Privacy Policy

Privacy Policy

OPERATION WORLD (OW) has a firm commitment to privacy. We promise to respect any personal data you share with us and keep it safe. We aim to be clear when we collect your data and not do anything you wouldn’t reasonably expect. For more information, please read our privacy policy below.

What this policy covers

The purpose of this privacy policy is to give you a clear explanation about how OW uses the personal information you provide to us and that we collect, whether online, via phone, email, in forms, letters or in any other correspondence or from third parties.

We ensure that we use your information in accordance with all applicable laws concerning the protection of personal information. This policy explains:

  • What information OW may collect about you and how we collect it
  • How we will use that information
  • Whether we disclose your details to anyone else
  • Your choices regarding the information you provide us

If you have any queries about this, please write to our team’s privacy contact.

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Who we are

Operation World (OW) is a ministry of WEC International in the UK (registered charity in England and Wales no 237005 and in Scotland no 37715).

This policy covers all the work of OW, and activities carried out by and on behalf of individual OW volunteers.

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How we collect data

We collect information in the following ways:

1. When you give it to us DIRECTLY

You may give us your information for the following reasons:

  • to receive email updates, newsletters, or campaigns
  • to request, subscribe to, or purchase one of our publications
  • to complete a registration form
  • to make a donation
  • to receive services from us
  • to offer your thoughts, opinions, prayers, concerns, ideas, personal experiences, questions and/or suggestions to our articles or materials

The type of information we collect directly corresponds with the service you request, and we only collect the information necessary to facilitate our response to your specific request such as your name and contact information.

2. When you give it to us INDIRECTLY

We do not solicit or use rented lists to acquire subscriptions.

Your information may occasionally be shared with us by independent organisations or sites. These independent third parties will only do so when you have indicated that you wish to support Operation World, and that you are happy for your details to be passed on to us. You should check their Privacy Policy when you provide your information to understand fully how they will process your data.

We collect information about the online services you use and how you use them, like when you open or click a link in one of our emails, visit our website, or view and interact with our social media.

Use of Cookies

Cookies are small text files that are stored by the browser (for example, Google Chrome or Safari) on your computer or mobile phone. They allow websites to store things like user preferences or count the number of visitors to a website.

Site performance cookies: As you visit our Website, it uses site performance cookies to remember your preferences for tools on Operation World’s website, in order to provide the best possible experience. Our cookies do not allow us to gather any personal information about you and we do not store any personal information that you provided to us in our cookies. Site performance cookies expire after two months.

Anonymous analytics cookies: Some cookies are generated for the purpose of gathering statistics and helping OW to improve its site and content. The cookies collect information in a way that does not directly identify anyone. OW does not set the analytics cookies unless you give your consent by selecting ‘Continue’ in the consent box. You can find more information from Google Analytics here, including a link to Google’s privacy policy. Anonymous analytics cookies expire after two years. Consent may be withdrawn at any point by navigating to Manage Cookies in the site footer or by clearing the cookies from your browser.

Other third party cookies: Third party cookies may be set by other organisations (partners or social media sites) on our website. They do this to track the success of their application, or to customize their application for you. Our website cannot access these cookies, not can third party websites access the cookies from our website. For example, when you are re-directed away from our site using the social-media sharing button, or when using an embedded form (for example, Mailchimp or Google reCAPTCHA), the third party will add their own cookies. Our website may embed videos from our official channel at YouTube. When you press play, the site drops third party cookies to enable the video to play and to collect analytics data (such as how long a viewer watched the video). These cookies do not collect personal data.

Cookie settings may be changed through your browser settings. To find out more about cookies, including how to see what cookies have been set on your device, visit www.aboutcookies.org or www.allaboutcookies.org. If you wish to prevent your browser from accepting cookies, you can update your settings in the Options or Preferences menu. To better understand these settings, the following links may be helpful. You can also use the Help option in your browser for more details.

Cookie settings in Internet Explorer
Cookie settings in Safari and iOS
Cookie settings in Mozilla Firefox
Cookie settings in Google Chrome
Cookie settings in Opera

To find information relating to other browsers, visit the browser developer’s website.

To opt out of being tracked by Google Analytics across all websites, visit this page to download Google’s browser add-on.

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What data we collect

The type and quantity of information we collect and how we use it depends on why you are providing it.

1. Subscribers

If you subscribe to a newsletter or email list on or through www.operationworld.org we will collect:

  • Your name
  • Your contact details (email address)
  • Your consent to communicate with you

This is done through a double opt-in process, and is recorded to verify that the subscription is valid and complies with regulations.

E-mail lists may include contact information such as a postal address, phone number, list manager e-mail address and immediate unsubscribe button.

2. Supporters

If you support us, for example make a donation, volunteer, sign up for an event or initiative, or buy something, we will usually collect what is necessary of:

  • Your name
  • Your contact details
  • Your bank or credit card details

We retain records of your donations and the events you have attended.

Operation World does not store your credit or debit card details at all. Only staff authorised and trained to process payments will be able to see your card details.

For more information on donations, please see the Privacy Policy of the WEC International country branch through which the donation was made (country links can be found here via the link ‘Where is WEC’). For more information on product purchases through The Store @ InterVarsity Press, please see the Privacy Policy of InterVarsity Press.

3. Content users

We often ask for feedback and input from our users, whether through website forms or online surveys, and ask for some or all of the following information:

  • Your name
  • Your thoughts, comments, opinions, concerns, ideas, personal experience testimonies, questions, prayer requests, or similar information
  • Your demographic data related to age, religious affiliation, occupation, marital status, nationality, ethnic background, or similar information
  • Information related to your experience with use of our content or resources
  • Information related to your engagement with our products, content or resources

Sensitive Data

Data Protection law recognises that certain categories of personal information are more sensitive. This is known as ‘personal sensitive data’ and covers health information, race, and religious beliefs. We do not usually collect ‘personal sensitive data’ about our supporters or users unless there is a clear reason for doing so.

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Why we collect data

We mainly use your data to:

  • Understand how we can improve our services, products or information
  • Respond to your correspondence, questions, comments, suggestions, thoughts, opinions, prayers, concerns, or ideas
  • Process your request for services, products, or information
  • Contact you via e-mail to confirm specific resource, subscription, or information requests
  • Ensure we know how you prefer to be contacted
  • Continually update, develop, design, and customize the content of our Website to meet the needs, interests, and requests of our audience
  • Keep a record of your relationship with us

Let you know about new services, products, and ways you can support us.

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How we share data

We will not normally share your data, neither with other organisations nor among the other branches within WEC International.

We will only share your information if:

  • We are legally required to do so, e.g. by a law enforcement agency legitimately exercising a power or if compelled by an order of the Court
  • We believe it is necessary to protect or defend our rights, property, or the personal safety of our people or visitors to our premises or websites
  • We are working with a carefully-selected partner that is carrying out work on our behalf. These partners may include email list services and other IT specialists. The kind of work we may ask them to do includes processing, packaging, mailing and delivering subscriptions, or carrying out research or analysis, or processing payments. We only choose partners we can trust. We will only pass personal data to them if they have signed a contract that requires them to:
    • Abide by the requirements of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulation (PECR).
    • Treat your information as carefully as we would
    • Only use the information for the purposes it was supplied (and not for their own purposes or the purposes of any other organisation)
    • Allow us to carry out checks to ensure they are doing all these things

We will only ever share your data in other circumstances if we have your explicit and informed consent.

We will never share, sell or swap your details with any third parties for the purposes of their own marketing or the monetising of your data. We do not share your e-mail address with anyone or subscribe your email address to other lists.

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How we store data

We store information on computers located in the UK. We may transfer data to our reputable third party suppliers as explained above. They may be situated inside or outside the European Economic Area (EEA). We may also store information in paper files.

We place a great importance on the security of all personally identifiable information associated with our supporters and users. We have security measures in place to attempt to protect against the loss, misuse and alteration of personal data under our control.

While we cannot ensure or guarantee that loss, misuse or alteration of data will not occur while it is under our control, we use our best efforts to try to prevent this. Unfortunately, the transmission of data across the internet is not completely secure and whilst we use our best efforts to try to protect the security of your information we cannot ensure or guarantee that loss, misuse or alteration of data will not occur whilst data is being transferred.

Where you or we have provided a password enabling you to access parts of our websites it is your responsibility to keep this password confidential. Please don’t share your password with anyone.

We will keep your information only for as long as we need it to provide you with the services or information you have required, to administer your relationship with us, to inform the preferences of our supporters, to comply with the law, or to ensure we do not communicate with people that have asked us not to.

When we no longer need information we will always dispose of it securely, using specialist companies if necessary to do this work for us. We will not keep your data for longer than is necessary for the relevant purposes set out in this Privacy Policy.

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Your rights

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) gives you certain rights over your data and how we use it. These include:

  • the right in certain circumstances to have inaccurate personal data rectified, blocked, erased or destroyed
  • the right to prevent your data being used for direct marketing
  • the right of access to a copy of the information we hold about you (known as a subject access request)

If you wish to exercise any of these rights please write to our team’s privacy contact.

Subject access requests must be made in writing by post to WEC UK, PO Box 6461, Coventry CV3 9NR, with a description of the information you want to see and proof of your identity. We do not accept subject access requests by email so we can ensure that we only provide personal data to the right person.

Complaints will be dealt with in a timely fashion and will be responded to within 30 days at the latest. Please provide as much information as possible about the nature of your contact with us to help us locate your records.

If you are not satisfied with the way your complaint was handled, you may refer your complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office.

Where you have provided your consent for our use of your personal information, you always have a right to withdraw your consent at any time.

For more information about your rights under the Data Protection Act go to the website of the Information Commissioner’s Office at ico.org.uk.

Notification of Changes

This privacy policy is subject to periodic review and change. In order to view the current privacy policy, simply check this section of our Website. If we materially change our privacy policy, we will post those changes to this Privacy Policy and other places we deem appropriate so users are aware of what information we collect, how it is used and under what circumstances, if any, we disclose it.

In some cases when we post a notice, we may also email users who have opted to receive communications from us, notifying them of the changes in our privacy practices.

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