Privacy policy

Observatree is a partnership project, funded by a number of UK organisations, to set up a tree health early warning system.

Led by Forest Research, partners include: Fera Science Ltd, Forestry Commission England, Scottish Forestry, The National Trust, The Woodland Trust, DEFRA, APHA and The Welsh Government. Supporting the project is National Resources Wales.

If you have provided or will provide us with your personal information when using the Observatree website, this is for you.

If you visit any of the Observatree partner’s websites, their privacy policy will apply and you should refer to this for details of how your personal data is collected, stored, used or shared.

Your privacy is very important to us. We also think it’s important you know how and why we collect, store, and use your personal information. Our privacy policy explains all this, tells you what your rights are, and how to contact us. So please read it carefully.

Changes to this privacy policy

Before we get started, you need to know we’ll update this privacy policy from time to time. This could be because we change how we use your information, or if there are changes to the law. The Observatree website will always have the most up-to-date version. We may contact you about your personal information in other ways too, like email.

Who are we?

We’re the Woodland Trust and we care about the UK’s woods and trees. The Woodland Trust is responsible for maintaining this website, the project newsletter mailing list and communicating with people who have signed up for the Observatree email newsletter and future communications.

This policy talks about us as the Woodland Trust, ‘we’ or ‘us’. We’re a registered charity in England and Wales (No. 294344) and in Scotland (No. SC038885). We’re a non-profit making company limited by guarantee. Registered in England (No. 1982873) at Kempton Way, Grantham, Lincolnshire, NG31 6LL.

This policy also includes Woodland Trust (Enterprises) Limited (registered in England No. 2296645). This is a company we own. We use it to raise money to help us do our charity work.

What personal information do we collect and use?

You may provide us with personal information when you access our website or when you apply to us to be a Tree Health Surveyor. The personal information we collect and our use of that personal information will vary depending on the nature of your communication with us.

Tree Health Surveyors

When you apply to be a Tree Health Surveyor you will be required to apply to the Woodland Trust to be accepted as a volunteer. Where you have applied or are proposing to apply to be a Tree Health Surveyor, reference should be made to the Woodland Trust Volunteers Privacy Policy: https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/privacy-policy/volunteers/ for details of the personal information we will collect and our use of that personal information

Observatree Website Use

We have set out below the personal information we collect when you use the Observatree website, and what we use your personal information for:

Subscribe for Updates

Where you wish to subscribe for Observatree news updates, we will ask you to provide information such as title, first name, surname, email address, postcode, and, where you are associated to an organisation, the name of the organisation you represent and your position within the organisation.

We will also ask you to confirm that you are over the age of 16, and where you are not over the age of 16 that you have your parent or guardian’s consent to provide information.

We use this information to provide you with our Observatree news updates so that we can keep you informed.

Contact Us

Where you contact us via the online contact form, we will ask you to provide your name and email address so that we (or one of the Observatree project partners) may reply to your enquiry.

Observatree Volunteer Area

Where you are a Tree Health Surveyor and wish to register for access to our Observatree Volunteer Area on the Observatree website, we will collect from you your name, account user name, email address, account password, and some information about you (which is published for all members to view). Where you have already registered and access the Observatree Volunteer Area we may collect your name, account user name, email address and any other personal information provided by you when using the Observatree Volunteer Area (e.g. when you publish information in the “forum” or when you submit a “Site Survey Form”).

Online Blog

Where you provide a Blog for the Observatree website, or where you wish to comment on another user’s Blog, we will collect your name and email address, together with your Blog or Blog comments. We collect this information so that we may know who is providing the Blog or the Blog comments.

We reserve the right to not publish any Blog or Blog comments where the content is consider by us, in our absolute discretion, as inappropriate.

Technical and Usage Data

This includes information about how you use the Observatree website, your internet protocol (IP) address, your username and password (in a non-readable format) where you have created a Observatree Volunteer Area registration, browser type and version, time zone setting and location, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform and other technology on the devices you use to access our website. We collect this personal data when you visit the Observatree website by using cookies, server logs and other similar technologies. Please see our Cookie Policy for further details.

How do we use your personal information?

This policy also tells you how we’ll use your information. By law, we can only collect personal details if we have a genuine legal reason to do so. This is called the ‘lawful basis for processing’. Most commonly, we will use your personal data where:

• It is necessary for our legitimate interests and your interests and fundamental rights do not override our legitimate interests
• We need to comply with a legal or regulatory obligation
• You have consented for us to do so

Our legitimate interests include:

• Keeping internal records of your dealings with us, enabling us to address any questions you may raise
• Following up your dealings with us, enabling us to improve our services, or to address any concerns or complaints you have raised
• Protecting our business and our website (including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, system maintenance, support, reporting and hosting of data) enabling us to effectively operate our IT systems, provide network security, and to prevent fraud
• To use data analytics to improve our website, products/services, marketing, supporter relationships and experiences, enabling us to study how supporters use our products/services, to develop them, to grow our business and to inform our marketing strategy (for example, we may use the information to customise our website according to your interests)

How do we share your personal information?

We will only use your personal information 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 we need to use your information for an unrelated purpose, we will contact you and we will explain the legal basis which allows us to do so.

We’ll never sell or rent your information to anyone else. But we may need to share your personal information when the law tells us to, or for the following reasons:

• If you’ve agreed that we can.
• When we use other companies to provide services. This could be for sending emails to you in relation to the subscription for Observatree news updates that you have made or when we offer training to our Tree Health Surveyors and we need to provide your personal details to the organisation providing the training
• When services are provided by another company owned by the Woodland Trust.
• When information is shared with other Observatree project partners (e.g. so that their subject matter experts can provide you with an answer to a question you have raised or so that we can provide statistical information about our Tree Health Surveyors)

All the personal information we collect is handled by our staff in the UK. Sometimes our Information Technology services might place your personal information outside of the European Economic Area. When this happens we’ll make sure it’s done in line with guidance from the Information Commissioner’s Office.

Where do we get your personal information from?

We collect personal information from you when you communicate with us, whether online, by post, telephone or by email. You may also provide us with personal information when you create and use an Observatree account by registering for access to our Observatree Volunteer Area on the Observatree website, subscribe to Observatree news updates, give us some online feedback, or when you provide information for our Blog or leave a comment in relation to another user’s Blog.

We’ll update our records when you provide us with additional information or changes in the information already provided.

As you interact with our website, we may automatically collect Technical and Usage 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 and Usage Data about you if you visit other websites employing our cookies. Please see our Cookie Policy for further details.

Do you have to give us your personal information?

You do not have to provide us with your personal information, but if you didn’t give it to us you wouldn’t be able to communicate with us, subscribe for Observatree news updates, register for access to and use our Observatree Volunteer Area, submit an Observatree website Blog or comment on other user’s Blogs, or otherwise support the valuable work that the Observatree project partners undertake to protect the UK’s trees, woods and forests from new pests and diseases – either arriving or spreading across the country.

How long will we keep your personal information?

We’ll only hold your information for as long as we have a genuine reason to keep it - this depends on why we collected it or why you provided it in the first place (e.g. when you sign up to our Observatree news updates, we will assume your consent remains and will continue to send you Observatree news updates until such time as you unsubscribe).

In some circumstances we may 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.

What are your rights?

You’re in charge of your personal information. If you don’t like how we’re using it you can ask us to change what we do, or tell us to stop using it.

Below is a list of your rights. If you’d like to talk about them, or how we use your information, please get in touch.

• You can ask us for a copy of your personal information and how we use it.**
• You can ask us to correct your personal information if we’ve got it wrong.
• You can ask us to stop using your personal information.
• You can ask us to change or limit how we use your personal information.
• You can ask us to delete your personal information.
• You can ask us to transfer your personal information to another person.

Find out more about your rights under data protection law on the Information Commissioner’s Office website

** You can get a copy of your personal information by sending us a ‘subject access request’. Email dataprotection@woodlandtrust.org.uk

If you want to correct or request us to stop using, change or limit how we use, or delete your personal information, or request that we transfer a copy of your personal information to another person, please contact us at dataprotection@woodlandtrust.org.uk.

We try to respond to all valid requests within one month. Sometimes it might take us a bit longer if it’s very complicated or if you’ve made more than one request. We’ll always let you know if it will take longer than a month. To speed things up, we may ask you to tell us more about what you’d like to see or what you’re concerned about.

Sometimes we might not be able to help. For example, if the law tells us we can’t or if some information is confidential.

How do we keep your personal information safe?

Keeping your information secure is very important to us and we have systems to stop personal information being lost or used in the wrong way. We’ll only give your information to people who need to use it, like employees of the Woodland Trust. Anyone using your information must follow our rules and look after it carefully.

If we think someone has accessed your information without permission, we’ll tell you when the law requires us to.

Your duty to inform us of changes

It is important that the personal information we hold about you or your Charter Branch is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your personal information changes.

What can you do if you’ve got a complaint?

If you’re not happy about how we’ve used your personal information, you can talk to our Data Protection Officer (you’ll find their contact details in section 12, below).

If you’re not happy with our response, or you think we’re breaking the law, you can make a complaint. Send it to the Fundraising Regulator or the Information Commissioner’s Office. But please talk to us first before you contact them and we’ll try our best to help.