People’s Voice Media and Institute of Community Reporters are committed to ensuring that your privacy and data is protected, and handled responsibly. Should we ask you to provide certain information by which you can be identified when using this website, then you can be assured that it will only be used in accordance to the ways outlined below and not shared with other agencies. If our processes change on data protection and information governance it will be updated on this page. This page is a summary of how People's Voice Media uses and protects any information that you give People's Voice Media. You can download an outline of Community Reporting and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) here.

If you wish to see the full policy or request any changes, deletions and transferences of your data in line with your data rights, then please contact enquiries@peoplesvoicemedia.co.uk

What we collect

We collect information on the bases of the UK Data Protection Act 2018. The Data Protection Act 2018 is the UK’s implementation of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

We will collect the following information from the website user and Community Reporter registration process, website and consent forms:

  • name
  • contact information (i.e. email address, telephone number etc.)
  • demographic information such as postcode and address
  • Level of membership of the website/Community Reporter network
  • Your personal biography

How do we collect the information?

Reporters will be asked to give consent to the processing of his or her personal data for one or more specific purposes when they sign-up for and when they sign into the communityreporter.net website. When a Reporter adds a story, they will be asked to click to confirm that they have explicit consent from the person(s) in this story to share it on communityreporter.net. This consent form also gives approval for pictures to be made into badges.  Picture will be deleted from all devices once the badges have been made.

What we do with the information we gather

We require this information to understand your needs and provide you with a better service, and in particular for the following reasons:

  • Internal record keeping
  • We may use the information to improve our products and services and/or link you up with other Reporters
  • We may periodically send emails about other information which we think you may find interesting using the email address which you have provided
  • Other Community Reporters will be able to contact you via the communityreporter.net web site only. Only your username, how long you have been a member and your location will be shown to other Community Reporters and made public
  • Your information will be retained for as long as you have an account on the communityreporter.net web site

What happens to your stories

The Community Reporter stories are recorded text, photo, audio or video files and then shared on communityreporter.net. The vision is that people’s stories about their experiences will be used more widely in decision making processes and that people from across the world can learn from one another’s experiences. Sometimes we use the stories to create pieces of curated content such as short films, feature articles or reports and share them both on and offline. When doing this we strive to ensure that the storyteller’s authentic voice is preserved. You will always have the right to request you story to be removed from our site as part of your data rights and our Community Reporters who are users on the website can delete their own stories at any time.

All stories that appear on the website our available to be seen by people accessing the site. Whilst we do not actively encourage the downloading of stories from the site (i.e. we do not have a download button on the stories), people may be able to do this unless they are password protected via ripping them or downloading them by other means. We do not actively encourage the redistribution of our stories without express permission from People's Voice Media beyond our online platforms, however, this may happen and is outside of our control. Where stories are password protected only the person who has posted the story, those with the password or those with admin privileges can access or see the story. 

Security

We are committed to ensuring that your information is secure. In order to prevent unauthorised access or disclosure, we have put in place suitable physical, electronic and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure the information we collect online. This includes information from consent forms which are in a locked cupboard at People’s Voice Media’s office. All electronic information is password protected on secure services which meets the PCI Data Security Standard (PCI DSS). Information on hard disk drives, PC or mobile devices is deleted after courses or activity. All of People’s Voice Media’s teams laptops/computers are password protected.

How we use cookies

A cookie is a small file which asks permission to be placed on your computer's hard drive. Once you agree, the file is added and the cookie helps analyse web traffic or lets you know when you visit a particular site. Cookies allow web applications to respond to you as an individual. The web application can tailor its operations to your needs, likes and dislikes by gathering and remembering information about your preferences. We use traffic log cookies to identify which pages are being used. This helps us analyse data about web page traffic and improve our website in order to tailor it to customer needs. We only use this information for statistical analysis purposes and then the data is removed from the system. Overall, cookies help us provide you with a better website, by enabling us to monitor which pages you find useful and which you do not. A cookie in no way gives us access to your computer or any information about you, other than the data you choose to share with us.

Links to other websites

Our website may contain links to other websites of interest. However, once you have used these links to leave our site, you should note that we do not have any control over that other website. Therefore, we cannot be responsible for the protection and privacy of any information which you provide whilst visiting such sites and such sites are not governed by our policies. You should exercise caution and look at the policies applicable to the website in question.

Controlling and accessing your personal information

You may choose to restrict the collection or use of your personal information in the following ways:

We will not sell, distribute or lease your personal information to third parties unless we have your permission or are required by law to do so. You may request details of personal information which we hold about you under the General Data Protection Act 2018. If you wish to see the full policy or request, change or delete your data please contact enquiries@peoplesvoicemedia.co.uk or write to People’s Voice Media, The Fort Offices, Artillery Business Park, Park Hall, Oswestry, Shropshire SY11 4AD We will promptly respond to your request.   

  • whenever you are asked to fill in a form on the website, look for the box that you can click to indicate that you do want the information to be used by People's Voice Media 
  • if you have previously agreed to us using your personal information, you may change your mind at any time by writing to or emailing us on enquiries@peoplesvoicemedia.co.uk and we will provide you with a Data Rights Request to complete on which you can made a number of requests.