Privacy Policy

Access Your Life Ltd is committed to protecting your privacy and will only process personal confidential data per the Data Protection Act 1998, the General Data Protection Regulation 2018, the Common Law Duty of Confidentiality, and the Human Rights Act 1998.

This privacy policy tells you about our responsibilities and how we take ownership of the data we hold and process about you. In collecting this data, we are acting as a data controller and, by law, we are required to provide you with information about us, about why and how we use your data, and about the rights you have over your data and the choices you can make about how we use it.

Access Your Life is a trusted source of information for people living with disabilities and their carers around the world. Our core purpose is to encourage users to share their experiences, to help those living in similar situations. Originally this was in the form of a wheelchair review, but we recently began incorporating all forms of medical equipment into our Directory of reviews.

We also have a communal blog where users are welcome to share their experiences, communicate with others, gain knowledge or seek advice. An equipment rehoming scheme, which allows users to buy, sell or donate their unwanted products to those in need; along with an equipment request service, which connects users with the services and distributors best suited to their individual needs. You can contact us via the details below:

Correspondence Address - Office 1 Ladysden Farm, Winchet Hill, Goudhurst, Kent, TN17 1JX, United Kingdom

Email - [email protected]

Telephone – 07787227778

We take a robust approach to ensure that the privacy of the data we hold, and the process is upheld securely and confidentially manner. We hold the minimum amount of data necessary for providing you with such services listed below.

Data Includes But May Not Be Limited To:

Identifiable - Name & Full Address.

Pseudonymised - Data Using Coded References

(Can identify you, but will not show your real identity.)

Anonymised - Data With Identifying Details Removed

Your data is used exclusively for the provision of the services we provide you with. For example - using your data to assess your physical needs, lifestyle and housing arrangements, so we can recommend the products and services best suited to your individual needs. Allowing us to provide you with the best service possible.

All Access Your Life employees, volunteers, directors, investors, suppliers, and business partners have a legal duty to keep your data confidential. All personal data will be recorded in ways that respect your rights and promote your health and wellbeing.

All identifiable data stored by Access Your Life will be held securely and confidentially using strict, administrative, and technical controls that only authorised staff can access.

There are only a limited number of authorised staff who have access to any data that identifies you, which they can only revert to on a strictly need-to-know basis and/or where it is appropriate or beneficial to their job role. Because of this, all of our employees and volunteers receive appropriate and ongoing training to ensure they are aware of the high responsibilities and contractual obligations surrounding data confidentiality.

We may be required to share data with suppliers and business partners associated with ordering and delivering the appropriate services and/or products you are looking to acquire. But to provide the best care and support for you, we will only share your data with contacts of this kind when necessary. However, this can only occur if we have your written, verbal or digital consent.

Please note, where there is a risk of harm to yourself or others, or where there is an overriding legal obligation to do so in the public interest, it may be necessary to share your data without your consent. All subcontractors must comply with our data protection policies and procedures. Any breaches are treated seriously and may, in certain cases, result in disciplinary action.

Your data will not be sent outside of the European Economic Area (EEA) where the laws do not protect your privacy to the same extent as the law in the UK. Unless you are an international website and need to refer to an organisation in your country of origin. In such circumstances, we will only share your data with these partners where necessary, to provide the best care and support for you; however, this will only occur if we have your consent.

We could sell, share or pass on personal data for marketing or insurance purposes. However, this will only occur if you have filled out one of our Equipment Request Forms. By completing and submitting one of these forms you have agreed to reading and understanding this policy and in turn, given AYL permission to share your data with the specific third parties in question. (For example, a recommended wheelchair supplier). Please note, this is only compatible with partners associated with delivering the appropriate services and/or products you are looking to acquire. You may also be required to give verbal or digital consent before we can hand over your details and requirement. For more information, please read our third-party policy.

Anonymised data from Product Reviews, Blog Posts, and Preloved Equipment Adverts could be sold for these purposes. In addition to being sold to research organisations to improve the products reviewed on our website and their knowledge surrounding their target market (people with disabilities and/or carers).

Finally, we may also share your Product Reviews with manufacturers, suppliers, and researchers to help improve the quality of future products or to help with medical research. We could also contact you and ask you if you would be interested in taking part in research projects, but we will only share your data with these partners where necessary, to provide the best care and support for you; however, again this will only occur if we have your consent.

We may disclose your information to third parties if we are under a duty to disclose or share personal data to comply with any legal obligations; to apply or enforce our terms of use; or terms and conditions of sale and other agreements; to protect the rights, property, and safety or our company, staff, customers or others.

When completing any of our online forms, we may amend your Product Reviews, Blog Posts, and Preloved Equipment Adverts where necessary. However, you will always be contacted for approval via email before publication. We will then share this content on the Access Your Life website, with any necessary third parties and social media promotions taking place; however, all other personal information will be protected.

Please see the PDF attached HERE for a copy of our retention schedule, which outlines how long we keep user information, where it is stored, when we will dispose of it.

We do not legally require your consent to use your data to provide services to you. However, you have certain legal rights, including:

• The right to have your data processed fairly and lawfully.
• The right to access any identifiable data we hold relating to you.
• The right to privacy and to expect Access Your Life to keep your data confidential and secure.
• The right to request that your confidential data is not used beyond your own care and treatment, in addition to having your objections considered.
• The right to refuse or withdraw consent to data sharing at any time. If there are any consequences to your withdrawal of consent, we will discuss the matter with you first.

If we hold identifiable data about you, and you have any queries about the data we hold, please contact the Access Your Life Team via the business details listed at the top of this policy.

Access Your Life aims to meet the highest standards when collecting and using personal data. We take any complaints we receive very seriously. If you think that our collection or use of data is unfair, misleading, or inappropriate, please contact us via the details above.

In order to monitor and evaluate the performance of our services, we may be required to share minimal data with our partners. In this instance, all data will be anonymised.

This website and its owners take a proactive approach to user privacy and ensure the necessary steps are taken to protect the privacy of its users throughout their visiting experience. This website complies with all UK national laws and requirements for user privacy.

About Our Cookie Policy:

This Cookie Policy explains what cookies are and how we use them. You should read this policy to understand what cookies are, how we use them, the information we collect using cookies and how that information is used, and how to control the cookie preferences. You can at any time change or withdraw your consent from the Cookie Declaration on our website.

What Are Cookies?

Cookies are small text files that are used to store small pieces of information. The cookies are stored on your device when the website is loaded on your browser. These cookies help us make the website function properly, make the website more secure, provide a better user experience, understand how the website performs, and analyse what works and where it needs improvement.

How Do Use Cookies?

As with most of the online services, our website uses first-party and third-party cookies for several purposes. The first-party cookies are mostly necessary for the website to function the right way, and they do not collect any of your personally identifiable data.

The third-party cookies used on our websites are used mainly for understanding how the website performs, how you interact with our website, keeping our services secure, providing advertisements that are relevant to you, and all in all providing you with a better and improved user experience to help speed up your future interactions with our website.

Essential:

Some cookies are essential for you to be able to experience the full functionality of our website. They allow us to maintain user sessions and prevent any security threats. They do not collect or store any personal information. For example, these cookies allow you to log in to your account securely.

Statistics:

These cookies store information like the number of visitors to the website, the number of unique visitors, which pages of the website have been visited, the source of the visit, etc. These data help us understand and analyse how well the website performs and where it needs improvement.

Marketing:

Our website tracks how many times you click on an advert.

Functional:

These are the cookies that help certain non-essential functionalities on our website. These functionalities include embedding content like videos or sharing content on the website on social media platforms.

Preferences:

These cookies help us store your settings and browsing preferences like language preferences so that you have a better, more efficient experience during future visits to the website.

How Can I Control The Cookie Preferences?

Should you decide to change your preferences at a later point during your browsing session, you can click on the “Privacy & Cookies” tab on your screen. This will display the consent notice again, enabling you to change your preferences, or withdraw your consent entirely.

In addition to this, different browsers provide different methods to block and delete cookies used by websites. You can alter your browser settings to block/delete the cookies.

Users contacting this website and/or its owners do so at their own discretion and provide any personal details at their own risk. Your personal information is kept private and stored securely until it is no longer required or has no use, as detailed in the Data Protection Act 1998. Every effort has been made to ensure a safe and secure form to the email submission process, but we advise users using such form to the email processes that they do so at their own risk.

This website and its owners use any information submitted to provide you with further information about the products and services they offer or to assist you in answering any questions or queries you may have submitted. This includes using your details to subscribe you to any email newsletter program the website operates, but only if this was made clear to you and your express permission was granted when submitting any form to the email process. Or whereby you the consumer have previously purchased from or enquired about, purchasing a product from the company or service that the email newsletter relates to. This is by no means an entire list of your user rights regarding receiving email marketing material. Your details are not passed on to any third parties unless it has been requested by yourself, or you have permitted us.

This website operates an email newsletter program, used to inform subscribers about products and services supplied by this website. Users can subscribe through an online automated process should they wish to do so but do so at their own discretion. Some subscriptions may be manually processed through a prior written agreement with the user.

Subscriptions are taken in compliance with UK Spam Laws detailed in the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003. All personal details relating to subscriptions are held securely under the Data Protection Act 1998. No personal details are passed on to third parties or shared with companies or people outside Access Your Life. Under the Data Protection Act 1998, you may request a copy of personal information held about you by this website’s email newsletter program. A small fee will be payable. If you would like a copy of the information held on you, please write to the business address listed at the top of this policy.

Email marketing campaigns published by this website or its owners may contain tracking facilities within the actual email. Subscriber activity is tracked and stored in a database for future analysis and evaluation. Such tracked activity may include the opening of emails, forwarding of emails, the clicking of links within the email content, times, dates, and frequency of activity [this is by far not a comprehensive list]. This information is used to refine future email campaigns and supply the user with more relevant content based on their activity.

In compliance with UK Spam Laws and the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003, subscribers are allowed to unsubscribe at any time by replying “unsubscribe” to the email they receive. This process is detailed at the footer of each email campaign.

Although this website only looks to include quality, safe and relevant external links, users are advised to adopt a policy of caution before clicking any external web links mentioned throughout this website. All external links are clickable via text, banner, or image hyperlinks to other websites. 

Despite their best efforts, the owners of this website cannot guarantee or verify the contents of any external links. Users should therefore note that they click on external links at their own risk and that this website and its owners cannot be held liable for any damages or implications caused by visiting any external links listed or mentioned.

This website may contain sponsored links and adverts. These will typically be served through our advertising partners, who may have detailed privacy policies relating directly to the adverts they serve.

Clicking on such adverts will send you to the advertiser’s website via a referral program, which may use cookies and will track the number of referrals sent from this website. This may include the use of cookies, which in turn may be saved on your computer’s hard drive. Users should therefore note that they click on sponsored external links at their own risk and this website, and its owners cannot be held liable for any damages or implications caused by visiting any external links listed or mentioned.

Communication, engagement and actions taken through external social media platforms that this website and its owners participate in, are custom to the terms and conditions as well as the privacy policies held with each social media platform respectively.

Users are advised to use social media platforms wisely and communicate/engage with them with due care and caution concerning their own privacy and personal details. This website or its owners will only ask for personal or sensitive information through social media platforms if it’s requested as the easiest form of communication for the user. However, normally we encourage users wishing to discuss sensitive details to contact them through primary communication channels such as by telephone or email.

This website may use social sharing buttons designed to help share web content directly from web pages to the social media platform in question. Users are advised before using such social sharing buttons to do so at their own discretion and note that the social media platform may track and save your request to share a web page respectively through your social media platform account.

This website and its owners through their social media platform accounts may share web links to relevant web pages. By default, some social media platforms shorten lengthy URLs. Therefore, users are advised to take caution and good judgment before clicking any shortened URLs published on social media platforms by this website and its owners. Despite the best efforts to ensure only genuine URLs are published, many social media platforms are prone to spam and hacking, so therefore this website and its owners cannot be held liable for any damages or implications caused by visiting any shortened links.

• Twitter Privacy Policy

• Google Privacy Policy

• LinkedIn Privacy Policy

• Facebook Privacy Policy

• Instagram Privacy Policy

• Data Protection Act 1998

• Campaign Monitor Privacy Policy

• Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003