Data protection

The Samatha Trust's data protection and data security policy and practice have been reviewed and re-written in the light of GDPR, a new data protection law which came into force on May 25th 2018.

Please note The samatha Trust's data protection and GDPR policy has been formally adopted by the Manchester Centre For Buddhist Meditation Trust and also covers all personal data held by The Southern Centre in Milton Keynes as well as all local Samatha meditation groups in the UK and Europe.

In brief:

The Samatha Trust's data protection and data security practice and policy abides by all UK and EU legal requirements.

Personal data is held securely at all times.

You can unsubscribe from specific or all email lists and communications by emailing administrator@samatha.org

You can have all your personal information erased from our records by emailing administrator@samatha.org

The Samatha Trust never passes any personal information of any kind to any third party whatsoever - unless you have specifically consented to give bank details etc when donating or Gift Aiding or we are obliged to for reasons of criminality or safeguarding.

All relevant data protection documents are available for download at the right hand side of this page.

 

Samatha Trust

Data Privacy Notice

 

1. Your personal data: what is it?    

Personal data is information about a living person who can be identified from that data. Identification can be by the information alone or together with any other information in an organisation’s possession or likely to come into their possession. The processing of personal data is governed by the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

2. Who are we?    

The Samatha Trust is the Data Controller (contact details above). This means the Samatha Trust, as Data Controller decides how your personal data is processed and for what purposes. 

3. How do we process your personal data? 

The Samatha Trust complies with its obligations under the GDPR by keeping personal data up to date: by storing and destroying it securely: by not collecting or retaining excessive amounts of data; by protecting personal data from loss, misuse, unauthorised access and disclosure and by ensuring that appropriate security measures are in place to protect personal data. We use your personal data for the following purposes:

  • To enable us to provide meditation classes, talks, courses, library resources and free publications for the benefit of the public in the UK: 
  • To administer membership records. 
  • To fundraise and promote the interests of the Samatha Trust. 
  • To maintain our own accounts and records (including the processing of Gift Aid  applications). 
  • To inform you of news, events, activities and courses offered  by local and/or national groups as appropriate.

4. What is the legal basis for processing your personal data?     

Legitimate interests is the legal basis for gathering and processing the personal data of people attending local samatha meditation classes and members of National or regional Samatha Associations.
Consent is the legal basis for gathering and processing the personal data of persons giving financial information when they donate to Samatha or when people give personal information about their health when applying for courses online.
Processing is carried out by The Samatha Trust, a not-for-profit body with, religious, educational and philosophical purposes.
The processing relates only to members or former members (or those who have regular contact with Samatha in connection with those purposes).

5. Sharing your personal data    

Your personal data is treated as strictly confidential and will only be shared with other members of Samatha in order to carry out a service to other Samatha members or for the purposes connected with the Samatha. 
We will never share your data with third parties outside Samatha unless obliged to do so for legal or safeguarding reasons.

6. How long do we keep your personal data?

Personal data processed for any purpose or purposes shall not be kept for longer than is necessary for that purpose or purposes. In practice we: 

  • Annually review the length of time we keep your personal data;
  • Consider the purpose or purposes we hold the information for in deciding whether (and for how long) to retain it;
  • Securely delete information that is no longer needed for this purpose or these purposes; and update, archive or securely delete information if it is out of date.

7. Your rights and your personal data     

Unless subject to an exemption under the GDPR, you have the following rights with respects to your personal data: 

  • The right to request a copy of your personal data which the Samatha Trust holds about you;
  • The right to request that the Samatha Trust corrects any personal data if it is found to be inaccurate or out of date;
  • The right to request your personal data is erased where it is no longer necessary for the Samatha Trust to retain such data;
  • The right to withdraw your consent at any time;
  • The right to request that the data controller provides you with your  personal data and where possible, to transmit that data directly to another data controller, (known as the right to data portability):
  • The right, where there is a dispute in relation to the accuracy or processing of your personal data, to request a restriction is placed on further processing;
  • The right to object to the processing of personal data; (Where applicable)
  • The right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioners Office, ICO - https://ico.org.uk

8. Further Processing     

If, in the unlikely event we wish to use your personal data for a new purpose, not covered by this Data Protection Notice, then we will provide you with a new notice explaining this new use prior to commencing the processing and setting out the relevant purposes and processing conditions. We will use your data for a new purpose after receiving your consent to the new processing.

9. ContactDetails


To exercise all relevant rights, queries or complaints please in the first instance email 
administrator@samatha.org FAO The samatha Data Controller.

You can contact the Information Commissioners Office on 0303 123 1113 or via the website www.ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/ or at the Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF.