Privacy Policy

Your Privacy Matters to Us

At Share Bristol, we are committed to protecting your privacy and to being transparent about how we collect and use your personal information. We process your personal information in compliance with the Data Protection Act 2018, UK GDPR and other relevant privacy legislation, respecting your individual rights.

The privacy information on this page will be reviewed periodically to ensure its compliance with legislation and best practice. If such changes fundamentally alter how we process your personal information we will let you know. 

How do we collect personal information?

We collect personal information directly from you when you contact us, register with us, enquire about our activities, make a donation, participate in an event, apply to volunteer or work with us, or otherwise provide us with your personal information. We also collect the following information when you are on our websites: Internet Protocol (IP) address, and details of which version of web browser you used as well as information on how you use the site, using cookies and page tagging techniques. We look at this information on an aggregated basis via Google Analytics and do not identify you personally. We may also receive personal information indirectly from you, for example through companies carrying out work on our behalf, such as surveys or event bookings, or website and social media platforms which you use to engage with us.

What personal information do we collect?

When you choose to interact with us we may collect the following personal information about you, under the lawful basis of legitimate interest:

Borrowing: When you choose to register for an online account for the Library inventory, we will collect your name, email address, telephone number and postal address. We will also verify your ID on your first borrow. When you borrow things from the Library, we will additionally gain information about your borrowing habits. Payment details are processed securely online by a third party so Share Bristol has no access to your payment information.

Feedback: We may also ask you survey questions about your experience with our services, which will be completely optional.

Visiting our websites: When you visit our websites, we collect information about how you use our website and track which pages you visit when you follow links from our emails. Our websites: www.sharebristol.org.uk  things.sharebristol.org.uk

Volunteering: When you apply to volunteer with us we will collect your name, contact details and information about your skills. For some roles we will also perform background checks.

Working with us: When you apply for a job with us we will collect your name, contact details and information about your work history and skills. We will perform background checks, which may include a DBS check. We will also ask questions about equalities to ensure we are attracting a wide range of applicants, and not excluding any groups from our work.

Donating: If you donate to us online the platforms we use may collect information about you to process the payment. We will only receive contact details if you have agreed to them being shared with us.

We may collect the following under the lawful basis of legal obligation:

Accident reporting: If you are unfortunate enough to have an incident on our premises we will need to collect your contact details.

How do we use personal information?

We use your personal information for a number of purposes, including:

  1. Borrowing: Providing access to our online Thing catalogue to facilitate your borrowing. Administering your membership and borrowing, including processing payment, checking you live in the wider Bristol area, and sending email reminders.
  2. Feedback: Inviting voluntary participation in research or surveys, and processing and other formal or informal feedback you give us.
  3. Volunteering: Processing your application to volunteer with us, and for supporting you as a volunteer.
  4. Donating: Processing donations we have received from you.
  5. Communication: Emailing you relevant updates about our services, products and activities including monthly newsletters. These emails are sent to you if you have signed up for them (under consent) or if you have registered on our website (under legitimate interest). You will be given the option to unsubscribe from these emails with every email which is sent out.
  6. Promotion: Promoting Share Bristol on our website and social media platforms through photos, comments and data about your borrowing that you provide
    Improving what we do: Analysing, managing and improving our services, products and information.
  7. Website analysis: Analysing usage of our website using Google Analytics.

How do we keep your personal information secure?

We adopt appropriate technical and organisational measures to make sure your personal information is secure, and protected against unauthorised or unlawful processing, and accidental loss, destruction or damage, from the point of collection to the point of destruction.

Access to your personal information is restricted to those people who are required and authorised to process it. Appropriate background checks and training take place for our people who need to process your personal information.

Your personal information will only be shared with another organisation, acting on our behalf, if they agree to ensure sufficient safeguards are in place to protect your personal information.

How long do we keep your personal information?

We will remove your personal information if you ask us to do so, or if we no longer have a lawful basis for processing it. If you are a Share Bristol employee, a minimal level of your personal information is required by law to be kept for up to seven years.

If you unsubscribe from e-newsletters, minimal personal information will be kept on a suppression list to ensure you do not receive such communications.

Do we share your personal information?

We will never sell your personal information to any third parties. Information that we may share with the public will be to promote Share Bristol online and in the media. You will be given the option to opt-out, or restrict the use of any such publicity. We will share your personal information when legally required to do so.

What do your rights look like in practice?

Your personal information belongs to you. You have rights over how we use your personal information:

  • the right to be informed
  • the right of access
  • the right to rectification
  • the right to erasure
  • the right to restrict processing
  • the right to data portability
  • the right to object

At Share Bristol we don’t carry out any automated decision making or profiling. For further information about your rights, and when they apply, see the Information Commissioner’s Office website: ico.org.uk/your-data-matters

You may access the personal information associated with your online membership account at any time by logging in to your online account with Share Bristol: things.sharebristol.org.uk

If any of your details change or need correcting, then you can edit these in your account or contact us to have these corrected. You can also ask for your account to be deactivated or deleted. You can request to see personal information we hold about you by emailing hello@sharebristol.org.uk

You may unsubscribe from Share Bristol communications at any time, by clicking on the unsubscribe link in the emails or responding with an “unsubscribe” email response. However, we will continue to communicate with you for the purposes of facilitating your borrowing for as long as you remain a member.

If you are unhappy with our use of your personal information, you have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office. We would encourage you to contact us (see below) in the first instance so we can attempt to resolve any concerns.

Our website cookies

Website cookies are small text files that websites store on your device when you visit them, essentially acting like digital “memory cards” that help websites remember you and your preferences. Think of cookies like a coat check ticket at a restaurant – when you visit a website, it gives you a small piece of identifying information (the cookie) that it can recognise when you return, allowing it to “remember” who you are and what you were doing. The Share Bristol website uses WordPress, a web platform which uses various categories of cookies.

WordPress Cookies

  • WordPress_[hash]: This cookie is used to store your authentication details upon login and is limited to the admin area.
  • wordpress_logged_in_[hash]: This cookie enables the interface to recognize you as a logged-in user and determine which account and preferences to use for various features.
  • wp-settings-{time}-[UID]: This cookie facilitates customizing your view of the admin interface and the main site interface. The number UID is the individual user ID from the user database table.
  • wordpress_test_cookie: simply checks if your browser supports cookies

Google Analytics Cookies

There are also cookies set by Google Analytics (GA4) JavaScript tags. To learn more about the data that Analytics collects, see Safeguarding your data. https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/6004245

On our other website https://things.sharebristol.org.uk/.

Lend Engine Cookies

Our borrowing and membership system uses Lend Engine.

  • PHPSESSID This is a session cookie that maintains your browsing session on our website. It allows our website to remember you as you navigate between different pages during your visit, ensuring features like shopping carts, login status, and form data are preserved. This cookie is automatically deleted when you close your browser.
  • REMEMBERME This cookie is related to our Lend Engine system and remembers your login preferences when you choose the “Remember Me” option during login. It allows you to stay logged in for an extended period (typically several weeks) so you don’t have to enter your username and password every time you visit our website. You can control this by checking or unchecking the “Remember Me” option when logging in.

Stripe Cookies

We use Stripe as our payment gateway for processing memberships. Stripe sets functional and security cookies to securely process payments and prevent fraud. 

Primary Stripe Cookies

  • __stripe_mid: A 1-year functional cookie used to securely identify your device and prevent fraudulent transactions.
  • __stripe_sid: A short-lived (1 day) session cookie required for securely processing credit card details and keeping the payment window active.
Contact Us