Data controller: UnityMK of The Ridgeway Centre, Featherstone Road, Wolverton Mill South, Milton Keynes MK12 5TH.
UnityMK collects and processes personal data relating to its volunteers to manage the volunteering relationship. UnityMK is committed to being transparent about how it collects and uses that data and to meeting its data protection obligations.
This Privacy Notice aims to provide you with a clear explanation of the personal data which UnityMK holds and the purpose[s] for which it is held.
What information does UnityMK collect?
UnityMK collects and processes a range of information about you. This includes:
your name, address and contact details, including email address and telephone number;
your nationality and information about your entitlement to volunteer in the UK;
your start date;
that you have signed up for our Code of Conduct
details of your qualifications, skills, experience and employment history;
whether you are a previous guest of UnityMK;
whether you have any unspent convictions;
an assessment of your suitability for the activity you are volunteering to do;
details of your bank/building society account for the reimbursement of expenses;
information about your [marital or civil partnership status, next of kin, dependants and emergency contacts];
information about your eligibility to drive and any associated insurance or MOT documents for your vehicle;
information about your criminal record where we carry out a Disclosure and Barring Service check on you;
details of any safeguarding incidents in which you have been involved;
details of your availability for volunteering and attendance;
information regarding special requirements, health or medical conditions;
information regarding any training you receive;
equal opportunities monitoring information, including information about your ethnic origin, sexual orientation, health and religion or belief;
whether you wish to receive our newsletter
UnityMK may collect this information in a variety of ways. For example, data might be collected through volunteer application documents; obtained from your passport or other identity documents such as your driving licence; from forms completed by you at the start of or during volunteering (such as contact detail forms); from correspondence with you; or through interviews, meetings or other assessments.
In some cases, UnityMK may collect personal data about you from third parties, such as references from previous employers or organisations who have engaged you as a volunteer and information from criminal records checks permitted by law.
Data will be stored in a range of different places, including in your volunteering file, and in other IT systems (including the organisation's email system).
Why does UnityMK process personal data?
Your personal data will be processed to enable UnityMK to enter into a volunteer agreement with you.
UnityMK may need to process personal data to meet its obligations under our contracts with funders and commissioners, which may include disclosures of unspent criminal convictions.
UnityMK also needs to process data to ensure that it is complying with its legal obligations. For example, to comply with health and safety laws.
In other cases, UnityMK may have a legitimate interest in processing personal data before, during and after the end of the volunteering relationship.
Processing volunteer data allows UnityMK to:
run volunteer recruitment and appointment processes;
assess the suitability of individuals for volunteering;
maintain accurate and up-to-date volunteer records and contact details (including details of who to contact in the event of an emergency);
operate and keep a record of volunteer training and development activities and needs;
obtain appropriate legal or HR advice, to ensure that it interprets and complies with duties in relation to legislation and its own policies, processes and procedures in a fair and reasonable manner;
ensure that volunteers are receiving appropriate reimbursement of expenses;
ensure it meets its obligations under health and safety law including assessments of risk, driving on business and lone working;
provide appropriate business information and contact details to its guests and/or internal customers and colleagues;
ensure effective general business administration;
provide references on request for current or former volunteers;
respond to and defend against legal claims; and
maintain and promote equality in the workplace.
Where UnityMK processes other special categories of personal data, such as information about ethnic origin, sexual orientation, health or religion or belief, this is done for the purposes of equal opportunities monitoring. Data that is used for these purposes is anonymised or is collected with the express consent of volunteers, which can be withdrawn at any time. Volunteers are entirely free to decide whether or not to provide such data and there are no consequences of failing to do so.
We do not need your consent if we use special categories of personal data in order to carry out our legal obligations. In some circumstances however we may ask for your consent to allow us to process certain particularly sensitive data. In these circumstances we will provide you with sufficient information about how your data will be used for you to make a choice about whether to provide your consent. You will have full control over your decision to give or withhold consent, and there will be no consequences where consent is withheld. Consent, once given, may be withdrawn at any time, with no consequences.
Personal data required from you by UnityMK
You have some obligations under your volunteer’s agreement to provide UnityMK with data.
Certain information, such as contact details, your entitlement to volunteer in the UK and DBS information have to be provided to enable UnityMK to accept you as a volunteer. If you fail to provide certain information when requested, it may hinder UnityMK’s ability to register you for volunteering opportunities or prevent us from meeting our legal obligations (such as to ensure your health and safety).
Who has access to your data?
Your data will be shared with colleagues within UnityMK where it is necessary for them to undertake their duties. This includes, for example, relevant managers for the purposes of HR, support and supervision, finance for processing payment of expenses and IT staff.
UnityMK may publish personal data such as your name, photograph, volunteer role and UnityMK contact details on its website and other work-related sites, and/or within an annual report or other publications to facilitate effective service delivery or report achievements and organisational updates.
UnityMK shares your data with third parties in order to obtain references from other organisations and obtain necessary criminal records checks from the Disclosure and Barring Service.
We use software provided by Beacon Apps Limited to store your data. Beacon employs extensive security measures for securing data, including encryption, password security, firewalls, and two-factor authentication.
UnityMK may be required to share your data with third parties such as the local authority, police, courts and statutory agencies such as the Home Office, HMRC, Child Support Agency, Student Loans Company, DBS and Department of Work and Pensions to comply with legal obligations.
Save as explained above, UnityMK will not share your data with third parties for any other purpose without your express consent.
Your data will not be transferred outside of the UK.
How does UnityMK protect data?
UnityMK takes the security of your data seriously. UnityMK has internal policies and controls in place to try to ensure that your data is not lost, accidentally destroyed, misused or disclosed, and is not accessed except by our employees in the performance of their duties. All laptops are password protected and data is saved to UnityMK’s Share Drive and on the Beacon CRM. Folders within the Share Drive are only able to be accessed by specific employees as part of their employment duties.
Where UnityMK engages third parties to process personal data on its behalf, they do so on the basis of written instructions, are under a duty of confidentiality and are obliged to implement appropriate technical and organisational measures to ensure the security of data.
For how long does UnityMK keep data?
In line with data protection principles, we only keep your data for as long as we need it for, which will be at least for the duration of your volunteering with us.
In some cases, we will keep your data for a period after your volunteering relationship has ended. Retention periods can vary depending on why we need your data. This may be determined by law. The periods for which your data is held after the end of volunteering are set out in our Data Protection Policy.
Automated decision-making
Volunteering decisions are not based solely on automated decision-making.
Your rights
You have a number of rights. These are:
the right to be informed. This means that we must tell you how we use your data, and this is the purpose of this privacy notice.
the right of access. You have the right to access the data that we hold on you and to receive a copy of your data and information about where it was sourced. To do so, you should make a subject access request.
the right for any inaccuracies to be corrected. If any data that we hold about you is incomplete or inaccurate, you are able to require us to correct it.
the right to ask Unity MK for your data to be erased, for example if you believe there is no longer any need for your data to be held for its original purpose, or if you decide to withdraw any consent that you have given for your data to be processed.
the right to restrict the processing of the data. For example, if you believe the data we hold is incorrect, we will stop processing the data (whilst still holding it) until we have ensured that the data is correct
the right to portability. You may transfer the data that we hold on you to another organisation for your own purposes.
you may have the right to object to the way we use your data if you do not agree that we are using it for our legitimate interests.
the right to regulate any automated decision-making and profiling of personal data. You have a right not to be subject to automated decision making in way that adversely affects your legal rights.
Where you have provided consent to our use of your data, you also have the unrestricted right to withdraw that consent at any time. Withdrawing your consent means that we will stop processing the data that you had previously given us consent to use. There will be no consequences for withdrawing your consent. However, in some cases, we may continue to use the data where so permitted by having a legitimate reason for doing so.
If you would like to exercise any of these rights, please email:
If you believe that Unity MK has not complied with your data protection rights, you can complain to the Information Commissioner. Their contact details can be found on their website (www.ico.org.uk).
Updated: January 2024
