← GiveGiftAid
Privacy policy
Last updated 7 November 2026
This policy explains how GiveGiftAid collects, uses, stores and protects personal information when you donate through a GiveGiftAid page, when your charity uses GiveGiftAid, or when you visit our website.
- Who we are
- Our role and the charity's role
- What we collect
- Why we use it and our lawful bases
- How we work with GoCardless
- Who we share it with
- Where it is stored
- How we protect it
- How long we keep it
- Your rights
- Cookies and browser storage
- Changes to this policy
1. Who we are
GiveGiftAid (givegiftaid.uk) is operated by Liam Burt, a sole trader based in the United Kingdom ("GiveGiftAid", "we", "us").
Privacy contact: [email protected]
2. Our role and the charity's role
- Donations and supporter records. When you give to a charity through GiveGiftAid, the charity decides how your information is used and is the controller. We act as the charity's processor: we store and process the information only to provide GiveGiftAid to that charity and on its instructions.
- Charity accounts and this website. For the people who run charity accounts, for emails sent to us, and for keeping the service secure, GiveGiftAid is the controller.
- Payments. Payments are processed by GoCardless, which handles your bank authorisation and payment details under its own privacy notice for payers.
If you have a question about how a charity uses your donation information, you can contact that charity directly. You can also contact us and we will help the charity respond.
3. What we collect
If you donate
- Donation details: the charity and any campaign you chose, the amount, whether it is one-off or regular (with frequency and first payment date), an optional reference, and how you reached the page (for example a QR code or poster link).
- Email address, if you choose to give it. We pass it to GoCardless so you don't need to type it again.
- From GoCardless, after you pay: your name, email, postal address and any organisation name you entered; your bank's name, the account holder name and the last few digits of the account number; payment, mandate and subscription status; and GoCardless reference numbers. We never receive your online banking login, and we do not store full account numbers, sort codes or card numbers.
- Gift Aid declaration, if you make one: your name, home address and postcode, which donations it covers, the declaration wording you agreed to, and when you made or cancelled it.
If you run a charity account
- The charity's name (taken from its GoCardless account) and page address, its GoCardless organisation and creditor identifiers, and the access that GoCardless grants to GiveGiftAid (stored encrypted, see section 8).
- Content you add: page designs, campaigns, campaign updates, images you upload, and notes your team writes about supporters. Please don't record health, religious or other special category information in notes.
- A record of security-relevant account actions (for example "Gift Aid data exported"), with the time. These records do not contain supporter details.
- For a live workspace's £5 subscription: the Direct Debit and payment references from GiveGiftAid's GoCardless account, and the invoices we issue. Your bank details are collected and held by GoCardless, not by GiveGiftAid.
- If you email us: your message and contact details, so we can reply.
Technical information
- To stop abuse, some forms limit how often they can be used from one connection. We keep a keyed, one-way hash of the IP address for that purpose, never the address itself, for no more than an hour.
- Cloudflare, which hosts GiveGiftAid, processes standard request information (such as IP address, browser type and the page requested) to deliver and protect the site.
4. Why we use it and our lawful bases
| Purpose | Lawful basis |
|---|
| Taking your donation, setting up regular giving, showing its status, and keeping the charity's supporter records accurate | The charity's lawful basis, usually the contract with you for your donation, or the charity's legitimate interests in managing its supporters. We process this as the charity's processor. |
| Recording Gift Aid declarations and preparing the charity's Gift Aid claims | The charity's legal obligation to keep Gift Aid records required by HMRC, based on the declaration you chose to make. |
| Providing charity accounts, billing the subscription and supporting charities | Contract with the charity, and our legal obligations to keep accounting records. |
| Keeping GiveGiftAid secure, preventing fraud and misuse, and fixing problems | Our legitimate interests in running a safe, reliable service. |
| Replying to emails sent to us | Our legitimate interests, or steps you asked us to take before entering a contract. |
We do not sell personal information, use it for advertising, or make decisions about you by automated means that have legal or similarly significant effects.
5. How we work with GoCardless
Each charity connects its own GoCardless account to GiveGiftAid using GoCardless's secure connection (OAuth). GiveGiftAid never sees the charity's GoCardless password.
- We send GoCardless: the donation amount and description, a GiveGiftAid reference for the donation, the charity's page address and whether it is a live or Sandbox account, your email if you gave it, and, for regular gifts, the amount, frequency and start date.
- GoCardless sends us: the customer, bank account (bank name, holder name, last digits), mandate, subscription, payment and refund details for that charity's GoCardless account, including activity the charity starts directly in GoCardless. This keeps the charity's records in GiveGiftAid matched with GoCardless.
- You enter your bank details on pages run by GoCardless and your bank, not on GiveGiftAid.
6. Who we share it with
- The charity you give to, which sees your donation, supporter and Gift Aid records in its GiveGiftAid dashboard and can download them.
- GoCardless, as described above.
- Cloudflare, Inc., which hosts the website and its database as our sub-processor.
- HMRC receives Gift Aid claim information only when the charity submits a claim itself. GiveGiftAid prepares the claim file but does not send it.
- Anyone we are required by law to share information with, or where needed to protect people from fraud or harm.
7. Where it is stored
GiveGiftAid's database is a Cloudflare D1 database restricted to Cloudflare's European Union jurisdiction, so it runs and stores data in the EU. The UK recognises the EU as providing adequate protection for personal data. Cloudflare may handle individual web requests in data centres outside the UK and EU while delivering the site. Cloudflare's data processing terms include safeguards for these international transfers.
8. How we protect it
- All connections use HTTPS, and browsers are told always to use it (HSTS).
- The access GoCardless grants to each charity is encrypted with AES-256-GCM before it is stored.
- Charity sign-in uses a secure, HttpOnly cookie that expires after 24 hours; only a one-way hash of the sign-in token is stored.
- Each charity can see only its own records. Live and Sandbox accounts are separate: test and real data are never mixed, and the platform acts on a charity's records only for events from that charity's own GoCardless environment.
- Messages from GoCardless are accepted only if they carry a valid signature.
- Pages use strict browser security settings to protect against common attacks such as cross-site scripting and clickjacking, and forms are rate-limited.
- Our server logs are written to avoid recording personal information.
No system is completely secure. If a breach affected your information and was likely to put your rights at risk, we would tell the affected charities and, where required, the Information Commissioner's Office and you.
9. How long we keep it
| Information | How long |
|---|
| Donations, supporter records and Gift Aid declarations | For as long as the charity uses GiveGiftAid. When a charity closes its account, it can download a copy first; we then delete all of its records. Charities must keep Gift Aid records for as long as HMRC requires, so they keep their downloaded copy. |
| Charity account details and content | Until the account is closed. |
| Account closure record (charity name, page address, date and reason; no supporter details) | Kept so we can show what happened to an account. |
| Security log of account actions | 13 months. |
| GoCardless message identifiers (used to ignore duplicate messages) | 60 days. |
| Gift Aid declaration links | Valid for 14 days. Links that were never used are deleted 90 days after they expire. |
| Sign-in sessions and connection requests | Sessions end after 24 hours; GoCardless connection requests expire after 10 minutes. Both are then deleted. |
| Rate-limit records (hashed IP addresses) | Up to 1 hour. |
| Emails sent to us | 12 months after the conversation ends. |
| Subscription invoices and payment records | 6 years, as tax law requires, including after an account is closed. |
Deleted information can remain in Cloudflare's point-in-time database recovery for up to 30 days before it is gone completely.
10. Your rights
Under UK data protection law you can ask to see the personal information held about you, have it corrected, have it deleted, restrict or object to how it is used, or receive it in a portable format. Some rights depend on the circumstances. For example, a charity may need to keep Gift Aid records that HMRC requires.
- Donors: contact the charity you gave to, or contact us and we will pass your request to the charity and help it respond. You can cancel a Gift Aid declaration by contacting the charity.
- Charities: you can download all your data at any time from Account & data in your dashboard, and close your account there.
- Contact us at [email protected]. We will respond within one month.
You can complain to the Information Commissioner's Office, though we would appreciate the chance to put things right first.
11. Cookies and browser storage
GiveGiftAid sets one cookie, id_session, which keeps charity staff signed in to their dashboard. It is strictly necessary, so it doesn't need consent. The dashboard also keeps a few settings in your own browser (for example, saved design styles). These never leave your device. Donors don't receive any GiveGiftAid cookies. See our cookie notice.
12. Changes to this policy
We will update this page when how we use personal information changes, and show the date at the top. If a change significantly affects charities, we will tell them in advance.
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