Privacy Policy

Who we are

Venezuelan Relief UK is a Charitable Incorporated Organisation registered with the Charity Commission for England and Wales, charity number 1218988. Our registered address is 5 Wadsworth Road, Perivale, London, UB6 7JD.

We are the data controller for the personal information described in this policy. That means we decide what information is collected and why, and we are responsible for looking after it.

We were established to provide emergency relief to communities affected by natural disasters. Our current operation supports people affected by the June 2026 earthquakes in Venezuela.

If you have any question about this policy, or about information we hold about you, please contact us at info@venezuelanreliefuk.org.

The short version

• If you message our WhatsApp number, your message is read and answered by an AI assistant, and a trustee may read the conversation.
• If you volunteer with us, we hold your contact details and a record of the work you log.
• We do not sell your information to anyone, ever.
• You can ask us what we hold about you, and ask us to delete it.

The rest of this policy sets that out in full.

When you message us on WhatsApp

Our WhatsApp number is +44 300 302 0492.

What we collect. Your phone number, the name shown on your WhatsApp profile, and the content of the messages you send us.

Who reads it. Messages are read and answered by an automated assistant called Aurora. Aurora is an AI, not a person, and says so at the start of a conversation. If you ask to speak to someone, or if Aurora judges that your message needs a human, the conversation is passed to our trustees, who will read it in full and may contact you.

How it is processed. To write a reply, the content of your conversation is sent to Anthropic, the company that provides the AI model we use. Anthropic processes it on our instructions in order to generate a response, and does not use it to train their models. Messages are also handled by Meta, who operate WhatsApp.

Why we do this. So that people can reach us at any hour and get an accurate answer about donating, volunteering, or our work, and so that anyone who needs a person can be put in touch with one quickly. Our lawful basis is legitimate interests: running a responsive charity helpline. You can object at any time by telling us so in the conversation.

How long we keep it. Twelve months from your last message, after which the conversation and its contents are deleted automatically.

Conversations involving a safeguarding concern. Where a conversation is escalated by our team on safeguarding grounds — meaning a risk of harm to a child or to an adult at risk — we retain it for seven years from the date of escalation. Where the person concerned is, or may be, a child, we retain it until their 25th birthday or for seven years, whichever is later.

We do this because we may need to account for our response to a regulator, the police or a local authority, and because destroying such a record could prejudice a later investigation. Our lawful basis is legitimate interests, and where the record includes special category data, Article 9(2)(b) UK GDPR together with Schedule 1 Part 2 of the Data Protection Act 2018.

Retention on these grounds is decided by a trustee, recorded with the reason, and reviewed annually. The record is deleted at the end of that period unless a specific continuing reason is documented at the time of review.

When you use the contact form on our website

What we collect. Your name, email address, and the message you write.

Why. To answer you. Our lawful basis is legitimate interests.

Who else sees it. The message is sent to us by email using Brevo, our email provider.

How long. Twelve months, unless your enquiry becomes an ongoing matter, in which case we keep it while that continues.

When you volunteer or become a trustee

What we collect. Your name, email address, telephone number, the organisation or collection point you are associated with, and a record of your activity in our system — the boxes you pack, the items you log, photographs you upload, and the times you sign in. We store your password only as an encrypted hash, never as readable text.

Why. Because we cannot run a distributed collection operation, or account to the Charity Commission for what we have shipped, without knowing who did what. Our lawful basis is legitimate interests, and for trustees, our obligations under charity law.

Who sees it. Our administrators and trustees. Nobody outside the charity.

How long. For as long as you are involved with us, and for six years afterwards, which is the period we are expected to keep charity records.

When you use our mobile app

What we collect. If you sign in as a volunteer or trustee: your name, email address, photographs you take of donated goods, and a device identifier used to send you notifications.

If you use the app without signing in — to see collection points, news or our impact figures — we do not collect anything about you. A device identifier may be stored if you turn on notifications, and it is not linked to any person.

Why. To let volunteers log donations from a phone, and to notify the team about things that need attention. Our lawful basis is legitimate interests.

How long. As above for volunteer accounts. Notification identifiers are deleted when you sign out or uninstall.

When you interact with us on Instagram

Our Instagram account is @venezuelanreliefuk. If you comment on our posts or send us a message there, Meta collects that information under their own privacy policy, and we can see it. We may respond, and we may keep a record of the exchange for our own reference.

Photographs

We photograph donated goods, collection points and volunteers at work, and we publish some of these on our website, in our app, and on social media.

We do not publish photographs of people who have not agreed to it. If you appear in a photograph we have published and would like it removed, email info@venezuelanreliefuk.org and we will take it down.

We do not publish photographs that identify individual people receiving aid.

Who we share information with

We do not sell, rent, or trade your personal information. We never will.

We use the following organisations to provide our services. Each of them processes information on our instructions and is bound to protect it.

• Hostinger — hosts our website, our systems and our database (European Union)
• Anthropic — provides the AI model that writes WhatsApp replies and drafts our social media posts (United States)
• Meta Platforms — operates WhatsApp and Instagram, through which we communicate (United States and Ireland)
• Brevo — sends our emails (European Union)
• Google — delivers notifications to Android phones, and distributes our Android app (United States)
• Apple — delivers notifications to iPhones, and distributes our iOS app (United States and Ireland)

Some of these organisations are based outside the United Kingdom. Where information is transferred outside the UK, it is protected by the safeguards required under UK data protection law, such as the International Data Transfer Agreement or an adequacy decision.

We share information with our partner organisation in Venezuela, Coromoto 2020, only in the form of shipping manifests describing what goods are being sent. These contain no personal information about donors, volunteers, or anyone in the UK.

We will disclose information where the law requires it, or where there is a serious risk to someone's safety.

Cookies

Our website does not use tracking or analytics cookies, and does not profile visitors. Our systems use a small number of strictly necessary cookies to keep volunteers signed in. If this changes, we will update this section.

Your rights

Under the UK General Data Protection Regulation and the Data Protection Act 2018, you have the right to:

• Ask what we hold about you, and get a copy of it
• Have it corrected if it is wrong
• Have it deleted, where we have no continuing reason to keep it
• Object to how we use it, including our use of AI to answer messages
• Ask us to restrict what we do with it while a concern is resolved
• Receive it in a portable format, where it was provided by you
• Withdraw consent at any time, where we relied on consent

To exercise any of these, email info@venezuelanreliefuk.org. We will respond within one month.

If you are unhappy with how we have handled your information, you can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office at ico.org.uk, or on 0303 123 1113. We would rather you told us first, so we can put it right.

Children

Our services are intended for adults. We do not knowingly collect information about children. If you believe we hold information about a child, please tell us and we will delete it.

Changes to this policy

We will update this policy when what we do changes. The date at the top of the page shows when it was last revised. Where a change materially affects you, we will make that clear rather than quietly amending the text.