Privacy notice for the Learning Disability Helpline

This privacy notice was updated on 1 February 2023.

Controller of personal information

We are the Learning Disability Helpline covering England and Northern Ireland.

We are part of Royal Mencap Society, which is a registered charity. We are also registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office as a Data Controller (registration number Z5709720) under the Data protection Act 2018.

The Learning Disability Helpline is located at 6 Cyrus Way, Hampton, Peterborough PE7 8HP in England and Mencap Centre, 5 School Road, Belfast, BT8 6BT in Northern Ireland.

If you have any questions about this privacy notice, do not hesitate to contact our Data Protection Officer at DPO@mencap.org.uk.

Within the context of this privacy notice, ‘we’, ‘us’, ‘our’ refers to the Learning Disability Helpline.

Why and how we collect your personal information

If you contact the Learning Disability Helpline, your telephone number area code will be collected, used and stored with a third party named Call Handling, which helps direct your call to the right helpline. This will be done using the Legitimate Interest basis under the Data Protection Act 2018.

Once you speak with any employee of the Learning Disability Helpline, your details will be stored within our Customer Record System, so that we can keep track of the advice you need from us. The same thing will be done if you contact us via email.

The table below will give you an idea of how we use your information and for how long.

Type of information	Why do we need this information	How long we keep this information for	Lawful basis for requesting this information
Name	To contact you and to ensure that, when you recontact us, we are talking to you and no-one else.	7 years from the closure of your case	Legitimate interest and to protect against legal claims
Address and postcode	To contact you, and to report on the areas we get calls from (this would not contain your name or other information)		Legitimate interest and to protect against legal claims
Telephone number	To contact you		Legitimate interest
Telephone area code	For call handling to direct your call to the right region
Email address	To contact you
Age	To ensure that we give age appropriate advice, and for reporting purposes (this would not contain other information, and your name or identifying data will never be in our reports)		Legitimate interest and legal reasons
Your local authority	To ensure we give you the correct advice, and for reporting purposes (this would not contain other information or , and your name or identifying data will never be in our reports)		Legitimate interest
Type of disability	To ensure that we give you advice in a way that fits you, and for reporting purposes (this would not contain other information, and your name or identifying data will never be in our reports)		Legitimate interest and relevant GDPR Article 9 conditions
Type of issue you are contacting us about	For reporting purposes, so that we can organise a campaign if we see a surge in a specific issue. (This would not contain any other information, and your name or identifying data will never be in our reports), unless you have given us explicit consent to share your personal details with the campaigns or media departments.		Legitimate interest
Your feedback to us	To improve our service and to encourage our team, and for reporting purposes (this would not contain other information, and your name or identifying data will never be in our reports).		Legitimate interest
Case details	To help you with your query, to keep track of the advice we give you and to properly record what referrals you consented to, and any interactions with third parties that you have consented to using Forms of Authority.		Legitimate interest, legal requirement and appropriate GDPR Section 9 criteria for the processing of special category data
Your funding authority	In cases where you are having issues with your funding authority, we will report on themes and trends. (This would not contain other information, and your name or identifying data will never be in our reports).
Your ethnicity	To tell whether our services are reaching every member of our community, to inform us of what resources we need to create and offer, so that we can effectively help as many people as possible. For reporting purposes (this would not contain other information, and your name or identifying data will never be in our reports) You can refuse to give this information if you do want to share it with us.		Legitimate interest, and appropriate GDPR Section 9 criteria for the processing of special category data.
Your gender	To tell whether our services are reaching every member of our community, to inform us of what resources we need to create and offer, so that we can effectively help as many people as possible. For reporting purposes (this would not contain other information, and your name or identifying data will never be in our reports) You can refuse to give this information if you do want to share it with us.		Legitimate interest, and appropriate GDPR Section 9 criteria for the processing of special category data.
Your marital status and household data	So that we can properly advise on elements of housing, benefits, or money matters where your household, and the relationships of people in your household, have a bearing on the advice we give. For reporting purposes (this would not contain other information, and your name or identifying data will never be in our reports) You can refuse to give this information if you do want to share it with us.		Legitimate interest, and appropriate GDPR Section 9 criteria for the processing of special category data.
Information about your finances	So that we can properly advise on elements of benefit entitlement, care charges and cost of living issues, where your income and savings have a bearing on the advice that we give. For reporting purposes (this would not contain other information and your name and identifying data will never be in our reports) You can refuse to give this information if you do not want to share it with us.		Legitimate interest, and appropriate GDPR Section 9 criteria for the processing of special category data.

Why are we not asking for your consent to store and use your information?

Under the GDPR and UK Data Protection Act 2018, consent is only valid if it is not seen as ‘coerced’, and you still obtain the same service without giving your consent for us to store and use your information.

However, because of legal requirements surrounding helpline work, legal claims and insurance, we cannot provide the same level of service or depth of information if you refuse to give us your information.

Therefore, the consent obtained would not be valid.

However, Legitimate Interest is a valid reason to collect, use, and store your information. If you want to see the Legitimate Interest Assessment , please contact DPO@mencap.org.uk.

What does this mean for me?

In practice, it means you can refuse to give us the information we require. If you want to stay anonymous, you can.

You will not receive the same depth of information than if you had given us your details, but because we are not using consent as a reason to collect the details in the first place, then the Learning Disability Helpline will not be breaking the Data Protection Law .

Who we might share your information with and why

Internally, we will share your anonymized information (this means that your name and precise address and contact details would not be shared) with Mencap’s policy team and campaigns team, so that Mencap can coordinate a campaign or other influential work if we notice a large number of the same issue occurring.

We will also share this information with our fundraising team, so that they can also design a fundraising campaign to assist with the costs of doing this. This would be done on a Legitimate Interest Basis.
Your case could also be used as a case study with Mencap’s campaigns, fundraising and/or marketing teams. That would only be done with your consent.

We may share your case details and information with internal or external auditors, including quality auditors. This would be done on a Legitimate Interest Basis.

Externally, we will share your information with your consent, with other organisations who might be able to help you. We will make you complete a short form for this.

If you do not consent, we will give you the contact details of these organisations so you can contact them yourself, so you are not at a disadvantage.

If we are concerned about your welfare or safety, we are obligated by law to let the appropriate authorities know of this.

We will never sell your details to third parties. The Learning Disability Helpline will not contact you about marketing and fundraising activities without your consent.

How we keep your personal information safe and who has access to it

Your information is kept safe within Mencap’s IT environment, which is password protected and only accessible to Mencap.

The Customer Record System and voicemail systems are only accessible to Learning Disability Helpline employees.

Your rights

You have rights in regard to the information we hold about you. You have the right to:

ask to see a copy of the information we have about you. You can do this by completing our request form and you will need one piece of ID to complete the form.
revoke your consent at any time by contacting the Learning Disability Helpline
lodge complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office if you are not satisfied with how we treat your personal information
object to your information being used in a certain way
request the erasure of the information we hold about you.

To exercise any of these rights, or if you have any question or complaint, please contact the Learning Disability Helpline and the Data Protection Officer at DPO@mencap.org.uk.

Easy read privacy notice

We've created an easy read version of our privacy notice for the Learning Disability Helpline in England and Northern Ireland.