1. About Us

1.1. The Unemployment Union – website https://unemployedunion.org.uk is a website and organisation operated by My UK Manifesto Limited. My UK Manifesto Limited is registered as a not-for-profit company, limited by guarantee in England & Wales (Company number 13172052). My UK Manifesto Limited’s registered address is Suite A, 82 James Carter Road, Mildenhall, Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk, IP28 7DE. The Unemployed Union is also a not-for-profit meaning that all monies and assets must be used for the benefit of our Members.

1.2. The Unemployed Union Executive Committee can be entirely separate to the Executive Committee of My UK Manifesto Limited but does not have to be. Executive Committee Members of The Unemployment Union shall be voted in on their merits by Members of the Unemployment Union.

1.3. My UK Manifesto Limited and The Unemployment Union is currently exempt from being legally required to register with the Information Commissioner’s Office but voluntarily adheres to GDPR principles as it is right and proper to do so. We have a designated Data Protection Officer who can be contacted in writing by Email – gdpr@unemploymentunion.org.uk. The privacy of our Members is of the utmost important to us.

 

2. What Information We Collect

2.1. Any personal information that you provide by filling in forms on our website including donating or registering as a Member. We may also ask you for information when you report a problem with our site or your Membership.

2.2. If you contact us by Email, letter or support ticket, records of the correspondence may be kept, including the originating IP address.

2.3. Details of transactions you carry out through our site and of the fulfilment and administration of your Membership.

2.4. We also record technical data such as your operating system, browser type, referring / exit pages and URLs, number of clicks, domain names and pages viewed in our server logs. This information is used for internal marketing and security purposes.

2.5. We also record the last 4 digits of your card number or bank account, once you have provided it, for the purposes of facilitating your Membership and monthly renewals and/or when you donate to ensure legislative compliance. Your complete card details, if you set up recurrent payment, are stored by our payment merchants, Stripe. Direct Debit details (including bank details) are stored in full by GoCardless for the purposes of continuing payments to us for your Membership but we never see full details. Each company has their own privacy policies which we would encourage you to read in full.

 

3. How We Use Personal Data

3.1. To register an online account for our Members.

3.2. To process any applications for Membership or donations and to prevent fraud in that process and in future/ongoing payments.

3.3. To handle Member enquiries.

3.4. To ensure that content from our site is presented in the most effective way for you and for your computer/device.

3.5. To provide you with information, products or services which we feel may interest you and relating to your membership, within your Member area or within our newsletter if you have opted in.

3.6. To carry out our obligations arising from any contracts entered into between you and us.

3.7. To allow you to participate in interactive features of our service, when you choose to do so.

3.8. To notify you about changes to our service.

3.9. To carry out marketing and statistical analysis within The Unemployed Union or on our behalf by our contractors.

3.10. For the avoidance of doubt, The Unemployed Union nor My UK Manifesto Limited will ever sell or provide your personal data to third parties unless they are providing services to us and once we have taken reasonable steps to ensure the security of your data.

 

4. Automatic Decision Making

4.1. We may use the information provided by you to perform automatic decisions about the acceptance of orders you place. This helps us combat fraud and abuse and we share details of fraudulent cases with our professional fraud prevention contractors, doing our bit to protect organisations more widely. More information is available about them below. Whilst we do not receive personal data from our fraud prevention contractors, we receive a risk score for Member applications reviewed based on the details that you have submitted. Such review may continue after you have placed your additional order in the course of payment for Membership or in making donations. This also helps to prevent you being subjected to fraudulent transactions.

 

5. Where We Store Your Personal Data

5.1. The personal data that we collect from you will be stored on our servers in Hetzner’s Secure Data Centres in Falkenstein, Nuremburg & Helsinki. Redundancy backups are stored within the same Network but in a differing Data Centre and IP subnet to the operational Network Operations Centre. All of our Data Centres are within the EEA. All of your data is encrypted using encryption keys and our Data Centres do not, therefore, have access. You can read more about the security of your data by visiting here(opens new tab/window).

5.2. All of our contractors, including our second line support contractors are vetted and registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office. It is The Unemployment Union’s policy to undertake interviews with all suppliers to ensure that they have a thorough and comprehensive data protection and security strategy. It is in theirs and our interests to ensure that your data is protected to industry standards.

5.3. We use a number of services outside of the EEA to which we have to transfer personal data. For example, we work closely with our online chat service provider Tawk.to who are also based outside of the EEA (should you choose to use them to communicate with us on online chat) and our fraud checking systems are also based outside of the EEA.

5.4. We use professional fraud detection services for the purposes of fraud prevention. If your application for Membership has been flagged, you will be contacted with the next steps. Typically, you will be required to provide proof of your identity and they will make decisions on our behalf. Our supplier is outside of the EEA . We have ensured that they have appropriate security arrangements in place to ensure that your data remains safe and our supplier complies with the ISO 27001 standard. We do not divulge the identity of our Contractor as this would assist bad actors with circumventing our fraud detection policies.

5.5. By submitting your personal data, you agree to this transfer, storing or processing of data outside the EEA. We will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that your data is treated securely and in accordance with the GDPR and our data protection policies.

 

6. Data Retention

6.1. We only retain your personal data for as long as we need it to fulfil the purposes for which we have initially collected it, unless otherwise required by law. We will retain and use information as necessary to comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce our agreements as follows:

6.1.1. Invoice data is kept for a minimum of 6 years plus the current year as required by HMRC.

6.1.2. Log files are rotated every 12 weeks. However, anonymised data may be kept for longer.

6.1.3. Our website hosting provider, poundawebsite Ltd infrastructure backups are kept for 12 months.

6.1.4. In the rare event backups containing personal information are restored after deletion, The Unemployed Union will make every reasonable effort to ensure data that has been forgotten is not inadvertently restored and ensure all traces of data are removed within a maximum period of 180 days unless additional data retention obligations apply.

 

7. Your Rights

7.1. Unless subject to an exemption under the GDPR, you have the following rights with respect to your personal data: –

7.1.1. The right to request a copy of your personal data which we hold about you.

7.1.2. The right to request that we correct any personal data if it is found to be inaccurate or out of date. To update your data, please let our Member Support Team know, they will request proof of changes to prevent fraudulent activity on your account.

7.1.3. The right to object to our use of your personal data and request your personal data is erased where it is no longer necessary for us to retain such data. This is known as your right to be forgotten. Please note that there may be legal reasons as to why we will need to keep your data, but please do inform us if you think we are retaining or using your personal data incorrectly.

7.1.4. You have the right to ask us not to process your personal data for marketing purposes. We will invite you to opt in/out (before collecting your data) for such purposes. You can exercise your right to prevent such processing by following the Unsubscribe link at the bottom of any emails we send (other than system generated Emails), by contacting our support team (through online ticketing or by Email, but not live chat).

8. Who We Share Your Information with:

8.1. By entering into this agreement, you agree to the processing of data by the third parties listed below. When we introduce any new, or change any existing third-party agreements, we will ensure this policy is updated at least 30 days before the new third party processes any data.

8.1.1. Payment Merchants (Facilitating our Credit and Debit Card and Direct Debit Payment Options:

8.1.1.1. Go Cardless (Paperless Direct Debits)

8.1.1.2. Stripe (Credit/Debit Card Payments and our preferred payment merchant)

8.1.3. Internal Communication of Support Issues/Hosting Service Incidents

8.1.3.1. Tawk.to

8.1.4. Google

8.1.4.1. Including Adwords, Google Analytics, Youtube, Drive, Data Studio, Google My Business, Site analytics, targeting and exclusion from PPC advertising, purchasing data. Reporting on anonymised data.

8.1.5. Facebook & Instagram

8.1.5.1. Targeting and exclusion from Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising, purchasing data.

8.1.5.2. To offer registration and login integration – if you choose to utilise this facility, we would collect your name and Email address.

8.1.6. Twitter

8.1.6.1. Targeting and exclusion from Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising

8.1.6.2. To offer registration and login integration – if you choose to utilise this facility, we would collect your name and Email address.

8.1.7. Microsoft: Bing and Office 365

8.1.7.1. Site analytics, targeting and exclusion from PPC advertising, purchasing data.

8.1.8. Mailchimp

8.1.8.1. Sending email and email analytics.

8.1.9. Hotjar

8.1.9.1. Testing of site optimisations (All personal data is anonymised).

8.1.10. OptinMonster

8.1.10.1. Newsletter signup forms and other modals.

8.1.11. Trustpilot

8.1.11.1. We would ask that you please provide honest and accurate reviews about your experience with The Unemployed Union on Trustpilot to help us grow. In the first instance, please do contact us by raising a support ticket if you have any concerns or issues to give us an opportunity to resolve them.

8.1.12. Hetzner Online GmbH and Hetzner Group Subsidaries

8.1.12.1. Your personal data and any website data and Email accounts (and their contents) are stored in our secure data centre provided by Hetzner Online GmbH. All of your data, including personal data and web hosting data is encrypted and access is only possible through the use of secure encryption keys. They have no backdoor access. You can find out more about their extremely high digital and physical security standards on their website by clicking here (opens new tab/window).

 

9. Data Breaches

9.1. In the unlikely event of a data breach, the affected individuals will be contacted within the timescales specified in the GDPR, it will be reported to the Information Commissioner by our suppliers and by ourselves, and a full report – highlighting any risks – will be provided by us to you as soon as practicably possible.

 

10. How We Use Cookies

10.1. We may obtain information about your general Internet usage by using a cookie file which is stored on the hard drive of your computer. Cookies contain information that is transferred to your computer’s hard drive. They help us to improve our site and to deliver a better and more personalised service. They enable us:

10.1.2. To estimate our audience size and usage pattern;

10.1.3. To store information about your preferences, and so allow us to customise our site according to your individual interests;

10.1.4. To speed up your searches;

10.1.5. To recognise you when you return to our site.

10.1.6. To allow you to log in and manage and access your Membership and to technically faciliate donations.

10.2. You may refuse to accept cookies by activating the setting on your browser which allows you to refuse the setting of cookies. However, if you select this setting you may be unable to access certain parts of our site. Unless you have adjusted your browser setting so that it will refuse cookies, our system will issue cookies when you log on to our site.

 

11. Third Party Links

11.1. Our website may, from time to time, contain links to and from the websites of our partner networks, advertisers and affiliates. 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 or any of their policies. Both of our payment merchants (Go Cardless and Stripe) all have their own privacy policies too and these are also your responsibility to read and to ensure that you are happy with them. Please check these policies before you submit any personal data to these websites and more widely to ensure that you are satisfied.

 

12. Changes to This Policy

12.1. We keep our privacy policy under regular review and we will place any updates on this web page. This privacy policy was last updated on 3 May 2025.

 

13. How to Contact Us About GDPR

13.1. Please contact us if you have any questions about our privacy policy or information we hold about you: https://www.unemployedunion.org.uk/contact-us for GDPR rights, please Email gdpr@unemployedunion.org.uk.