Sheffield Insight Meditation Privacy Policy March 2025

At Sheffield Insight Meditation (SIM) we respect your privacy and understand how important it is that your personal information remains secure. We will not reveal information we collect about you without your permission unless we are required to do so for legal reasons. We hope that this statement answers any questions you may have regarding our care of your information but if you have any further questions please contact:

Privacy Co-ordinator  sghsg2009@googlemail.com

1. What information does SIM collect about you?

In order to complete your booking for a retreat, course or other event we may ask for the following information from you:

• Name
• Address
• Phone number
• Email address
• The event or events for which you are booking.
• The amount you have paid (if relevant)
• Your meditation experience

In addition for residential retreats we may also ask you:

• Whether you have any specific needs relating to a disability or health condition
• Your gender identity
• Contact details for someone we can get in touch with in the event of an emergency

We need this information in order to process your booking and communicate with you about it, and in the case of residential retreats to help with room allocation, the smooth running of the event and to ensure we can fulfil our duty of care to you.

Bookings for our events are made online through Eventbrite.co.uk. Eventbrite gives us access to your name, email address, the ticket you have booked and any other information you have given about yourself when booking. This information is available to us through Eventbrite for 2 years. We do not keep it on our own systems. We do not have access to your debit or credit card details.

During and after retreats and courses we may ask for written feedback to help us improve what we are able to offer. This is done anonymously unless you wish to add your name.

For certain events, such as residential retreats, we may invite you to provide additional information. We will manage any additional information you choose to provide in accordance with this Privacy Statement.

2. Your consent to SIM collecting your information and who at SIM has access to it.

Event booking information

When you choose to book onto events, retreats or courses with SIM, you consent for us to use your information to facilitate the booking and running of the event. The information on our booking system is accessed by members of our retreat teams as required as part of their duties.

In addition, attendance lists and information you choose to provide, that is relevant to your meditation experience and practice-related needs, may also be accessed by the teachers running the events for which you have booked.

A printed list of people who have booked for each event is used to register and record attendance at those events. These paper / printed copies are shredded and securely disposed of at the end of each event.

Other members of staff may retrieve information from the booking system as part of their duties, for example to access numbers of bookings and for future programme planning.

Other information

If you have subscribed to be a ‘supporter’ of SIM, i.e. a member of the charity, your name and the contact details you have given us will be kept on our cloud storage.

If you have given us your contact details in relation to volunteering or becoming a trustee this information will be held on our cloud storage.

This information will only be used for the purpose for which it was given.

All of our organisers are aware of the importance of confidentiality and your right to privacy. You can withdraw your consent for SIM to use your information at any time by contacting the Privacy Co-ordinator, sghsg2009@googlemail.com

3. How does SIM use your information to keep you up-to-date with SIM’s news and activities?

Information for communication

If you are receiving communications about our news and activities you have either “opted in” to our mailing list or we have informed you via verbal or email communication that we will add your email to our list, unless you wish not to be added.

Our communications consist of regular emails about our annual programme and communications about our activities and those run by similar organisations.

How can you change your communications preferences at a later date?

Every email message we send you will include a link to opt out of receiving future emails and to amend your contact details.

You can unsubscribe from general mailings at any time by clicking the unsubscribe link at the bottom of any of our emails.

4. Does SIM ever share your information with third parties?

We will not at any time sell or share your information.

We use other companies to provide services on our behalf. The third parties that we currently use are:

• To distribute our emails we use Mailchimp.
• To handle and store online booking information we use Eventbrite.
• For some SIM administration, such as our ‘supporters’ list and volunteer information, we use cloud storage. The access to this is limited to members of the administration team at SIM.
• To process Gift Aid on donations made through our website we use Charities Aid Foundation.
• In addition to the organisations named in this policy, we may from time to time engage IT consultants and other service providers to assist us in connection with our charitable purposes, and we may give such providers access to your information. We will permit these providers access only to such information as they need to deliver the required service.

5. How secure is the information you give us?

SIM takes the care of your data seriously and undertakes to protect your personal information by putting in place appropriate physical, electronic, and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure the data we collect. Where we use other parties to handle your data (as named in this document), we chose well-known and widely-used organisations.

In today’s cyber environment it is unfortunately not possible to completely guarantee against loss, misuse or alteration of data, for example in the event of a successful cyber-attack. However, should this scenario arise, we will contact you as soon as possible giving full details of any data that has been compromised.

Where printed or paper copies containing personal information have been made, such as during residential retreats, these are held securely and only for as long as is necessary. At the end of the retreat they are shredded and disposed of.

6. The right to be forgotten

You have the right to be ‘forgotten’, which means that if you request us to, we will remove all the data that we hold on you from our systems.

7. How can you see what information we hold on you?

Under the General Data Protection Regulation, you can request a report detailing the information we hold about you. To obtain a report, please contact our privacy co-ordinator via email: sghsg2009@googlemail.com

We aim to issue an initial response to all enquiries within fifteen working days, and offer a full response to all information access requests within a month. If we require additional time we will keep you informed. The following information will be required before your access request is granted:

• Your full name and contact details
• Your relationship to SIM
• A copy of your passport or national ID card

Reports will be sent by email or post. We reserve the right to charge a reasonable administrative fee for additional copies of the same information.

8. Cookies on the SIM website

Our website uses cookies – small text files that are placed on your device to provide you with a better user experience when using our site. In general, cookies are used to retain user preferences, store information for things like shopping carts, and provide anonymous tracking data to third party applications such as Google Analytics. As a rule, cookies will make your browsing experience better.

However, you may prefer to disable cookies on this and other sites. The most effective way to do this is to disable cookies in your browser. Consult the Help section of your browser [or take a look at the All about Cookies website] which offers guidance for managing cookies.

9. Links to other websites

This privacy notice does not cover the links within our website or emails linking to other websites. Those sites are not governed by this Privacy Statement, and if you have questions about how a site uses your information, you will need to check that site’s privacy statement.

10. Who can you contact for further information?

Our processing of data is overseen by the organising group of SIM. Regarding day-to-day data protection issues please contact our privacy co-ordinator: sghsg2009@googlemail.com

If you are unhappy with our organisation’s data practices and do not feel that we have addressed your concerns, you can contact the Information Commissioner’s Office or call the helpline on 0303 123 1113.

This statement is correct as of April 2025.
 Any alterations to our statement on the collection or use of data will be posted on this website.