Privacy notice
This privacy notice explains how and why The Neurological Alliance collects your personal information, how we use it and how we keep it secure. The Neurological Alliance fully complies with the UK Data Protection Regulations (UK GDPR) and Data (Use and Access) Act 2025.
Who we are
We are The Neurological Alliance (Registered charity 1039034, Company Limited by Guarantee Registered in England 2939840). We are registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office as a Data Controller (registration number: ZA233740).
Our contact details
Email us at info@neural.org.uk or call us on 01923 882 590.
Contact us by post
The Neurological Alliance
The Junction
Station Road
Watford
WD17 1EU
Scope
This policy applies to anyone whose personal data is processed by The Neurological Alliance.
How we collect information
Directly from you
You may give us personal data when you join The Neurological Alliance as a member organisation, use our website, apply to work for us, are employed by us, volunteer for us, contact us (including sending or receiving email), or donate to us, or are contracted to provide services for The Neurological Alliance. Your information will only be used for the purpose for which it was collected.
When you use our website
Cookies are files saved on your phone, tablet or computer when you visit a website. The first time you visit our website, you will be asked to consent or decline to additional cookies. You can change your cookie preferences at any time. For more information on how to do this and our cookie policy, click here.
Information available publicly
Occasionally, we might obtain information from public sources such as websites, Companies House, annual reviews, and articles in newspapers and online news sites.
Social media
We may reply to comments or questions you make to us on our social media platforms.
Information from third parties
Third parties may share your information with us, for example where there is a contract in place between The Neurological Alliance and a third party or where you have agreed for the third party to do so. These might include fundraising sites like Just Giving.
What information do we collect, use and why
The Neurological Alliance may collect information for a number of reasons:
Understanding experiences of those affected by a neurological condition
To help understand their experiences and signpost people affected by neurological conditions to support, we may collect personal information, including ‘special category data’ personal data about health, when we receive and respond to an enquiry or when people attend one of our events. This information helps us to provide the most effective and appropriate support.
Supporters
Where an individual for example, makes a donation or signs up for an event we may collect personal information such as name, date of birth, email address, postal address, telephone number, access needs and banking details to process their interaction.
Volunteers
Where an individual volunteers for The Neurological Alliance we may need to collect personal information relevant to their role such as name, date of birth, email address, postal address, telephone number, any conflicts of interests, their connection to a neurological condition where relevant and disclosure and barring check results where relevant to enable them to carry out their role.
Data about children
Where anyone under the age of 18 approaches to either share their experiences or with an information enquiry, we may collect the same sensitive information about their health and support needs as we do for adults. We will obtain the permission of parents or guardians before collecting this personal information about a child and will provide children with the same rights and controls over the personal information that we hold on them as we would with adults.
Sending newsletters (direct marketing)
Any direct marketing complies with the rules set out in data protection legislation and the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR).
Under data protection law, direct marketing for charities is any direct communication with specific individuals to promote a charity’s aims, ask for donations, recruit volunteers, or share campaign updates. This includes our newsletter, which we send by email.
Where you have consented to receive our newsletter, we may send you updates about the progress we’re making towards achieving our aims, relevant information, events and activities and actions you can take to support our work.
You can sign up to receive our newsletter here.
Opting out
You can opt out at anytime by clicking the unsubscribe link in any of our newsletters, or by emailing info@neural.org.uk.
Understanding our supporters
The Neurological Alliance may analyse the personal information that is provided to us to help create a profile of our supporters and their preferences so that we only communicate in the most appropriate way and with the most relevant information.
Membership
The Neurological Alliance collects information on organisations and organisational representatives who have applied for membership of the charity. This may include email addresses and contact names. We only hold the minimum amount of information that is required to process the membership application.
Recruitment and employment
The Neurological Alliance collects personal information on those who are employed by the charity as part of their terms and conditions of employment, or as part of the recruitment process. This may include personal information relevant to their role such as name, date of birth, email address, postal address, telephone number, any conflicts of interests, previous employment records, CVs, references, ID documents, their connection to neurological conditions where relevant and disclosure and barring check results where relevant to enable them to carry out their role, and bank details.
Suppliers and service providers
We may collect information from individuals or organisations that provide us with goods or services. This may include names and bank details.
How we keep your information safe
The Neurological Alliance is committed to keeping your personal data safe and secure. The Neurological Alliance has clear procedures and training in place to ensure the safe storage, handling and protection of personal data and confidential information.
- Personal data is only stored within approved secure organisational systems, platforms and storage locations.
- Access to personal data will is restricted to those who require it for legitimate organisational purposes and access permissions are regularly reviewed.
- Where personal data is stored electronically, appropriate safeguards are used, including password protection, multi-factor authentication, encryption and secure access controls.
- Our IT support service FNS run regular cyber security assessments to ensure The Neurological Alliance electronic storage system are compliant with current data protection legislation.
Your data protection rights
You have legal rights over your personal information. For example, you can see it, amend it, ask us to change the way we handle it or have it removed from our records completely.
- Your right of access – You have the right to ask us for copies of your personal information. You can request other information such as details about where we get personal information from and who we share personal information with. There are some exemptions which mean you may not receive all the information you ask for.
- Your right to rectification – You have the right to ask us to correct or delete personal information you think is inaccurate or incomplete.
- Your right to erasure – You have the right to ask us to delete your personal information.
- Your right to restriction of processing – You have the right to ask us to limit how we can use your personal information.
- Your right to object to processing – You have the right to object to the processing of your personal data.
- Your right to data portability – You have the right to ask that we transfer the personal information you gave us to another organisation, or to you.
- Your right to withdraw consent – When we use consent as our lawful basis you have the right to withdraw your consent at any time.
Our lawful bases for the collection and use of your data
Under UK data protection law, we must have a “lawful basis” for collecting and using your personal information.
Our lawful bases for collecting or using personal information are:
Consent: we have permission from you after we gave you all the relevant information.
Recognised legitimate interest: interest that is fair and does not impact your rights, such as sending you information about events, services, products and activities that may be of interest to you.
Safeguarding: we need to protect the physical, mental or emotional well-being of people who need extra support, or to protect them from harm or neglect.
Legal obligation: we have to collect or use your information so we can comply with the law.
Contract: we have to collect or use the information so we can enter into or carry out a contract with you.
How can you access your data?
To access your data make a data protection rights request, please contact us using the contact details at the top of this privacy notice. If you make a request, we must respond to you without undue delay and in any event within one month. In some circumstances, we may need to extend this timeframe or may not be able to fulfil your request in full, for example where an exemption applies. If this is the case, we will explain the reasons to you.
Sharing information with third parties
We may may share information with third parties (‘data processors’) where there is a contract in place between The Neurological Alliance and a third party or where you have agreed for the third party to do so (you have given consent). For example, this could include our enewsletter provider, MailChimp.
Disclosing personal information
We will only disclose personal information when obliged to by law, or the disclosure is necessary for purposes of national security, taxation and criminal investigation, or if we have your permission to share personal information, or where there is a significant risk to either you or other persons should the information not be shared. We do not sell personal information.
How long do we keep information
Personal data will only be retained for as long as necessary to fulfil the purpose for which it was collected, meet legal or regulatory requirements, or protect the legitimate interests of The Neurological Alliance.
The Neurological Alliance maintains a Retention and Disposal Schedule which sets out how long different categories of personal data and organisational records will be retained and how they will be securely deleted or destroyed. The schedule is reviewed annually and information destruction processes implemented where relevant. Please contact us if you would like to find out how long your data is kept.
Any questions?
If you would like to know more about The Neurological Alliance data protection policy or procedures, or have any specific questions about the information we hold about you and what we do with your data please contact us using the details at the top of this notice.
How to complain
If you have any concerns about our use of your personal information, you can make a data protection complaint to us using the contact details at the top of this notice. Our complaints policy is available here.
If you remain unhappy with how we’ve used your data after raising a complaint with us, you can also complain to the ICO.
The ICO’s address
Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
Helpline number: 0303 123 1113
Website: https://www.ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint
Updated: August 2026.
Review date: August 2027.
