Safer Steps Privacy & Cookies Policy
Safer Steps is committed to protecting your privacy, whether as a member of staff, service user, stakeholder, supporter or supplier. This Privacy Notice explains what personal data we may collect, how and why we use it, lawful bases, your rights under data protection legislation, who we share information with, how to complain and how we keep your data secure.
The Safer Steps Project is delivered by the West Yorkshire Stalking Support Hub (WYSSH – pronounced WISH). WYSSH is a partnership of Leeds Women’s Aid, Staying Put, WomenCentre, Pennine Domestic Abuse Partnership and a Wakefield provider (TBC).
Leeds Women’s Aid (LWA) is the Data Controller for all the personal data which it collects for various reasons and this is held electronically on the computer, in paper files, or both. All personal data which we collect will be used and protected in accordance with our Data Protection and Information Governance Policy. We are responsible for complying with all data protection legislation including the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR),
Data Protection Act 2018 (DPA) and Data Use & Access Bill (DUA).
1. What is Personal Data?
Personal data is any information which relates to and identifies a living person; for example, name, address, bank details, CCTV images, computer IP address, email address.
Some types of personal information are classified as ‘sensitive’ or ‘special category’ personal data and this includes ethnicity; religious beliefs, physical/mental health; sexuality, information about criminal offences or proceedings. This type of data requires a higher level
of protection.
We need to process your personal data in order to:
• Offer and provide access to our support services
• Recruit and employ our staff, volunteers and trustees
• Share information with you via our newsletter or other communications
Any organisation which processes personal data must have a lawful basis for doing so. We use various legal bases for processing personal data and these are recorded in the section ‘What Information does Safer Steps collect and why’.
2. How Safer Steps collects information
We may collect personal information in the following ways:
• Directly from you – e.g. if you refer yourself to/accept support from our services; apply to work with for us
• Other organisations – you may give other organisations permission to share your information with us e.g. so they can refer you for support from our services.
• Indirectly from you – e.g. information will be shared with us if you interact with us via social media.
• Publicly available information – we may use data freely available to the public, such as within the criminal courts system or published in articles
3. What information does Safer Steps process and why?
We need to collect personal data in order to fulfil its role as an employer; in our work to offer and provide support to victims-survivors of domestic abuse; to meet our obligations as members of various statutory review panels; to raise awareness of domestic abuse in the wider community; keep in contact with you about our work.
We process the following types of data:
• Personal contact details – such as name, address, telephone numbers, email address
• Sex and gender, marital status, dependents
• National Insurance number & bank account number – for staff
• Information about your employment – for staff
• Demographic information such as ethnicity, sexuality, health information
We only use your personal data for a purpose that you would reasonably expect.
We will never sell your personal data on to anyone else.
We use various lawful bases under UK GDPR for the data we process and these are detailed below:
• Legitimate interest – Data relating to people who are referred to our services for support is collected to process the referral and to enable us to make safe contact with them.
• Consent – When an individual accepts support from us, we may ask for further information in order to provide the best possible support to them. This may include demographic information, details of their children, emergency contact details, health information, details of other organisations also working with the individual. This information may also be used for equalities monitoring; in this situation, all data will be anonymised.
• Legal obligation – We are required to collect information on staff, trustees and volunteers to fulfil our role as an employer and charity. We will also collect personal data from prospective employees or volunteers in order to process the application. We may also be required to process personal data to comply with other legal obligations, e.g. court order
• Contract – this includes personal data of staff employed by us
• Public Task – we are required to process some personal data to perform a ‘specific task in the public interest’.
• Special category data – We only processes special category data where there is a lawful basis to do so and we have a condition for processing it. This includes to meet our obligations as an employer; for equalities monitoring or with your explicit consent.
Some anonymised data will be used for monitoring and reporting purposes. No individuals will be identifiable from data used for this purpose.
4. Is my data secure with Safer Steps?
In short, yes, it is.
Personal data may be stored on paper and electronically on computers. We make sure that all personal data is held in a secure way and only relevant and appropriate people will be able to access it.
Detailed below are some examples of how we keep information secure:
• Access to personal data on case management systems is restricted on a ‘need to know’ basis. Appropriate permission levels are applied so only relevant staff have access to data.
• Data stored electronically will be password protected and only appropriate staff have access.
• All staff are fully trained in how to handle personal data safely and securely, including when and how it can be shared.
• Our systems have full IT security protection, including firewalls and encryption.
All personal data held by us is stored on systems in the UK. No data is held or stored outside
the UK.
Personal data will be retained by us for a minimum period of time in accordance with applicable legislation. Data which is no longer required will be securely deleted and disposed of.
5. Who do we share information with?
We use various other organisations to help deliver support and to assist with our legal obligations by processing data on our behalf. Where we deliver services and contracts in partnership with others, these companies are also known as Data Controllers. They have agreements with us about the types of data we hold and share to be able to offer services.
We also work with other companies who process data on our behalf, these companies are known as Data Processors. Your data may be shared with all or some of these organisations and it will only be shared if it is necessary to complete our obligations. For example, we use a case management system to hold and process the details of the people referred to and supported by our service.
When we share personal information with another organisation will always have an agreement in place to ensure that they comply with all data protection law.
In the course of providing support to service users, we may also ask for consent to share personal data with other organisations so that we can provide the best support to you. For example, this could include housing providers, health agencies, education or any other relevant agencies. This will be explained to you at the start of support and you can give or withdraw your consent to share data with other agencies at any time.
On a rare occasion it may be necessary for us to share personal information without consent if we are required to do so by a court order or if there are other valid reasons, such as to protect a child or adult who is thought to be at risk or to stop a crime. If this happens, then we will record our reasons for doing it, the information we have shared. We will also let you know what we have done, if it is safe to do so.
6. It’s your personal data – your rights
The data we hold is about you and the law gives you rights about what we can do with your information:
• Consent – you can give or withdraw consent for us to share your personal data at any time. As mentioned previously, this will also be explained to you at the start of support.
There may be circumstances in which we override your consent, but reasons for this will be always explained.
• Right to be Informed – you have the right to be told how your personal data will be used. This Privacy Notice will be available on our website and in our communications with you. A copy can also be obtained by contacting us.
• Right of Access (Data Subject Access Request) – you can ask for copies of the information we hold about you. These requests can be in writing or verbally. If you ask to see your data, we will provide your information within one month of receipt of the request, after we have verified your identity.
• Right of rectification – if you think that our records hold inaccurate or incomplete information, you can ask for this to be corrected
• Right of erasure – you can ask for your personal information to deleted from our records, however this is not an absolute right. There may be reasons why we are unable to delete some or all of your information.
• Right to restrict processing – you have the right to ask us to stop processing your personal data. This is not an absolute right.
• Right to object to processing – You have the right to object to the processing of your personal information in certain circumstances
More information is available about your rights on the ICO website:
www.ico.org.uk/your-data-matters/
If you wish to exercise any of the above rights, please contact us in one of the following ways:
Email: support@safersteps.uk
Post: Safer Steps, PO Box 420, Leeds LS14 6FD
Via the Contact Us form on our website: www.safersteps.uk
7. Cookies and our website
Cookies are small text files that are placed on your computer by websites that you visit. They are widely used in order to make websites work, or work more efficiently, as well as to provide information to the owners of the site.
We use traffic log cookies to identify which pages on the website are being used. This helps us analyse data about web page traffic and improve our website and we need to use it for statistical analytical purposes and then the data is removed from the system.
Most web browsers allow some control of most cookies and this is done through the internet browser settings. To find out more about cookies, visit www.aboutcookies.org or
www.allaboutcookies.org.
Our website may contain links to other websites which may be of use to you. This privacy notice only applies to this website so when you link to another website, you should also read their own privacy notices.
8. How to contact us
If you have any concerns or worries about how your personal data is being processed by us, please contact us via email to: support@safersteps.uk
or by writing to us at the following address:
Data Protection Enquiry
Safer Steps
PO Box 420
LEEDS
LS14 9JX
9. Further information & how to complain
If you would like to get independent advice about data protection, data sharing issues or privacy, or complain about how we process your data, you can contact the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO):
Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
Tel: 0303 123 1113
ICO Website: ico.org.uk
Date approved: Jan 2026
Review Date: Jan 2029