Heirs of Slavery - our privacy policy

28 May 2026

About this policy

This website is operated by Heirs of Slavery, a not-for-profit advocacy and education group without any formal registration or incorporation, though it may seek to become a Charitable Incorporated Organisation, or similar in the future. Heirs of Slavery is not required to register for data protection purposes with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

Heirs of Slavery is committed to protecting and respecting personal privacy. We collect as little information as possible from members, and supporters, however there is some that is useful in furthering our work in advocating and educating around the continuing legacies of slavery.  This policy explains what information Heirs of Slavery holds on you, why we hold it, and how it gets used. Please read the policy to understand our views and practices in relation to storing and using personal data. Please also note that we may need to change this policy from time to time, so please check this page occasionally to ensure you’re happy with any changes. By accessing and using our website, you’re accepting these terms of use.

If you have any questions about the policy or Heirs of Slavery’s use of personal information, please email contactus@heirsofslavery.org

Heirs of Slavery’s Data Manager is James Catmur. The ICO may be contacted via its website https://ico.org.uk/concerns/, by live chat or by calling a helpline: 0303 123 1113.

Heirs of Slavery’s Privacy Policy

The information we collect, and why we collect it

‘Personal data’ is defined as information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person (examples might include a person’s name, age, address, date of birth, gender and contact details). Heirs of Slavery will never sell, trade, or rent your personal information to others, and would only share personal data with authorised third parties where we are required to do so by law or for regulatory or statutory purposes.

We collect the following personal data:

For Members:

  • Your name, email address and sometimes your telephone number if you have provided this.

  • We do keep a record of the reason for your interest in Heirs of Slavery, like your family history or your research or campaigning interests. We also may keep data on events of ours that you have attended, online or in-person. This information is not made public or shared without permission, and we only use it to assist in our work.

For Donors (if we should decide to collect donations in the future)

  • Your name, address, telephone number, bank details; so that we can effectively process your donations.

  • Your donation history; so that we can more effectively understand our donors.

For Supporters:

  • Any information that you provide to us for the purpose of subscribing to email updates / newsletters, which includes your name, email address and sometimes your telephone number if you have provided this

Some information is also collected automatically from anyone who visits our site: this includes what pages you view, the number of bytes transferred, the links you click, the materials you access and other actions taken within our site. We may combine this information with your personal information too and use the combined information in accordance with this privacy statement. We also collect certain standard information that your browser sends to every website you visit, such as your Internet Protocol (IP) address, your browser type and capabilities and language, your operating system, the date and time you access the site and the website from which you linked to one of our sites. We do not combine this standard information with other personal information.

Some other kinds of information we collect:

  • If you contact us, we may keep a record of that correspondence;

  • We may make notes from information we gather through interaction with you on social media. We currently only use Instagram and BlueSky.

  • Feedback from you about our website or Heirs of Slavery generally;

  • Any other information that you choose to send to us.

If you object to the collection and use of your personal data as described here we may be unable to keep you involved or updated about Heirs of Slavery due to data regulation requirements. Please see section Your Rights for more information about your rights and objections.

For the purposes of meeting the Data Protection Act 2018 territorial scope requirements, the United Kingdom is identified as the named territory where the processing of personal data takes place.

How we use your personal data

Our general day-to-day work. This may includes:

  • sending you general (non-marketing) communications;

  • sending you email notifications which you have specifically requested;

  • administering our website and for internal operations such as troubleshooting, data analysis or research

  • dealing with enquiries and complaints made by or about you in relation to Heirs of Slavery

Third-party communications services:

We use third-party email, website management and data services, MailChimp, SquareSpace, Google Mail and Beacon CRM. This is to manage our list of subscribers and email communications to you and MailChimp and Beacon CRM act as a data-processor on behalf of Heirs of Slavery.

We use MailChimp, a service provided by Intuit Inc., to manage our subscriber list and send email communications. MailChimp processes data on our behalf as a data processor. As a US-based company, MailChimp transfers personal data outside the UK. Such transfers are made subject to Standard Contractual Clauses approved by the UK Information Commissioner's Office, which provide appropriate safeguards for your data. You can find out more about how MailChimp handles personal data in Mailchimp's Privacy Policy. As a data processor on our behalf, MailChimp will use your information to send you email alerts if you request them. You can find out more about how MailChimp collects and stores your information.

Beacon CRM is an organizing system that includes websites, customer relations management, communications, and finance. You can read more about Beacon’s privacy policy here.

Our website is hosted and built on Squarespace, a platform provided by Squarespace Inc., a US-based company. Squarespace processes certain personal data on our behalf — including website visitor data and any information submitted through forms on this site — as a data processor. Data transfers to the US are made subject to Standard Contractual Clauses approved by the UK Information Commissioner's Office. You can read more about how Squarespace handles personal data in Squarespace's Privacy Policy.

Google Mail (Gmail) We use Google Mail (Gmail), provided by Google LLC, for some of our email communications. Google processes data on our behalf as a data processor. As a US-based company, Google transfers personal data outside the UK; such transfers are made subject to Standard Contractual Clauses approved by the UK Information Commissioner's Office. Google Workspace (which includes Gmail) operates under specific data processing terms which prohibit Google from using your data for its own advertising purposes. You can find out more in Google's Privacy Policy.

Cookies

Our website uses cookies — small text files placed on your device when you visit — to help the site function properly and to understand how visitors use it. Some cookies are set by Squarespace as part of the website infrastructure; others may be set by third-party services such as Google Analytics, if enabled.

We use the following categories of cookies:

·       Strictly necessary cookies: required for the website to operate. These cannot be switched off.

·       Analytics cookies: used to understand how visitors interact with the site, such as which pages are visited most often. This information is collected anonymously and used only to improve the site.

When you first visit our website, you will be asked to consent to the use of non-essential cookies. You can withdraw or change your consent at any time through the cookie settings on this site, or by adjusting your browser settings to block or delete cookies. Please note that disabling certain cookies may affect how the website functions.

For more information about cookies and how to manage them, visit www.aboutcookies.org.

Our legal basis for processing personal data

We need a lawful basis to collect and use your personal data under data protection law. The law allows for six ways to process personal data (and additional ways for sensitive personal data). Three of these are relevant to the types of processing that we carry out. This includes information that is processed on the basis of: a person’s consent; processing that is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation; ‘legitimate interests’ (see below).

Personal data may be legally collected and used if it is necessary for a legitimate interest of the organisation using the data, if its use is fair and does not adversely impact the rights of the individual concerned.

When we use your personal information, we will always consider if it is fair and balanced to do so and if it is within your reasonable expectations. We will balance your rights and our legitimate interests to ensure that we use your personal information in ways that are not unduly intrusive or unfair.

Our legitimate interests may include:

  • Good Governance: including delivery of our charitable purposes, statutory and financial reporting and other regulatory compliance purposes, engaging and involving our members in the democratic governance of Heirs of Slavery

  • Administration and operational management: including responding to inquiries, providing information, and events management, and most importantly keeping our membership informed and involved.

  • Fundraising and Campaigning: including administering campaigns and donations, sending thank you communications, analysis, targeting and segmentation to develop communication strategies, and maintaining communication.

Disclosure of your personal data

We will not share, sell or rent any of your personal data to any third party unless we are required to do so by law, for example to law enforcement or regulatory bodies where this is required under the relevant legislation. We will not share your information with third parties for marketing purposes.

Third Party Service Providers working on our behalf

We may pass your information to our third-party service providers, agents subcontractors and other associated organisations (e.g. hosting website, web agency, etc.) for the purpose of completing tasks and providing services to you on our behalf (e.g. to send you mailings or check web analytics). However, when we use third party service providers, we disclose only the personal information that is necessary to deliver the service and we have an agreement in place that requires them to keep your information secure and not to use it for their own direct marketing purposes. Please be reassured that we will not release your information to third parties for them to use for their own direct marketing purposes, unless you have requested us to do so, or we are required to do so by law, for example, by a court order or for the purposes of prevention of fraud or other crime.

Other disclosures

In addition to the disclosures described elsewhere in this privacy policy, we may disclose information about you in connection with any legal proceedings or prospective legal proceedings; in order to establish, exercise or defend our legal rights.  

Security of your personal data

We use appropriate technical and organisational measures and precautions to protect your personal data and to prevent the loss, misuse or alteration of your personal data. Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. Although we will do our best to protect your personal data, we cannot 100% guarantee the security of your data transmitted to us. Once we have received your information, we use strict procedures and security features to try to prevent unauthorised access.

How do we protect your personal information?

Our website is scanned on a regular basis for security holes and known vulnerabilities in order to make your visit to our site as safe as possible.

We also use an SSL certificate to ensure that your privacy is protected while visiting our website. An SSL certificate (also known as HTTPS) is a layer of protection between our website and your browser. Short for Secure Sockets Layer, an SSL is used to encrypt potentially sensitive information like the input fields in a contact form.

Retention of your data

  • Donor data: We keep your data for as long as you remain a donor with us

  • Member data: We only keep your data for as long as you remain a member of our organisation

Your Rights

Individuals are provided with legal rights governing the use of their personal data. These grant individuals the right to understand what personal data relating to them is held, for what purpose, how it is collected and used, with whom it is shared, where it is located, to object to its processing, to have the data corrected if inaccurate, to take copies of the data and to place restrictions on its processing. Individuals can also request the deletion of their personal data. These rights are known as Individual Rights under the Data Protection Act 2018. Individuals can exercise their Individual Rights at any time.

In exercising your Individual Rights, you should understand that in some situations we may be unable to fully meet your request, for example if you make a request for us to delete all your personal data, we may be required to retain some data for regulatory and other statutory purposes.

Your rights include:

Right of Access

  • You have the right know what information we hold about you and to ask, in writing, to see your records.

  • We will supply any information you ask for that we hold about you as soon as possible, but this may take up to 30 days. We will not charge you for this other than in exceptional circumstances.

  • You will be asked for proof of identity as the person dealing with your request may not be the staff member you have met before. We need to be sure we are only releasing your personal data to you. 

Right to be informed

You have the right to be informed how your personal data will be used. This policy, as well as any additional information or notice that is provided to you either at the time you provided your details, or otherwise, is intended to provide you with this information.

Right to withdraw consent

Where we process your data based on your consent (for example, to send you marketing texts or emails), you can withdraw that consent at any time. To do this, or to discuss this right further with us, please contact us using the details in the ‘Contact us’ section below.     

Right to object

  • You also have a right to object to us processing data where we are relying on it being within our legitimate interests to do so (for example, to send you direct marketing by post). To do this, or to discuss this right further with us, please contact us using the details in the ‘Contact us’ section below.

  • You also have the right to complain to the UK’s data protection supervisory authority, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). The ICO may be contacted via its website which is https://ico.org.uk/concerns/, by live chat or by calling their helpline on 0303 123 1113.

Right to restrict processing

In certain situations, you have the right to ask for processing of your personal data to be restricted because there is some disagreement about its accuracy or legitimate usage.

Right of erasure

In some cases, you have the right to be forgotten (i.e. to have your personal data deleted from our database). Where you have requested that we do not send you marketing materials, we will need to keep some limited information to ensure that you are not contacted in the future.

Right of rectification

If you believe our records are inaccurate, you have the right to ask for those records concerning you to be updated. To update your records, please get in touch with us using the details in the ‘Contact us’ section below.

Right to data portability

Where we are processing your personal data because you have given us your consent to do so, you have the right to request that the data is transferred from one service provider to another.

Third Party Websites

This website may contain links to and from the websites of other groups. If you follow a link to any of these websites, please note that these websites have their own privacy policies and that we do not accept any responsibility or liability for these policies. Please check these policies before you submit any personal data to these websites. 

Contact us

If you have any questions, queries, or concerns about any of this, please get in touch by contacting contactus@heirsofslavery.org or through the contact form on this website. Your views on our data protection and privacy policy are important to us.