New Start Debt Advice (NSDA) is committed to protecting and respecting your privacy and complies with the requirements of the General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”). Our privacy policy is set out for you here and tells you about the practices we follow to look after your personal data. It sets out the basis on which any personal data we collect from you, or that you provide to us, will be processed by us. Please read the policy carefully to understand our views and practices regarding your personal data and how we will treat it.
What does this Policy cover?
This policy explains how NSDA uses your personal data: how it is collected, how it is held, and how it is processed. It also explains your rights under the law relating to your personal data. It covers data collected in order that we can provide personalised support services to meet individual needs.
What is personal data?
Personal data is information about a living individual from which that person can be identified. We use a computer system and hard copy paper system to keep all this data safe and to help us comply with data protection regulations. We will always ask your permission before providing any of the information stored with others.
Who we are
NSDA is run by volunteers from Thornbury Churches Together and others in our community. We are associated with Thornbury Baptist Church (TBC) where we hold our meetings. TBC is a charity limited by guarantee; Charity no. 1160363; Company no. 09338867.
Our address is c/o Thornbury Baptist Church, Gillingstool, Thornbury, BS35 2EG
Telephone Number: 01454 419118
E-mail address:
NSAD is Authorised and Regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, and is affiliated to Community Money Advice (CMA).
What we do
NSDA provides free of charge debt and budgeting advice. We will usually need to record quite detailed personal information about those individuals who seek our help. This is to ensure that the advice and information we provide is appropriate and accurate. We also need to ensure you are eligible for our charitable services and on rare occasions we may also need to use your personal information for the prevention of fraud and to identify any misuse or abuse of our services. It will also be used to help us monitor the effectiveness of the services we provide.
The information we will collect may include (amongst other things):
- your contact and biographical information
- information about your income, expenditure and financial transactions
- information about your debts, financial standing and past or current insolvency actions
- information about your housing situation, personal circumstances and employment situation
- in certain circumstances it may be relevant to collect health information where this has an impact upon your ability to manage your finances or you require extra assistance or consideration in how we deal with your case (for more information about this, see the ‘Sensitive personal information’ section below)
Sensitive personal information: Under data protection law, certain categories of personal information are recognised as sensitive, including health information, race, religious beliefs, and political opinions (‘sensitive personal data’). The only sensitive personal data we currently collect is health information. We will only collect sensitive personal data if there is a clear reason for doing so – as outlined above – such as where we need this information to ensure that we provide appropriate advice or support to our service users or those who work/volunteer for us. We will only use sensitive information with your consent and for the purposes for which it is provided.
You have various rights under the General Data Protection Regulations:
- You have the right to erasure – the right to request that we delete some or all of your details. This right only applies where we have no legitimate interest or legal requirement (e.g. child protection) to keep them. For example, if you gave us your mobile number but now want us to delete it, since it’s not a requirement for running our service but just a convenience, then we are obliged to do so. Legitimate Interest is also overridden by your interests, rights or freedoms. (For example, if we want to keep your address to help us provide pastoral care, but you argue that you want your address to be totally secret because you would be at risk of harm if it became known, then that risk would override our convenience and we would be obliged to delete it.)
- You have the right to rectification – if we hold incorrect details about you then you can require us to correct them.
- You have the right to be informed about how we use your contact information.
- You have the right of access – we must provide you with details of information we hold about you on request. However, if your request is manifestly unfounded or excessive then we can charge a reasonable fee for responding or we can refuse to respond.
- You have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) if you think we have been mishandling your data.
- You have the right to restrict further processing of your data for example if you have lodged a formal complaint and are awaiting the outcome.
- You have a right of portability – the right to request that all of your information be sent to another organisation.
- The full detail of your rights can be found on the ICO’s website (ico.org.uk).
DISCLAIMER
NSDA has tried to ensure that all information provided through this website is correct at the time it was included. We apologise for any errors. We therefore do not guarantee the accuracy of these pages and any visitor using information contained in them does so entirely at their own risk.
EXTERNAL WEBSITES
Please note that whilst we hope you’ll find any links we provide on the website useful, New Start Debt Advice is not responsible for the content of external websites.
The data protection controller for NSDA is the Centre Manager and can be reached at