Privacy Policy

We are committed to protecting your privacy and will only use the information that we collect about you lawfully. This privacy notice is intended to give you an understanding of how and why we use the information you give us. 

Our website www.light-en.org, or any related website incorporating the subdomain www.light-en.org, are owned and operated by LightEn Education Network (“LightEn”, “we”, “us”). We are a charitable incorporated organisation registered in England and Wales under charity number: 1198876 and have our registered office at 7 Clifford Street, London W1S 2FT, UK 

You may contact our Data Protection Officer at any time about your data privacy matters. If you have any questions about this privacy notice you can contact dpo@light-en.org. 

We may update this policy from time to time without notice to you, so please check it regularly. 

We may collect information from you in the following ways when: 

• you visit our website 
• you contact us in relation to volunteering for us 
• you share your experience of LightEn 
• you attend a LightEn event 
• you apply for a job with us or volunteer with us or provide services via an agency or provide consultancy services directly to us 
• you register an account on our website 
• you contact us with enquiries or other correspondence (including via social media) or become involved with us in another way and indicate you would like to hear more from us. 

If you interact with us in one of the ways listed above, we may collect and process personal information about you such as: 

• details of your visit to our website, including your IP address 
• your name, address, email address, telephone number, your age or the corporate entity you represent 
• information you enter onto our website or in hard copy form at an event 
• records of your correspondence with us if you have contacted us 
• financial information such as your bank details 
• whether you have a relationship to one of our grantees or partners. 
• We may also collect sensitive personal information about you, such as details about a health condition or disability, where it will mean we can communicate with you appropriately in the future. We may also collect this information if you plan to attend an event.  

When your political affiliation or religious beliefs are of public knowledge, we may also record that information against your profile. If they are not in the public domain, we will only do so where we have your consent or drawn this specifically to your attention. 

When you attend an event or activity, we may take photographs and videos of you. Your image may be used in print and digital formats, including print publications, websites, film and social media. We will always inform you if photography or filming is being carried out by us at an event. Event participants have the right to decide whether their images are taken and how these may be used and stored by us. 

The Data Protection Act 2018 requires organisations to have a valid lawful basis in order to process personal data. Generally, LightEn will process your data on one or more of the following lawful bases: 

1. Where the processing of your personal data is necessary for the performance of a contract or legal agreement to which you are party, or where a contract forms the basis of your interaction with LightEn. 

2. Where you have provided your consent to us to use your personal data in a particular way. For example, in connection with your choices to receive marketing communications by email or text. We may seek your explicit consent for the processing of your data if you share sensitive personal data with us. 

3. Where the processing is necessary for the purpose of a legitimate interest pursued by us or a third party and your privacy rights do not override the legitimate interest. Our “legitimate interests” include pursuing the objectives of LightEn through our work to raise spiritual and moral consciousness. However, "legitimate interests" can also include your interests, such as when you have requested information from us, and those of third parties, such as our beneficiaries. 

For example, we rely on legitimate interests for activities, such as: sending marketing communications by post or telephone (unless you have told us that you would prefer not to hear from us in this way), contacting you as a representative of an organisation about a charity partnership or in order to organise an event, and analysing your interaction with us to improve our internal processes. 

From 5th February 2026, changes under the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 enable us to use a new ‘charitable purpose soft opt-in’. This change allows charities to send direct marketing electronic mail messages, such as emails and texts, to people who have expressed interest in or offered to support a charity without needing their prior consent for marketing providing they meet the necessary requirements.  

This change gives us more opportunities to keep in touch with our supporters. 

The change does not apply to people who are already on our existing databases.  

We will always offer an opportunity to opt out of marketing communications when your personal information is first collected and in every communication that we send to you. 

4. Where processing is necessary to comply with a legal obligation. For example, we may rely on this legal basis for processing your personal data in relation to HMRC obligations. 

5. Where processing is necessary in order to protect the vital interests of the data subject or of another natural person, such as in a medical emergency, for example, if someone is taken ill at one of our events. 

We will process your data for one or more of the following reasons: 

• To maintain our relationship with you and update you on the impact of your support to us. 
• To provide you with the services, activities or information you have indicated you are happy to receive or which you have asked for. 
• To comply with applicable laws and regulations, and requests from statutory agencies. 
• For internal administrative purposes and to keep a record of your relationship with us. 
• For the purposes of internal research to improve our effectiveness. 
• For marketing purposes, to provide you with information about us, our events, our services, and any other information, activities or services that we provide or provide access to, such as supporter updates. 
• To provide you with information about volunteering opportunities. 
• To invite you to attend an event. 
• To manage your communication preferences with us. 
• To provide you with information about services we feel may interest you. 
• To notify you about changes to our service or fundraising opportunities. 
• To undertake appropriate due diligence on the individuals and organisations we work with.  

Where the law allows us to do so and to improve the quality and accuracy of the information you have provided to us, we regularly check the accuracy of the data we already hold about you (such as your telephone number, email address or address) against external data lists which are in the public domain (for example the Royal Mail). We may also use third parties to check this on our behalf. If we obtain updated details, we will combine this with the information we currently hold about you. 

We may use unautomated profiling and screening techniques to analyse your personal information and create a profile about you, your interests and preferences from publicly available information. The types of information collected about you from the public domain may include: 

• your age 
• your qualifications 
• your trusteeships and the type of charity of which you are a trustee and your company directorships 
• your primary business organisation. 

LightEn has appropriate physical, technical and procedural safeguards in place in relation to the storage of data. 

Information about you will usually be stored in the United Kingdom or the European Economic Area (EEA). In cases where we need to store data outside the EEA, we will use reasonable endeavours to ensure the recipient of the data implements GDPR-compliant measures to protect your information. 

Online payment transactions will be encrypted. Where we have given you (or where you have chosen) a password which enables you to access certain parts of our site, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential. We ask you not to share a password with anyone. 

The transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure (though note that online payment transactions are securely encrypted). Although we will do our best to protect your personal data, we cannot guarantee the security of your data transmitted to our site; any transmission is at your own risk. Once we have received your information, we will use strict procedures and security features to try to prevent unauthorised access. 

We will process and retain your data only for as long as is reasonable and necessary in line with our data retention policy. In determining the duration, we will follow legal and regulatory guidelines. If you withdraw your permission for us to keep your personal data, please be aware that we will inform you if we are unable to do so due to overriding legal obligations. 

We may allow our staff, consultants and/or external providers acting on our behalf to access and use your information for the purposes for which you have provided it to us.  We will only provide them with the information they need to deliver the relevant service. We will ensure your information is transferred securely and treated with the same diligence as if we were handling it directly. 

We do not sell your data to third parties. In other cases, we will not share your personal data with third parties except in accordance with this privacy notice or where we have your permission. 

We may disclose your information to other organisations and agencies if we are under a duty to disclose or share it to comply with any legal obligation, or to enforce or apply any agreements; or to protect the rights, property or safety of us or others. 

In accordance with our Safeguarding Policy and our commitment to protect vulnerable children from all forms of exploitation and abuse, we may share details, including personal data, relating to serious breaches of our Safeguarding Policy and Procedures with statutory authorities such as the police, the National Crime Agency (NCA), the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Agency (CEOP) and the Charity Commission. 

We may need to disclose your information to other LightEn offices in some circumstances with your consent. LightEn operates in multiple countries. For example, if attend an event in the UK, or are involved in some other LightEn activity that involves a personal link to our overseas programmes, elements of your personal data necessary to fulfil the activity will be shared with relevant LightEn offices in that country in accordance with this policy. We will only share your details with another LightEn office in accordance with data protection laws and regulations and where we have your consent to do so. 

Other LightEn locations may legally be obliged to share data in accordance with their relevant domestic legislation and potential law enforcement requirements. 

We take your data rights seriously. The General Data Protection Regulation gives you the following rights: 

• You have the right to be informed about the collection and use of your data. 
• You can request a copy of the information that we hold about you. 
• If the data that we hold about you is inaccurate or incomplete, you can ask to have it corrected. 
• You can ask for the data we hold about you to be erased from our records. 
• You can ask us to restrict processing of your data where certain conditions apply. 
• You can ask to have the data we hold about you transferred to another organisation. 
• You can object to certain types of processing such as direct marketing. 
• We do not carry out automated decision making and profiling. 

You can exercise your data protection rights in the following way: 

Send an email to our Data Protection Officer at dpo@light-en.org. 

Instructions for unsubscribing from emails are included in each email we send. 

If you are unhappy with the way we have processed your personal data, please contact our Data Protection Officer. If you remain unhappy with how your complaint is dealt with you should contact the Information Commissioner’s Office (https://ico.org.uk). You are entitled to make a complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office without first referring your complaint to us.