Privacy policy

Data Collection and Use

The Conservative Party strives to meet 'P3P' standards (the 'Platform for Privacy Preferences Project') on data privacy. We are the sole owner of any information we collect. We never sell, share, or rent this information unless we first disclose the fact in this privacy statement. We collect data in nine different ways.

Site Registration

We collect your name and contact information (including postal & email address). At your option, we may also collect your gender and date of birth. This information is used for site customisation and contacting visitors (you may opt out of this usage). This data will be used by ourselves and our agents.

Stay Informed

We ask for your name, postcode and email address if you subscribe to our email newsletters. We use this information to contact you about conservatives.com and let you know what Conservatives are doing up and down the country.

Join and Donate

In addition to the information from site registration we need additional information if you wish to donate money or join. This includes payment information (such as your credit card number and expiry date) and personal information that we must collect to abide by legal and voluntary codes of conduct (such as the constituency in which you are registered to vote). This information may be used for user analysis, user-profiling and contacting visitors.

If you donate more than £7,500 to the Party via the website, we are obliged under the Political Parties Elections and Referendums Act 2000 to report such a donation to the Electoral Commission, who will publish the fact that you have made a donation over £7,500. For more information, please see http://www.electoralcommission.org.uk Under the Political Party Elections and Referendums Act 2000 (PPERA) you must be on the electoral register in the UK excluding the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man in order to make a donation of more than £500.

Volunteer

We collect your postal address and volunteering preference. This information will be used by ourselves and your local Conservative Association.

Send to a Friend

If you choose, we can tell a friend about our site - or even a particular page if you prefer. To do this, we need to ask for your friend's name and email address. We shall send your friend a single email inviting them to visit the site or page you chose. We do not retain this information. Your Internet Protocol (IP) address will be included in the email headers so that the originator of the message can be identified if necessary by the recipient.

Feedback and Comments

To send us a message using our feedback forms we collect your name, email address and comments. At your option we may also collect your postal code. This data will be used by ourselves and our agents for contacting you.

Online Polls and Surveys

If you wish to participate in an online poll or survey, in addition to your answers, we collect your Internet Protocol (IP) address. This data will be used by ourselves and our agents to help validate the results and help prevent multiple entries from individuals. In addition to this a cookie will be placed on your system after participating in a poll or survey. No identifiable information will be stored in this cookie.

Log Files and Statistics

We use IP addresses, URI's of requested resources, timestamps and HTTP user-agents to analyse trends, administer the system and gather broad demographic information for aggregate use. In addition to this we use Google Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Google, Inc ("Google"). Google Analytics uses cookies, to help analyse how visitors use our site. The information generated by the cookie about the use of our website (including your IP address) will be transmitted to and stored by Google on servers in the United States. Google will use this information for the purpose of evaluating your use of our website, compiling reports on website activity for the Conservative Party and providing other services relating to website activity and Internet usage. Google may also transfer this information to third parties where required to do so by law, or where such third parties process the information on Google's behalf. Google will not associate your IP address with any other data held by Google. You may refuse the use of cookies by selecting the appropriate settings on your Web browser, however please note that if you do this you may not be able to make full use of our website. By using this website, you consent to the processing of data about you by Google in the manner and for the purposes set out above.

Cookies

Cookies are a technology which can be used to provide you with tailored information from a website. A cookie is an element of data that a website can send to your browser, which may then store it on your system. You can set your browser to notify you when you receive a cookie, giving you the chance to decide whether to accept it.

Our site makes use of cookies. Cookies are used for the following purposes:

Site administration
Site customization
User targeting
Contacting users
User analysis
Online polls and surveys
Links

Our website links to other sites, but we shall always try to warn you when this is the case. Please note that we are not responsible for the privacy practices of other sites: make sure you read their privacy statements if you are concerned about the information they are collecting about you. This statement only applies to our website.

Security

We take every precaution to protect your details. When you submit sensitive information via the website, it is secure both on its way to us and once we receive it.

For instance, our membership and donation forms encrypt your credit card number using encryption technology called -- 'secure socket layers' or SSL. If you use Netscape Navigator or Internet Explorer, you can tell whether a page is secure by checking whether there is a locked padlock or key in the right corner of your browser. The URL of the page you are viewing will also begin with https://.

We also do everything in our power to protect your information once we have received it. Our staff can only access your details if they have a specific job to perform, such as dealing with a membership enquiry. They also have to keep up to date on our security and privacy practices.

Finally, the servers that store personally identifiable information are kept in a secure environment.

Supplementing Information

We take our responsibilities to protect you from fraud very seriously. To fulfil this obligation, we sometimes have to supplement the information you give us with information from third party sources - usually, in order to make sure that no-one else is using your credit card. We do not keep this information any longer than we have to.

Correcting/Updating Information

We recognise that details such as your post code or email address are bound to change over time. We will do what we can to ensure that you can change the information we hold about you.

Choice/Opt Out

You will always be able to opt out of having your information used for any purpose other than that specifically related to the page where we ask for it. Our membership form, for instance, has an opt out mechanism so that you can join online without subscribing to our email list.