How we handle your information

Who is responsible for your information

The Halite & Ember Foundation is responsible for the information you give us. Your application is never shared with any organisation other than those listed under “Who sees it” below.

You can reach us about anything in this notice at hello@haliteandemberfoundation.org. It is the only address we use. We will reply within thirty days.

What we collect

Everything we hold about you comes from the application form for the programme you apply to, or from you directly if you write to us. We do not buy information about you and we do not collect it from anywhere else.

What our application forms ask for

Each form asks only for what its programme needs, so not every form asks for all of the following.

• Your full name and your date of birth.
• Where you live.
• Your phone number, including your WhatsApp number if it differs, and your email address if you choose to give one.
• Whether you already hold a place on another programme we fund.
• Which programme or pathway you want to take, and whether you already have an account with the partner that delivers it.
• What device you will use, and whether you can commit the time the programme asks for.
• Your answers to the written questions on the form.
• How you heard about us.
• Your confirmation that your answers are true and that you agree to us using them to decide your application.

If you would rather speak than write, you can send a voice note by WhatsApp instead of typing your answers. If you do, we hold that recording alongside your application and delete it at the same time.

What we do not ask, and never take into account

We do not ask about your religion, and we never select, prefer, exclude or assess anyone by reference to it. That is written into the Foundation’s Founding Charter and it is not a matter of policy that can be quietly changed. If you tell us you heard about us through a religious organisation, that tells us where to advertise and nothing more, and it plays no part in any decision.

Why we use it, and our legal basis for doing so

• To decide who receives an award. We rely on your consent, which you give with the confirmation at the end of the form. You can withdraw it at any time, though if you withdraw it before we decide, we cannot consider your application.
• To contact you about your application. Every applicant gets a reply, successful or not. We use your phone number, or your email address if you gave one.
• To arrange your programme if you are selected. We use your name, contact details and programme choice to enrol you with the partner that delivers it.
• To keep an honest record of how we decided. The Founding Charter binds the Foundation to record the reasoning and outcome of every funding decision it makes. We rely on our legitimate interest in being accountable for money we have given away.
• To prevent fraud and impersonation. People pretending to represent funders is a real problem, and we rely on our legitimate interest in protecting applicants from it.

Who sees it

• The people at the Foundation who assess applications. Nobody else at the Foundation sees them.
• Our delivery partners, but only if you are selected, and only the details needed to enrol you. Applications that are not selected are never sent to a partner.
• Google, which provides our forms, the spreadsheets your answers are stored in, and our email. Google processes the information on our instructions and not for its own purposes.
• WhatsApp, if you choose to send a voice note.

We do not sell your information. We do not share it for advertising. We do not publish it. If we ever want to tell your story publicly, we will ask you first, by name, and you are free to say no. The Charter forbids us from presenting the people we support in a way that trades their dignity for our reputation.

Where your information is held

We are based in the United Kingdom, and many of the people who apply to us live elsewhere, including in Nigeria, so your information may travel between countries. It is stored on Google’s infrastructure, which may hold it in the European Union, the United Kingdom or the United States. We rely on the transfer arrangements the United Kingdom recognises for this purpose, together with the contract terms Google offers its customers.

We are subject to the United Kingdom’s data protection law. If you are in Nigeria, the Nigeria Data Protection Act 2023 also applies, and this notice is written to meet both.

How long we keep it

• If you are not selected, we delete your application within six months of the application round closing.
• If you are selected, we keep your application for the length of your programme and then for six years, because we have to be able to account for money we have spent.
• The record of the decision itself is kept permanently, as the Charter requires. We reduce it to the decision, the reasoning and the outcome, and we do not keep your full application or your contact details in it.
• Voice notes are deleted at the same time as the written application they belong to.
• If you are younger than a programme allows, we will not use your application to decide it, we will delete it within thirty days, and we will not keep your details to contact you about future rounds.

Your rights

You can ask us to do any of the following, free of charge, and we will do it within thirty days.

• Tell you what we hold about you, and give you a copy.
• Correct anything that is wrong.
• Delete what we hold. If you ask before the decision, we cannot consider your application.
• Stop using it, or restrict what we do with it.
• Withdraw the consent you gave on the form.
• Give you your answers in a portable form, so you can reuse them elsewhere.

Write to hello@haliteandemberfoundation.org and say what you want. You do not need to explain why, and asking will never affect how your application is judged.

There is no automated decision making. Every application is read by a person.

If you are unhappy with us

Tell us first, at hello@haliteandemberfoundation.org, and we will try to put it right. You do not have to come to us first, though, and you can complain directly to a regulator.

In Nigeria, that is the Nigeria Data Protection Commission. In the United Kingdom, it is the Information Commissioner’s Office, at ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint.

Changes to this notice

If we change how we handle your information, we will update this page and change the date at the top. If the change is significant and affects an application we already hold, we will contact you about it.

When the Foundation completes its charity registration, we will update this page and say so plainly.