BACKGROUND
This Privacy Policy describes how your Personal Information is collected, used, and shared by us when you visit or use the COWS website ["the Site”].
In opting to use our Site, you agree to our collection and use of your information, as described in this Policy, for as long as you use the Site.
If you have any questions concerning your Personal Information and how we collect, use or look after it, please contact our Information Officer
1. OUR PROMISE
As well as having a legal obligation to protect your privacy, we are genuinely committed to protecting your privacy. We treat all the information that we collect and that you give us with great care.
We make every endeavour to comply fully with the Data Protection Act 1998, the Privacy and Electronic Communications [EC Directive] Regulations 2003 and other relevant legislation, including the EU General Data Protection Regulation [GDPR].
We promise to do our utmost to:
Be clear about why we need to collect your personal information and what we use it for;
Make it as easy as possible for you to tell us how you would like us to keep in touch with you;
Only collect the information we need to make sure we deliver the best service to you.
We promise to never:
Sell, give, exchange or share your personal information to any other organisation for the purposes of marketing.
We promise to always:
Take good care of your personal information, and make sure it is up to date, safe and secure at all times;
Make sure that any suppliers or partners who carry out work on our behalf meet the same high standards that we adhere to when handling your personal information.
In short, we care for your personal data as if it were our own.
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2. PERSONAL INFORMATION WE COLLECT
When you visit the Site, we may automatically collect certain information about your device. This includes information about your web browser, IP address, time zone, and some of the cookies that are installed on your device.
Additionally, as you browse the Site, we may collect information about the individual web pages or products that you view, what websites or search terms referred you to the Site, and information about how you interact with the Site.
We refer to this automatically-collected information as “Device Information”.
We collect Device Information using the following technologies:
“Cookies” are data files that are placed on your device or computer through your Web browser and often include an anonymous unique identifier. They enable our systems to recognise your browser and so provide, from time to time, features that it might not otherwise be possible to offer to you.
Cookies can be disabled. For more information about cookies and about how to disable selected cookies, visit https://www.allaboutcookies.org.
“Log files”
track actions occurring on the Site, and collect data including your IP address, browser type, Internet service provider, referring/exit pages, and date/time stamps.
“Web beacons”, “tags”, and “pixels”
are electronic files used to record information about how you browse the Site.
When you Join A Vision or Visions, contribute ideas or suggestions, subscribe to a mailing list or update your details or your communication preferences, we collect certain information from you, including your name and email address. We may also ask for your address and phone number.
When you make a financial donation through the Site, we collect certain information from you, including your name, billing address, shipping address, payment information [including credit card numbers and if appropriate PayPal information], email address, and phone number. Financial information is stored by a secure payment system and is never held or seen by us. We refer to this information as “Financial Information”.
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When we talk about “Personal Information” in this Privacy Policy, we are talking about the above types of information.
3. HOW DO WE COLLECT AND USE YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION?
Device Information
We collect Device Information by working with third parties. These include our website provider. Currently, the Site is hosted on the Wix.com platform. Additionally, we also obtain Device Information by using Google Analytics and applications available through WIX. Such information includes information about visits to our site.
We collect and use this information in order to:
enable you to contribute as described on the Site, including by Joining The Vision;
improve the way in which COWS fulfils its aims by better understanding how people use the Site;
screen for potential risk and fraud [in particular, your IP address];
and more generally, to improve and optimize our Site [for example, by generating analytics about how our customers browse and interact with the Site, and to assess the success of our marketing and advertising activities].
Please note that the third parties referred to above have their own policies regarding how they collect and store information. Their own specific practices are not covered by this Privacy Policy. You are recommended to refer directly to third parties’ Privacy Policies on their own websites.
The following links are provided to help you to do so. Please note, we cannot accept any responsibility for any aspect of these links or the websites to which they lead.
WIX: https://www.wix.com/about/privacy
Google: https://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/privacy/.
Personal information is provided to us by you either by sending a message via the Site or by a different method, such as email.
We collect and use this information in order to:
enable you to participate in the way described on the Site;
carry out reasonable administration of your details;
comply with applicable national laws;
poll your opinions through surveys or questionnaires [including Explorations]
more generally, fulfil the aims of COWS;
and
in line with the preferences you share with us, provide you with information and/or marketing communications.
4. LAWFUL BASIS FOR OUR USE OF YOUR INFORMATION
The lawful bases for processing people’s information are set out in Article 6 of the General Data Protection Regulation [GDPR].
The lawful basis we rely on for processing your personal information is:
Legitimate interest: the processing of your data is necessary to enable you to contribute in the way described on the Site, which includes Joining The Vision. It is also necessary to enable you to receive communications, such as updates and newsletters, from us.
We will only hold the information we need to enable you to participate in the way/s you choose.
Third parties
We work with third parties, as referred to above, including WIX and Google Analytics. For example, we use WIX to host and enable our Website. Additionally, to better fulfil our aims as stated on the Site, we use applications on WIX, plus Google Analytics to collect non-identifying and aggregate information in order to help us understand how our visitors use the Site. Such third-party services have their own policies regarding how they collect and store information and their practices are not covered by this Privacy Policy. You can read about how Google uses your Personal Information here: https://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/privacy/. You can opt-out of Google Analytics here: https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.
5. SHARING YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION
We do not sell, trade or rent your personal information to anyone else. We share your Personal Information with third parties to help us to provide our service to you, in the ways that we have described above.
We may share generic information with advertisers and other reputable parties; for example, we may tell advertisers which areas of the site have received the most customer traffic overall, or more specifically, how many customer types have visited certain pages.
We do not disclose the identifying information of individual users to advertisers or other parties as above.
We may share your Personal Information:
In order to comply with applicable laws and regulations, to respond to any lawful request for information we receive, or to otherwise protect our rights; or
With a supplier or contractor engaged to carry out services on our behalf, such as the handling of donations. Any Data used by such third parties will be used only to the extent required by them to perform the services that we request. Any use for other purposes is strictly prohibited. Any Data that is processed by third parties must be processed within the terms of this Policy and in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998 and GDPR. We only work with trusted suppliers who treat your information as respectfully as we do and in accordance with the requirements of the Data Protection Act 1998 and GDPR.
The Site contains links to other websites. These external sites are outside our control and are not covered by this Privacy Policy. If you access other sites using the links provided, the operators of these sites may collect information from you that will be used by them in accordance with their own privacy policy.
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6. SECURITY OF YOUR INFORMATION
We are committed to protecting your privacy and have security measures in place to prevent unauthorised access to and disclosure of your Personal Information.
We will only hold your Personal Information for as long as reasonably necessary to carry out the activities outlined above. Typically this is two years since your last interaction with us, unless you ask that we dispose of your information or we are required to hold it longer for legal or taxation reasons. If we dispose of your information, it will always be done securely.
We regularly review our measures to ensure they are as far as reasonably possible up to date and in line with latest developments. However, data transmitted via the internet or by email cannot be 100% secure. We take every reasonable precaution to keep your information safe, but it cannot be guaranteed. Please be aware that any information you transmit to us is at your own risk. Once we have received your information we will use our best efforts to ensure its safety.
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7. YOUR RIGHTS
Under data protection law, you have rights including:
Your right of access - You have the right to obtain a copy of the information we hold about you. The easiest way to access this information is to request that we provide it. This is called a Subject Access Request. The Information Commissioner’s Office [ICO] provides useful information on its website about how to do this.
You are not required to pay any charge for exercising your right in this regard.
Please send your subject access request to our Information Officer
Your right to have incorrect information corrected and the right to object to further processing of your personal information for direct marketing.
Your right to request that your data be deleted from our records at any time. ​We will ensure that your data is securely deleted within 7 business days of receiving such a request.
Your right to rectification - You have the right to ask us to rectify information you think is inaccurate. You also have the right to ask us to complete information you think is incomplete.
Your right to erasure - You have the right to ask us to erase your personal information in certain circumstances.
Your right to restriction of processing - You have the right to ask us to restrict the processing of your information in certain circumstances.
Your right to object to processing - You have the the right to object to the processing of your personal data in certain circumstances.
Your right to data portability - You have the right to ask that we transfer the information you gave us to another organisation, or to you, in certain circumstances.
8. COOKIES
Cookies are involved in the use of many websites and our site is no exception.
You can choose to enable or disable Cookies in your web browser. By default, your browser will accept Cookies, however this can be altered. For further details please consult the help menu in your browser. Disabling Cookies may prevent you from using the full range of Services available on the Web Site.
You may delete Cookies, however you may lose any information that enables you to access the Web Site more quickly.
9. THIRD PARTY COOKIES
To make it easy for you to use and share our website, we may embed features from other websites such as Facebook, Twitter and certain other relevant sites. Browsing the Site may place cookies from these third party websites on your computer. We have no control over these cookies so it is not always possible to list them, and they are liable to change without notifying us.
Please note that if we refer to companies, organisations or bodies and enable access to their websites directly from the Site, each company, organisation or body operates its own policy regarding the use of personal data and cookies. If you have a particular concern about the way your data will be used, you are advised to read the Privacy Statement on the relevant website.
In addition to these policies your personal data is protected in the UK by the current Data Protection Act and GDPR. We will only process any data we hold about you in a lawful and fair manner. We will keep your data securely to prevent unauthorised access by third parties. Your personal data may have to be disclosed if we are required to disclose it by law, or as a result of a lawful request by a governmental or law enforcement authority.
10. MARKETING AND COMMUNICATIONS
Whether or not you receive marketing information from us will always be your choice. You can change your mind at any time, and we will keep your preferences up to date.
We will only contact you for marketing purposes by telephone or text message [SMS] if you have told us we can.
We will only contact you by email if you have told us you would like to hear from us this way, or to let you know about developments. Every email we send you will have a link to enable you unsubscribe if you wish to.
You can also stop any or all of these communications at any time by contacting our Information Officer ​
11. HOW TO COMPLAIN
If you are unhappy about how we have used your data, please complain to our Information Officer
If you are still unhappy about how we have used your data after we have responded to your complaint, you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office [ICO].
The ICO’s address is:
Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
ICO Helpline number: 03 031 231 113
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12. INTERNATIONAL PRIVACY
The above privacy statement applies to the United Kingdom and may not be applicable in other countries of visitors or users.
13. CHANGES
We will update this privacy policy as we deem necessary from time to time or as may be required by law and in any event no less often than once per year.
Changes will be immediately posted on our Web Site. You are deemed to have accepted the terms of the updated Policy on your first use of the Site following the changes.
You have the right to ask us to cease to process your personal details at any time. If you do so, we will comply as soon as is reasonably possible.
Please let us know if your details have changed.
OUR CONTACT DETAILS
If you have any questions about this policy and your rights regarding our use of your personal information, please contact our Information Officer
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For broader advice and guidance, please contact the data protection regulator, the Information Commissioner’s Office:
The Information Commissioner
Wycliffe House | Water Lane | Wilmslow | Cheshire | SK9 5AF
Phone Number: 03 031 231 113
This Policy was updated: 1 May 2025
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