forum contains hyperlinks to many other websites. We are not responsible for the content or functionality of any of those external websites. If an external website requests personal information from you (e.g. in connection with an order for goods or services), the information you provide will not be covered by Family Rights Group’s Privacy Policy. We suggest you read the privacy policy of any website before providing any personal information.