Privacy Policy

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We are the Ulster Farmers Union, 475 Antrim Road, Belfast, BT15 3DA. We are a data controller of your personal data.

This privacy notice lets you know what happens to any personal data that you give to us, or any that we may collect from or about you. It applies to all products and services, and instances where we collect your personal data.

We may change this privacy notice from time to time by updating this page to reflect changes in the law and/or our privacy practices. We encourage you to check this privacy notice for changes whenever you visit our website – https://www.ufuni.org/about/ufu-privacy-policy

We have a dedicated Data Protection Officer (“DPO”). You can contact the DPO using the details below or by writing to the above address, marking it for the attention of the DPO.

Contact:             Data Protection Officer
Email:                 dataprotection@ufuhq.com
Telephone:         02890 370 222

Ulster Farmers Union
What kinds of personal information do we process?

We process personal information about a range of individuals, including our members, prospective members, individuals who are interested in our messages and want to support us and other business contacts who attend our events and/or we have contact with in, the course of promoting and furthering our aims and objectives.

We may process the following information on our members, former members, prospective members and business contacts:

  • Personal and contact details such as title, first name, middle name, surname, postal address, email address, telephone number, mobile number
  • Date of birth and gender
  • Family members if relevant to the product or service
  • Membership category that you hold with us
  • Farming status regarding your farming activity
  • Marketing preferences
  • Company/business/farm details such as a company/business/farm name, postal address, email address, telephone number, mobile number
  • Farming enterprise(s) that you carry out
  • Land holding information including land owned, leased and/or in conacre
  • Subscription charges, start and end dates of membership and any other relevant notes relating to the same
  • Payment details
  • Events, shows and competitions when you provide us with your personal information
  • Helpdesk records if you have used the services of our Technical or Policy Officers
  • Communication records between you and us, including face to face, emails, calls, SMS messages, letters and meeting notes
  • Recording of telephone conversations when you call one of our group offices
  • Information about your use of products or services held with our business partners, such as membership affinity products and services
  • Public sources which contain information relevant to the agriculture industry
  • Industry expertise in your relevant sector
  • Images that we have taken during our activities
  • Technical information including your IP address and other data gathered by cookies
What we do with personal data

We use your personal data, for the following purposes:

  • Processing applications for membership, including considering price
  • Updating your records and renewing your membership
  • Managing any aspect of our products or services
  • To perform and/or test the performance of, our products, services and processes
  • To improve the operation of our organisation and that of our business partners
  • For management and auditing of our organisational operations including accounting
  • To monitor and to keep records of our communications with you and our staff
  • To administer our good governance requirements and those of other members of the Ulster Farmers Union, such as internal reporting and compliance obligations or administration required for Annual General Meeting (“AGM”) processes
  • Assessing and identifying aspects of your business such as livestock or arable farming to ensure relevant communications can be brought to your attention
  • For marketing communications to offer you relevant products and service. We might send marketing to you by SMS, email, phone, post, social media and digital channels. Communications may relate to any of our affinity deals, products, member offers, services, events and schemes such as vehicle deals, UFU memorabilia, training, technical services, policy team and government aided financial schemes as well as to any other offers and advice we think may be of interest.
  • To develop new products and services and to review and improve current products and services
  • To comply with legal and regulatory obligations, requirements and guidance to follow best practice
  • To share your personal data, as needed, with business partners and service providers or as part of providing and administering our products and services or operating our organisation
  • To process any donations made to any UFU nominated charities
  • To promote the industry and the work that we undertake
Ulster Farmers Union
Legal grounds for our processing of personal information

We rely on the following legal bases to use your personal data:

Consent: Where we collect other information from you such as when we use cookies to collect information about the device you use to access our website, or sometimes third parties collect this on our behalf. You will be asked to consent to this before using our website. If you choose not to give your consent, or you later remove your consent, this may affect our ability to provide the services you want, to you. We may also rely on consent in the following scenarios: –

  • To share your personal data with NFU Mutual so that they can send marketing information
  • Marketing – from time to time, we would like to let you know about products, services and offers from the UFU and our partners
  • Administration of prize draws, competitions, membership offers, surveys and other promotional activities in which you have consented to engage

Contract: the processing of personal data is necessary to fulfil the contract we have with you and to provide the correct products and services, such as:

  • Assessing an application for membership, including price consideration and the payment methods available
  • Managing products and services you hold with us, or an application for one
  • Updating your records, tracing your whereabouts to contact you about your account and doing this for recovering debt or processing refunds (if applicable)
  • Sharing your personal information with business partners and services providers when you apply for a product as part of your membership
  • All stages and activities relevant to managing the product or service including enquiry, application, administration and management of memberships
  • For some of our analysis to decide whether to offer you a product and/or service, particular payment method and the price or terms of this product and/or service

Legitimate Interests: the processing is necessary for our legitimate interests. The UFU and our members have a balanced interest in the agricultural industry. The processing assists with:

  • Managing your products and services relating to that, updating your records, tracing your whereabouts to contact you about your account and doing this for recovering debt or processing refunds (if applicable)
  • To perform and/or test the performance of, our products, services and internal processes
  • To follow guidance and recommended best practice of government and regulatory bodies
  • For management and audit of our business operations including accounting
  • To carry out monitoring and to keep records of our communications with you and our staff (see below)
  • To administer our good governance requirements, such as internal reporting and compliance obligations or administration required for AGM processes
  • For market research and analysis and developing statistics
  • For marketing communications to help us to offer you relevant products and services. We will send marketing to you by SMS, email, phone, post and social media and digital channels.
  • Subject to the appropriate controls, to provide insight and analysis of our members to business partners either as part of providing products or services, helping us improve products or services, or to assess or to improve the operating of our businesses
  • Where we need to share your personal information with people or organisations in order to run our business or comply with any legal and/or regulatory obligations
Ulster Farmers Union
Information we may share

We may share information with the following third parties for the purposes listed above:

  • Business partners or others who are a part of providing your products and services or operating our business
  • Public bodies, law enforcement agencies and regulators – The police, other law enforcement agencies, regulators, as well as public bodies such as local and central authorities can sometimes request personal information. This may be for the purposes of preventing or detecting crime, apprehending or prosecuting offenders, assessing or collecting tax, investigating complaints or assessing how well a particular industry sector is working.
  • Other organisations and businesses who provide services to us such as back up and server hosting providers, IT software and maintenance providers, social media providers, third party training providers, document storage providers and suppliers of other back office functions
  • Our professional providers (including lawyers and accountants) that assist us in carry out our activities
  • Analytics and search engine providers that assist us in the improvement and optimisation of our website (including Google Analytics)
  • External agencies and organisations to comply with a request for assistance with a technical and/or policy issue, for example with DAERA
  • We do not use automated decision making with your personal data

We will share your personal information with the National Farmers Union Mutual Insurance Society Limited (NFU Mutual) which is an entity associated with the Ulster Farmers Union that provides insurance and other financial services and products to the farming community. For information about how NFU Mutual may use your personal information, please see the NFU Mutual website: www.nfumutual.co.uk/privacy

Is your personal information transferred outside the UK or the EEA?

In order to provide our services, the information you give us may be transferred to countries outside the European Economic Area (EEA). These countries may not have similar data protection laws to the UK. When we do transfer your personal data outside of the EEA, we ensure that any party with access to your information has implemented the necessary security and privacy measures to ensure that your personal data is kept secure and confidential as outlined in this Policy.

Monitoring involving processing of your personal information

In this section monitoring means any: listening to, recording of, viewing of, intercepting of, or taking and keeping records (as the case may be) of calls, email, text messages, social media messages, in person (face to face) meetings and other communications.

We may monitor where permitted by law and we’ll do this where the law requires it, or to comply with regulatory rules, to prevent or detect crime, in the interests of protecting the security of our communications systems and procedures and for quality control and staff training purposes. This information may be shared for the purposes described above.

Personal information retention

Unless we explain otherwise to you, we’ll hold your personal information based on the following criteria:

  • For as long as we have reasonable business needs, such as managing our relationship with you and managing our operations
  • For as long as we provide goods and/or services to you and then for as long as someone could bring a claim against us
  • Retention periods in line with legal and regulatory requirements or guidance
What are your rights?

Here is a list of the rights that all individuals have under data protection laws. They don’t apply in all circumstances. If you wish to use any of them, we’ll explain at that time if they are engaged or not.

  • The right to be informed about the processing of your personal information
  • The right to rectification, you can have your personal information corrected if it is inaccurate and have incomplete personal information completed
  • The right to object to processing of your personal information
  • The right to restrict processing of your personal information
  • The right to erasure, you can have your personal information erased (the “right to be forgotten”)
  • The right to access to your personal information and to obtain information about how we process it
  • The right to data portability, you can move, copy or transfer your personal information
  • Rights in relation to automated decision making which has a legal effect or otherwise significantly affects you

You have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office which enforces data protection laws: https://ico.org.uk/

Ulster Farmers Union
Consequences of not providing information

We’re unable to provide you with our products or services if you do not provide certain information to us, for example we may not be able to inform you of a government grant scheme that you may be able to avail off or industry meetings specific to the agricultural industry. In cases where providing some personal information is optional, we’ll make this clear.

Cookies

Our website uses cookies to distinguish you from other users of our website. This helps us to provide you with a good experience when you browse our website and also allows us to improve our site. For detailed information on the cookies we use and the purposes for which we use them see our Cookie Policy https://www.ufuni.org/about/ufu-cookie-policy

Changes to our Privacy Policy

Our Privacy Policy is updated regularly and has currently been updated in accordance with the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulations) which comes into force in May 2018.

The number of this policy is version 2.1.

Marketing Preferences

We may use your home address, phone numbers and/or email address to contact you according to your marketing preferences. You can stop this marketing at any time by contacting us using the details below or by following the instructions in the communication. We comply with the PECR (The Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations) for Direct Marketing such as emails, texts and website cookies.

We work closely with the NFU Mutual to support businesses in the farming industry so from time to time you may be sent details of their products and services which we think will be of interest.

Ulster Farmers Union
Contact Us

If you have any questions about this privacy notice, or if you wish to exercise your rights, withdraw consent or contact the DPO, you can contact us by going to the contact us section of our website.

Alternatively, you can write to Ulster Farmers Union, 475 Antrim Road, Belfast, BT15 3DA marking it for the attention of the Data Protection Officer.