This privacy notice explains how United Voices of the World (UVW) collects and processes your personal and sensitive data. It will be updated at intervals to ensure compliance with legislation such as the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

UVW complies with its obligation under relevant legislations by keeping personal data up to date; by secure storage and destruction; by not collecting or retaining excessive amounts of data; by protecting personal data from loss, misuse, unauthorised access and disclosure and by ensuring that appropriate technical measures are in place to protect personal and sensitive data.

Your membership agreement with the Union means that we are authorised to process data that is legally regarded as ‘sensitive’. Under the GDPR, we must always have a lawful basis for using personal data. This may be because the data is necessary for our performance of a contract with you, because you have consented to our use of your personal data, or because it is in our legitimate business interests to use it.

The lawful basis for UVW processing your data is that it is necessary for the purposes of our legitimate activities as a trade union. We collect and use your data to deliver services and support to you; to manage your membership, including subscription administration; and to develop and assist with union-based activities related to UVW operations.

Your data is used for the following purposes: processing your subscription payments, maintenance of records, implementing the Union’s policies, assisting with employment disputes, sending you statutory communications, ensuring you can vote in elections and ballots, group insurance claims, injury claims and casework. It also includes communication regarding activities in relation to negotiation, representation, and the internal democracy of UVW.

We are committed to protecting the data you have provided and respecting your rights and privacy in line with current legislations. Subject to appropriate internal authorisations, some of your data will be available to UVW employees, workplace representatives and others formally instructed by UVW for the purposes of carrying out trade union duties as necessary for the performance of our contract with you.

Sharing your data with third parties

Legislation requires that ballots are administered by an independent scrutineer. The UVW employs the Electoral Reforms Service (ERS) and Popularis to despatch ballot papers, and process returned papers. We therefore provide the independent scrutineer with personal data including your name and address to enable them to do this.

We are legally obliged to inform the employer about any members who will be taking industrial action. By law this is limited to the number of employees taking action. We will not provide the employer with names and contact details.

We collect and store information when you contact the Union for advice and support in relation to legal and employment rights by telephone, email or post. Such information is subject to restricted access and is kept in secure ‘casework files’. When providing legal support, we may be required to share relevant information with appointed legal counsels, the employer, ACAS, and the relevant tribunal or court. Data sharing is subject to additional security measures including password protection and encryption.

We will only keep your personal data for as long as is necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, auditing, or reporting requirements.

At the end of the retention period, data that is required for research or statistical purposes will either be archived to restrict access, or anonymised so that it can no longer be associated with any person.

The use of personal data for the purposes of membership correspondence relating to a member’s membership record and subscriptions is limited to ensure that only relevant data for the correspondence is used.

We retain Membership data for the duration of your membership. If membership is ceased, a subset of your membership record will be archived ‘beyond use’ and will not be included in any processing resulting in decisions about you, save being used to identify you resuming membership.

Casework data is retained for 7 years after the closure of the case in case of legal claims or complaints.