Privacy Policy
The Centre for Africa's Forests Research, Engagement and Collaboration (CAFOREC) takes your privacy seriously. We place a high priority on protecting your privacy, and we are committed to protecting your personal information.
This privacy policy (the "Privacy Policy") describes how we handle the information you give us, and how we collect and use your information. The privacy policy applies to programs and services that we provide as well as your use of our website, apps or platforms, including any other services that are linked to or refer to the privacy policy (for example, programs, services, data, downloads or products).
Having said that, a privacy policy is a statement that discloses some or all of the ways a website collects, uses, discloses, processes, and manages the data of its visitors and customers. It usually also includes a statement regarding the website’s commitment to protecting its visitors’ or customers’ privacy, and an explanation about the different mechanisms the website is implementing in order to protect privacy.
Information we collect and how we use it
Personal information:
The Centre for Africa's Forest Research, Engagement and Collaboration (CAFOREC) collects and securely stores personal information that you provide directly to us. We may also collect personal information provided to us by your organisation, our business partners, donors or our suppliers. This personal information may include names, contact address, telephone number, email address, location and/or date of birth (when and if appropriate) as a need to satisfy the expectations and requirements of our users. We collect your information only in connection to specific tasks and activities such as email subscription, feedback forms, donations, fundraising campaigns, newsletter subscriptions etc. We do not keep credit card details.
When you contact us, for instance, by email or filling out a form on our website such as our email or newsletter subscription, you may give us your personal information such as your name, telephone number, email address, physical address, and/or other demographic information. This information is protected. Equally, when you donate funds or support us online, you give us your billing information such as credit card data ( which we do not keep) or when you contact us online, for instance, through social media pages, we may collect and process personal information about you to use for data analysis. You don't have to disclose any of this information if you do not wish to. We keep a record of the donations and a log of the amounts and dates of your financial support for our own financial auditing and records.
Non-personal information:
Our website does not automatically recognise your email address. For those of you who visit our website, our webserver may automatically recognise the visitor's domain name (IP address), but does not automatically recognise your email address. The information we collect helps us generate broader demographic statistics on who visits the sites, which pages they visited and for how long. This general information helps us to analyse how individuals or organisations use our site, how many people visit often and for how long. Also, for us to look at which pages are popular or pages that are least popular. What your information does not do, is tell us anything about who you are. All it does is, allow us to monitor, analyse and improve our site and services.
Cookies:
Like all websites, we store anonymised data on visits to our site in server log files. They contain IP addresses of machines (computers) used to access this site and its web pages.
We use Google Analytics to collect general information about how visitors use this site. We do this to improve the site and to understand how we could do it better. However, Google Analytics stores information about what page you visit, how long you stay on a page, how long you spend on the site, what you click on and how you got to the site. Generally, we do not collect or store your personal information (example, your address or name). Hence, the information can not be used to identify who you are. Moreover, we do not allow Google to use or share our Google Analytics data.
So, our cookies are not here to personally identify you but are used to make the website better for you and for all. You can also manage and delete these as you wish if you don't want to accept them.
Information and Accuracy:
The accuracy of users' personal details is governed by the accuracy of the information users provide. We do not verify personal information. The Centre for Africa’s Forests Research, Engagement and Collaboration is not responsible for errors or problems that arise as a result of inaccurate information provided by the user.
Under 18s:
If you are under 18, be sure to obtain your parents' or guardians' permission before you send any personal information about yourself. This includes names, contact address, email address for instance, to the Centre for Africa’s Forests Research, Engagement and Collaboration or any of our staff over the internet. We value children’s privacy and encourage parents to get involved with their children's use of the internet. Better still, to be vigilant and aware of the activities in which their children are participating.
Where will your information be held?
The Centre for Africa’s Forests Research, Engagement and Collaboration will use the data you have supplied to contact you in the future with updates on our work, administrative queries, donor and fundraising appeals. The Centre for Africa’s Forests Research, Engagement and Collaboration will only contact you if you have given explicit consent.
Our aim, is to ensure full compliance with the requirements of the Data Protection Act 1998. This Act sets conditions for holding or using personal data. Personal data are data that relate to a living individual. This Act protects individuals if they can be identified from such data or from the data and certain other information.
The Act also covers personnel records and applies both to computerised information and to information held on paper, provided that the information is held in a filing system organised by reference to individuals or in such a way that information about individuals is easy to find.
Under the principles set out in the Act, your personal data will only be used for purposes deemed relevant to the work of the Centre for Africa’s Forests Research, Engagement and Collaboration. Personal information will only be disclosed to relevant members of the Centre’s staff and third parties where the Centre for Africa’s Forests Research, Engagement and Collaboration has control of the data and how this data is used and stored.
Your data will be stored securely and confidentially on our database. Only specific staff assigned by the Centre for Africa’s Forests Research, Engagement and Collaboration can access this database and these staff members will ensure that your personal data is handled with care, privacy and sensitivity.
Third parties and sharing of information
Generally speaking, a Privacy Policy often addresses these types of issues: the types of information the website is collecting and the manner in which it collects the data; an explanation about why the website is collecting these types of information; what are the website’s practices on sharing the information with third parties; ways in which visitors and customers can exercise their rights according to the relevant privacy policy as well as the specific practices regarding minors’ data collection; and much more.
The information we gather is not sold, given to, or otherwise shared with other organisations for commercial and/or any other purposes. A very limited amount of personal data is stored on a secure external server to which limited access is permitted to specific staff. The data are used solely for email correspondence by the Centre for Africa’s Forests Research, Engagement and Collaboration. We may also share and publish aggregate statistics, none of which include personal identification of data.
If you have any questions about this privacy policy, or you need more information on a specific issue, please use our contact form to get in touch.