The NCHA is part of the FODO Group.

Introduction

Welcome to the FODO Group’s privacy notice.

The FODO Group and its members respect your privacy and are committed to protecting your Personal Data. This privacy notice will inform you as to how we look after your Personal Data which we may need to collect from you and use in our operations, including when you visit our website (regardless of where you visit it from) and tell you about your privacy rights, how the law protects you and how to get in touch with us if you have any further questions.

This privacy notice is provided in a layered format so you can click through to the specific areas set out below. Please also use the Glossary to understand the meaning of some of the terms used in this privacy notice.

1. Important information and who we are

Purpose of this privacy notice

This privacy notice aims to give you information on how the FODO Group collects and processes your Personal Data, including any data you may provide through this website when you communicate with us.

This website is not intended for children, and we do not knowingly collect data relating to children.

It is important that you read this privacy notice together with any other privacy notice or fair processing policy we may provide on specific occasions when we are collecting or processing Personal Data about you so that you are fully aware of how and why we are using your data. This privacy notice supplements other notices and privacy policies and is not intended to override them.

Controller

The FODO Group consists of the Federation of Optometrists and Dispensing Opticians (“FODO” – this is the only legal entity within the FODO Group), and its divisions FODO Ireland and the National Community Hearing Association (“NCHA”).

This privacy notice is issued on behalf of the FODO Group so when we mention “FODO”, “we”, “us” or “our” in this privacy notice, we are referring to the relevant company in the FODO Group responsible for processing your data. The Federation of Optometrists and Dispensing Opticians is the Data Controller for the purposes of data protection law, and responsible for the collection of your Personal Data and how the members of the FODO Group use it.

We are not required to appoint a Data Protection Officer. If you have any questions about its terms, including any requests to exercise your legal rights, please contact us using the details set out below.

Contact details

If you have any questions about this privacy notice or our privacy practices, please contact us in the following ways:

Full name of legal entity: Federation of (Ophthalmic & Dispensing) Opticians

Email address: [email protected]

Postal address: 16 Upper Woburn Place, London, WC1H 0BS

Telephone number: 020 7298 5151

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 (www.ico.org.uk). We would, however, appreciate the chance to deal with your concerns before you approach the ICO, so please contact us in the first instance using the details set out above.

Changes to the privacy notice and your duty to inform us of changes

We keep this privacy notice under regular review and reserve the right to update and change this privacy notice from time to time to reflect any changes to how we process your Personal Data or changing legal requirements. We will post any changes we may make in the future on this page and, where appropriate, notified to you by email. Please check back frequently to see any updates or changes to our notice.

The Personal Data we hold about you must be accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your Personal Data changes during your relationship with us.

Third-party links

This website may include links to third-party websites, plugins and applications. Clicking on those links or enabling those connections may allow third parties to collect or share data about you. We do not control and cannot take responsibility for these third-party websites or the organisations which operate them, and are not responsible for their privacy statements. When you leave our website by following any third party link, we encourage you to read the privacy notice of every site you visit.

2.            The data we collect about you

We aim to minimise the amount of Personal Data we collect about you and ensure that it is relevant to the context in which it was provided. The Personal Data which we hold and how it is processed will vary based on your relationship with us.

Personal Data, or personal information, means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified. It does not include data where the identity has been removed (anonymous data).

We may collect, use, store and transfer different kinds of Personal Data about you, which we have grouped as follows:

·         Identity Data includes first name, maiden name, last name, username or similar identifier, marital status, title, date of birth and gender.

·         Contact Data includes postal address, email address and telephone numbers.

·         Publication Data – any biographical or other publicly available data published online or in any other publicly available medium.

·         Financial Data includes bank account and payment card details.

·         Transaction Data includes details about your membership and payments to and from you, and other details of services provided by related Third Parties and by us through the course of your membership.

·         Technical Data includes internet protocol (IP) address, your login data, browser type and version, time zone setting and location, browser plugin types and versions, operating system and platform, and other technology on the devices you use to access this website.

·         Profile Data includes your username and password, details relating to your membership, your interests, preferences, feedback and survey responses. 

·         Usage Data includes information about how you use our website, your membership and related services.

·         Marketing and Communications Data includes your preferences in receiving marketing from our third parties and us and your communication preferences.

We also collect, use and share Aggregated Data such as statistical or demographic data for any purpose. Aggregated Data could be derived from your Personal Data but is not considered Personal Data in law as this data will not directly or indirectly reveal your identity. For example, we may aggregate your Usage Data to calculate the percentage of users accessing a specific website feature. However, if we combine or connect Aggregated Data with your Personal Data so that it can directly or indirectly identify you, we treat the combined data as Personal Data which will be used per this privacy notice.

We collect and process Special Categories of Personal Data (which includes details about race or ethnicity, religious or philosophical beliefs, sex life, sexual orientation, political opinions, trade union membership, information about health, and genetic and biometric data) in limited circumstances – specifically when any member using our medical malpractice insurance scheme may need to share health records with us that relate to any such claim and related claimant or any associated legal advice provided to our members. We process this data based on our legitimate interest to defend legal claims involving our members per Articles 6 and 9 of the General Data Protection Regulation. We minimise the collection of any Special Category Data and will seek legal advice on a case-by-case basis on how long it should be retained on file.

We collect any information about criminal convictions and offences when providing regulatory defence services to our members. We process this data based on our legitimate interest to defend legal claims involving our members per Article 6 and 10 of the General Data Protection Regulation, as well as Paragraph 33 Schedule 1 of the Data Protection Act 2018 on the basis that such processing is necessary for the purpose of, or in connection with obtaining legal advice about or defending prospective or actual legal claims against our members. We minimise the collection of Criminal Conviction and Offence Data and will seek legal advice on a case-by-case basis on how long it should be retained on file.

If you fail to provide Personal Data

Where we need to collect Personal Data by law, or under the terms of a contract we have with you, and you fail to provide that data when requested, we may not be able to perform the contract we have or are trying to enter into with you (for example, to provide you with services through your membership). In this case, we may have to cancel any service provided through your membership, but we will notify you if this is the case at the time.

3.            How is your Personal Data collected?

We use different methods to collect data from and about you including through:

·         Direct interactions. You may give us your Identity, Contact and Financial Data by filling in forms or by corresponding with us by post, phone, email or otherwise. This includes Personal Data you provide when you:

·         Enquire about or apply for membership or to use our services

·         Create an account on our website

·         Subscribe to our service or publications

·         Request we send marketing to you

·         Enter or survey or participate in our research

·         Participate in any of our committees

·         Give us feedback or contact us.

·         Automated technologies or interactions. As you interact with our website, we will automatically collect Technical Data about your equipment, browsing actions and patterns. We collect this Personal Data by using cookies, server logs and other similar technologies. We may also receive Technical Data about you if you visit other websites employing our cookies. Please see our cookie policy below for further details.

·         Third parties or publicly available sources. We will receive Personal Data about you from various third parties and public sources as set out below:

·         Identity, Contact, Special Category and Publication Data in the following circumstances:

·         Concerning any claim against our members which would involve the use of our medical malpractice scheme – please note that this may include Special Category Data as referred to below

·         Websites or other online or offline publications which have been made publicly available.

We may collect Technical Data from and about you via the following parties:

(a)      Analytics providers such as Google based outside the EU

(b)      Advertising networks based inside or outside the EU

(c)      Search information providers based inside or outside the EU

·         Contact, Financial and Transaction Data from providers of accounting technical, payment and delivery services such as Xero, who make use of AWS servers based outside the EU

·         Identity and Contact Data from publicly available sources, such as Companies House and the Electoral Register based inside the EU.

4.            How we use your Personal Data

We will only use your Personal Data when the law allows us to, and in ways that you would reasonably expect. For example, unless you unsubscribe, you will receive our newsletter and other communications as part of your member benefits package. We sometimes use secure data processors to provide these and other services.

Most commonly, we will use your Personal Data in the following circumstances:

·         Where we need to perform the contract for membership, we are about to enter into or have entered into with you

·         Where it is necessary for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests

·         Where we need to comply with a legal obligation.

Please see the Glossary and Lawful Basis sections below to find out more about the types of lawful basis that we will rely on to process your Personal Data.

Generally, we do not rely on consent as a legal basis for processing your Personal Data. However, we will get your consent before sending third-party direct marketing communications to you via email or text message. You have the right to withdraw consent to marketing at any time by contacting us.

Purposes for which we will use your Personal Data

We have set out below, in a table format, a description of all the ways we plan to use your Personal Data, and which of the legal bases we rely on to do so. We have also identified what our legitimate interests are where appropriate.

Our business model means we also hold other personal data and engage with a wide range of stakeholders – including but not limited to members, committee members, potential members, other stakeholders we have a direct or indirect relationship with, charities, elected representatives and national and international representative bodies. The table below summarises the personal data that we might hold regarding these activities.

Please note that we may process your Personal Data for more than one lawful ground depending on the specific purpose for which we are using your data. Please contact us if you need details about the particular legal ground we are relying on to process your Personal Data where more than one ground is set out in the table below.

 

Purpose/Activity	Type of data	Lawful basis for processing including the basis of legitimate interest
To receive and deal with any enquiry about membership or any request for support	Information including relating to anyone making an enquiry, including: (a) Identity (b) Contact	Necessary for our legitimate interests (to develop our services, grow our business and operate an effective and successful representative and professional body)
To register new members	Information relating to our members, including: (a) Identity (b) Contact	Performance of a contract with our members, specifically maintaining their membership.
To process payments relating to memberships, including: (a) Manage payments, fees and charges (b) Collect and recover money owed to us	Information pertaining to our members, including: (a) Identity (b) Contact (c) Financial (d) Transaction (e) Marketing and communications	(a) Performance of a contract with members, specifically maintaining their membership (b) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to recover debts due to us)
To manage our relationship with members which will include: (a) Notifying members about changes to our terms of membership or privacy notice (b) Asking members to participate in research or take a survey	Information relating to our members, including: (a) Identity (b) Contact (c) Profile (d) Marketing and communications	(a) Performance of a contract with members, specifically maintaining their membership (b) Necessary to comply with a legal obligation (c) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to keep our records updated and to study how members use our services)
For the provision of legal support to our members as mart of our medical malpractice insurance scheme	Information relating to potential and actual claimants, solicitors, lawyers, witnesses, advisers, consultants and professional experts (a) Identity (b) Contact (c) Special Category Data	(a) The purpose of, or in connection with, any legal proceedings (including prospective proceedings) (b) The purpose of obtaining legal advice (c) The purposes of establishing, exercising or defending legal rights
To maintain our relationship with direct and indirect stakeholders including (without limitation) committee members or elected representatives	(a) Identity (b) Contact (c) Publication Data	Necessary for our legitimate interests (to develop our services, grow our business and operate an effective and successful representative and professional body)
To administer and protect our business and this website (including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, system maintenance, support, reporting and hosting of data)	(a) Identity (b) Contact (c) Technical	(a) Necessary for our legitimate interests (for running our business, provision of administration and IT services, network security, to prevent fraud and in the context of a business reorganisation or group restructuring exercise) (b) Necessary to comply with a legal obligation
To deliver relevant website content and advertisements to you and measure or understand the effectiveness of the advertising we serve to you	(a) Identity (b) Contact (c) Profile (d) Usage (e) Marketing and communications (f) Technical	Necessary for our legitimate interests (to study how members use our services, to develop them, to grow our business and to inform our marketing strategy)
To use data analytics to improve our website, services, marketing, member relationships and experiences	(a) Technical (b) Usage	Necessary for our legitimate interests (to define types of members for our services, to keep our website updated and relevant, to develop our business and to inform our marketing strategy)
To make suggestions and recommendations to you about services that may be of interest to you	(a) Identity (b) Contact (c) Technical (d) Usage (e) Profile (f) Marketing and communications	Necessary for our legitimate interests (to develop our services and grow our business)

 

Marketing

We strive to provide you with choices regarding certain Personal Data uses, particularly around marketing and advertising.

We may use your Identity, Contact, Technical, Usage and Profile Data to form a view on what we think you may want or need, or what may be of interest to you. This is how we decide which services and offers may be relevant for you (we call this marketing).

You will receive marketing communications from us if you have requested information from us or enquired about or applied for membership, and you have not opted out of receiving that marketing.

We will get your express opt-in consent before we share your Personal Data with any third party for marketing purposes outside the FODO Group. You can ask third parties or us to stop sending you marketing messages at any time by following the opt-out links on any marketing message sent to you or by contacting us at any time.

Where you opt out of receiving these marketing messages, this will not apply to Personal Data provided to us as a result of any enquiry about membership or membership application.

Cookies

A cookie is a small file of letters and numbers that we store on your browser or your device if you agree. Cookies contain information that is transferred to your device.

You can set your browser to refuse all or some browser cookies or to alert you when websites set or access cookies. If you disable or refuse cookies, please note that some parts of this website may become inaccessible or not function properly.

We use the following cookies:

·         Strictly necessary cookies. These are cookies that are required for the operation of our website. They include, for example, cookies that enable you to log into secure areas of our website, use a shopping cart or make use of e-billing services.

·         Analytical or performance cookies. These allow us to recognise and count the number of visitors and to see how visitors move around our website when they are using it. This helps us to improve the way our website works, for example, by ensuring that users are finding what they are looking for easily.

·         Functionality cookies. These are used to recognise you when you return to our website. This enables us to personalise our content for you, greet you by name and remember your preferences (for example, your choice of language or region).

·         Targeting cookies. These cookies record your visit to our website, the pages you have visited and the links you have followed. We will use this information to make our website and the advertising displayed on it more relevant to your interests. We may also share this information with third parties for this purpose.

You can find more information about the individual cookies we use and the purposes for which we use them in the table below:

 

Cookie Title Cookie Name	Description & Purpose	Type & Duration
__cfduid	Cloudflare sets the cookie. The cookie is used to identify individual clients behind a shared IP address and apply security settings on a per-client basis. It does not correspond to any user ID in the web application and does not store any personally identifiable information.	Necessary   4 Weeks
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary	The GDPR Cookie Consent plugin sets this cookie. Used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category ‘Necessary’.	Necessary   1 Hour
cookielawinfo-checkbox-non-necessary	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. Used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category ‘Non-necessary’.	Necessary   1 Hour
DYNSRV	This cookie is used for load balancing purposes to decide which server to send the visitor.	Necessary
_ga	Google Analytics installs this cookie. The cookie is used to calculate visitor, session, campaign data and keep track of site usage for the site’s analytics report. The cookies store information anonymously and assign a randomly generated number to identify unique visitors.	Analytics
_gid	This cookie is installed by Google Analytics. The cookie is used to store information of how visitors use a website and helps in creating an analytics report of how the site is doing. The data collected, including the number of visitors, the source where they have come from, and the pages visited in an anonymous form.	Analytics   1 Day
_gat	This cookie is installed by Google Universal Analytics to throttle the request rate to limit the collection of data on high traffic sites.	Performance   1 Minute

 

Change of purpose

We will only use your Personal Data 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 you wish to get an explanation as to how the processing for the new purpose is consistent with the original purpose, please contact us.

If we need to use your Personal Data 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 Data without your knowledge or consent, in compliance with the above rules, where this is required or permitted by law.

5.            Disclosures of your Personal Data

We will not make your Personal Data available to any other parties without your explicit permission unless required to do so by court order, by order of the relevant tax authorities, or by order of a regulator with statutory powers to require disclosure.

We may share your Personal Data with the parties set out below for the purposes set out in the table Purposes for which we will use your Personal Data above.

·         Internal third parties as set out in the Glossary

·         External third parties as set out in the Glossary

·         Third parties to whom we may choose to sell, transfer or merge parts of our business or our assets. Alternatively, we may seek to acquire other businesses or merge with them. If a change happens to our business, then the new owners may use your Personal Data in the same way as set out in this privacy notice.

We require all third parties to respect the security of your Personal Data and to treat it per the law. We do not allow any of our third-party service providers to use your Personal Data for their purposes and only permit them to process your Personal Data for specified purposes and following our instructions.

6.            International transfers

Whenever we transfer your personal data to service providers outside of the EEA, we ensure a similar degree of protection is afforded to it by ensuring at least one of the following safeguards is implemented:

We will only transfer your personal data to countries that have been deemed to provide an adequate level of protection for personal data by the European Commission.

Where we use certain service providers, we may use specific contracts approved by the European Commission, which give personal data the same protection it has in Europe.

Where we use providers based in the US, we may transfer data to them if they are part of the Privacy Shield which requires them to provide similar protection to personal data shared between Europe and the US.

Please contact us if you want further information on the specific mechanism used by us when transferring your personal data out of the EEA.

7.            Data security

We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your Personal Data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. Also, we limit access to your Personal Data to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your Personal Data on our instructions, and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality and the maintenance of data security.

We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected Personal Data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so.

8.            Data retention

How long will you use my Personal Data for?

We will only retain your Personal Data for as long as reasonably necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including to satisfy any legal, regulatory, tax, accounting or reporting requirements. We may retain your Personal Data for a more extended period in the event of a complaint or if we reasonably believe there is a prospect of litigation concerning our relationship with you.

This means how long we keep your personal details might vary. For example:

•          Our claims occurring insurance cover means we need to keep information about your cover in case a claim arises against you in the future, including after you have retired or after your membership has come to an end. 

•          If you supplied references as part of your application process, this personal information is destroyed after two years of active membership or your date of leaving membership (whichever is sooner).

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, regulatory, tax, accounting or other requirements.

In the case of stakeholders with whom we have a direct relationship, we will retain your Personal Data for as long as is necessary for the purpose it was collected. This will typically mean until the point you leave a committee or specific role unless you decide to stay in contact with us by updating your details.

In the case of stakeholders with whom we might have an indirect relationship, we will retain your Personal Data for as long as is necessary for the purpose it was collected. This will typically mean until the point you are no longer a local representative and or have your contact details on a recognised public site removed.

By law, we have to keep necessary information about our members (including Contact, Identity, Financial and Transaction Data) for six years after they cease being members for legal, regulatory and tax purposes.

In some circumstances you can ask us to delete your data: please see the section Your legal rights below for further information.

In some circumstances, we will anonymise your Personal Data (so that it can no longer be associated with you) for research or statistical purposes, in which case we may use this information indefinitely without further notice to you.

9.            Your legal rights

Under certain circumstances, you have various rights under data protection laws concerning your Personal Data. Specifically, you have the right to:

Request access to your Personal Data (commonly known as a ‘Data Subject Access Request’). This enables you to receive a copy of any Personal Data which we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.

Request correction of the Personal Data that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate data we hold about you corrected. However, we may need to verify the accuracy of the new data you provide to us.

Request erasure of your Personal Data. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove Personal Data where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your Personal Data where you have successfully exercised your right to object to processing (see below), where we may have processed your information unlawfully or where we are required to erase your Personal Data to comply with local law. Note, however, that we may not always be able to comply with your request of erasure for specific legal reasons which will be notified to you, if applicable, at the time of your request.

Object to processing of your Personal Data where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party), and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground as you feel it impacts on your fundamental rights and freedoms. You also have the right to object where we are processing your Personal Data for direct marketing purposes. In some cases, we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process your information which override your rights and freedoms.

Request restriction of processing of your Personal Data. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your Personal Data in the following scenarios:

·         If you want us to establish the data’s accuracy

·         Where our use of the data is unlawful but you do not want us to erase it

·         Where you need us to hold the data even if we no longer require it as you need it to establish, exercise or defend legal claims

·         You have objected to our use of your data, but we need to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to use it.

Request the transfer of your Personal Data to you or a third party. We will provide to you, or a third party you have chosen, your Personal Data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format. Note that this right only applies to automated information which you initially provided consent for us to use or where we used the information to perform a contract with you.

Withdraw consent at any time where we are relying on consent to process your Personal Data. However, this will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before you withdraw your consent. If you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide certain products or services to you. We will advise you if this is the case at the time you withdraw your consent.

If you wish to exercise any of your rights set out above, please contact us.

No fee usually required                                                                      

You will not have to pay a fee to access your Personal Data (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request is clearly unfounded, repetitive or excessive. Alternatively, we could refuse to comply with your request in these circumstances.

What we may need from you

We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your Personal Data (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is a security measure to ensure that Personal Data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it. We may also contact you to ask you for further information concerning your request to speed up our response.

Time limit to respond

We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month. Occasionally it could take us longer than a month if your request is particularly complex or you have made several requests. In this case, we will notify you and keep you updated.

10.         Glossary

LAWFUL BASIS

Legitimate interest means the interest of our business in conducting and managing our business to enable us to give you the best service and the best and most secure experience. We make sure we consider and balance any potential impact on you (both positive and negative) and your rights before we process your Personal Data for our legitimate interests. We do not use your Personal Data for activities where our interests are overridden by the impact on you (unless we have your consent or are otherwise required or permitted to by law). You can obtain further information about how we assess our legitimate interests against any potential impact on you in respect of specific activities by contacting us.

Performance of Contract means processing your data where it is necessary for the performance of a contract to which you are a party or to take steps at your request before entering into such a contract.

Comply with a legal obligation means processing your Personal Data where it is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to which we are subject.

THIRD PARTIES

Internal third parties

Other members of the FODO Group acting processors and who are based in the EEA as referred to above and provide services to our members in their specific area of expertise or jurisdiction.

External third parties

·         Service providers acting as processors based in the United Kingdom, who provide IT and system administration services

·         Professional advisers and service providers acting as processors or joint controllers including lawyers, bankers, auditors, underwriters and insurers based in the United Kingdom who provide consultancy, banking, legal, insurance and accounting services to the FODO Group and our members

·         HM Revenue & Customs, regulators and other authorities acting as processors or joint controllers based in the United Kingdom who require reporting of processing activities in certain circumstances.