Affinity Fostering strongly values the online protection of all visitors to its website and takes your privacy seriously. The information below explains the types of information that may be collected when using this website, how we use any personal information and the procedures Affinity has in place to safeguard your privacy in accordance with The General Data Protection Regulations 2018.
We collect information about you when you submit a CV for job enquiries, submit an online enquiry form, send us a message via the website, take the fostering quiz or submit an earnings estimation. This information includes contact details such as your name, email address, telephone number and postal address. By continuing with the enquiry process Affinity Fostering Services will be required to collect data categorised as sensitive personal data to help us understand your current situation as a potential employee or Foster Carer, this may include but is not limited to your gender, marital status, sexuality, age, health and related experience. The enquiry process includes submitting an enquiry form via the website, email enquiries, telephone enquiries, attending an event and the initial home visit.
Website visit information is collected using cookies. This information lets us keep track of "how many" times users are doing specific things - like visiting our site each month or what they are searching for - without being able to personally identify the user (unless they specifically tell us). More information on Cookies and how to restrict these is available below.
Our website is largely information based, although there are some areas which may ask you to register your name, email address and other relevant personal information. This information is used by us to communicate with you in relation to the purposes of your request and is treated in accordance with The General Data Protection Regulations 2018.
We collect information about you to process your enquiry and contact you about becoming an employee or Foster Carer with Affinity Fostering Services. You will be contacted by a member of the Affinity team by telephone and email to talk through your enquiry and to arrange an initial home visit or interview should you wish to progress your enquiry.
We use the non-identifiable information gained from website cookies to analyse trends and statistics on the way users use the website. We use all this information to improve our content, plan site enhancements, and measure overall site effectiveness.
We will use contact details provided on the enquiry form to reply to a message you send us via the website. If you go on to make an enquiry into becoming a Foster Carer the information you have provided will go on to be included as part of the enquiry process.
Your identifiable information will be stored securely by Affinity Fostering on both electronic and cloud-based databases. Our cloud-based databases are provided by Carbonite Office Business Solutions. Our IT services providers Roding Tech Limited have limited access to some electronic databases. All of our outsourced service providers comply with GDPR to ensure data is stored confidentially and securely.
Your information given to Affinity Fostering at the enquiry stage will be stored for a maximum of 1year and 1month from the date of enquiry. This is to allow Affinity Fostering to report to the Government Department OFSTED on yearly enquiry figures. No personal data is transferred to OFSTED as part of this report.
If you receive an Initial Home Visit (IHV) your personal data will be stored for a period of 7 years. If you decide to enquire to foster with Affinity Fostering again the information obtained in the IHV will inform part of the enquiry process.
Our databases are confidential and your data will never be sold to any third parties.
By making an enquiry you are agreeing to receive information on becoming a Foster Carer with Affinity Fostering. You will be contacted by our recruitment team by telephone and/ or email.
You may opt out of receiving this information at a later date by contacting Affinity directly by emailing info@affinityfostering.com or by following the unsubscribe link on an email.
You have a right to request a copy of the information we hold about you. If you would like a copy of some, or all of your personal information, you will be required to submit a written Subject Access Request marked for the attention of the Data Protection Officer to be sent by email to info@affinityfostering.com. You may ask us to correct or remove any information you think is inaccurate.
If you would like to have your personally-identifiable information removed from Affinity Fostering’s databases please email info@affinityfostering.com. We are required to hold residual information regarding enquiries, but this will not contain personally-identifiable information.
Please note proof of identity will be required to process any SAR requests or requests to remove personal data.
Our website may include links to other third-party websites. This privacy policy only applies to www.affinityfostering.com. You should read the privacy policies on other websites should you click on any links.
We keep our privacy policy under regular review and will place any updates on this web page. This privacy policy was last updated on 12th May 2022.
You can contact us should you have any questions about our privacy policy or the information we hold about you:
Email: info@affinityfostering.com
Telephone: 01245 237 158.
Cookies are small files which are stored on your computer. They are designed to hold data specific to your website visit on our site.
Cookies help to improve your visit to our website by helping with the following:
We're giving you this information as part of our initiative to comply with General Data Protection Regulations and Data Protection Act 1998, and to make sure we're honest and clear about your privacy when using our website.
You can change your cookie preferences from the footer of our website at any time.
You can set your browser to not accept cookies and the following website can help you remove cookies from your browser. However please be aware that some aspects of our website may not function as well if cookies are disabled. If you would like to know how to remove cookies, please visit http://www.allaboutcookies.org.
Functionality |
Description of Cookie |
Cookie Used |
|---|---|---|
| Setting the Scope of Your Site Content |
Because any cookie read/write access is restricted by a combination of the cookie name and its domain, default visitor tracking via Google Analytics is confined to the domain of the page on which the tracking code is installed. For the most common scenario where the tracking code is installed on a single domain (and no other sub-domains), the generic setup is correct. In other situations where you wish to track content across domains or sub-domains, or restrict tracking to a smaller section of a single domain, you use additional methods in the ga.js tracking code to define content scope. See Domains & Directories in the Collection API document for details. |
All Cookies |
| Determining Visitor Session |
The Google Analytics tracking for ga.js uses two cookies to establish a session. If either of these two cookies are absent, further activity by the user initiates the start of a new session. See the Session article in the Help Center for a detailed definition and a list of scenarios that end a session. You can customize the length of the default session time using the _setSessionCookieTimeout() method. This description is specific to the ga.js tracking code for web pages. If you use Analytics tracking for other environments—such as Flash or mobile—you should check the documentation for those environments to learn how sessions are calculated or established. |
__ utmb __ utmc |
| Identifying Unique Visitors |
Each unique browser that visits a page on your site is provided with a unique ID via the __utma cookie. In this way, subsequent visits to your website via the same browser are recorded as belonging to the same (unique) visitor. Thus, if a person interacted with your website using both Firefox and Internet Explorer, the Analytics reports would track this activity under two unique visitors. Similarly if the same browser were used by two different visitors, but with a separate computer account for each, the activity would be recorded under two unique visitor IDs. On the other hand, if the browser happens to be used by two different people sharing the same computer account, one unique visitor ID is recorded, even though two unique individuals accessed the site. |
__ utma |
| Tracking Traffic Sources & Navigation |
When visitors reach your site via a search engine result, a direct link, or an ad that links to your page, Google Analytics stores the type of referral information in a cookie. The parameters in the cookie value string are parsed and sent in the GIF Request (in the utmcc variable). The expiration date for the cookie is set as 6 months into the future. This cookie gets updated with each subsequent page view to your site; thus it is used to determine visitor navigation within your site. |
__ utmz |
| Custom Variables |
You can define your own segments for reporting on your particular data. When you use the _setCustomVar() method in your tracking code to define custom variables, Google Analytics uses this cookie to track and report on that information. In a typical use case, you might use this method to segment your website visitors by a custom demographic that they select on your website (income, age range, product preferences). |
__ utmv |
| Website Optimizer | You can use Google Analytics with Google Website Optimizer (GWO), which is a tool that helps determine the most effective design for your site. When a website optimizer script executes on your page, a _utmx cookie is written to the browser and its value is sent to Google Analytics. See the Website Optimizer Help Center for more information. | All Cookies |
Once the cookies are set/updated on the web browser, the data they contain that is required for reporting purposes is sent to the Analytics servers in the GIF Request URL via the utmcc parameter.
Google Analytics sets the following cookies as described in the table below. A default configuration and use of Google Analytics sets only the first 4 cookies in the table
Name |
Description |
Expiration |
|---|---|---|
| __utma |
This cookie is typically written to the browser upon the first visit to your site from that web browser. If the cookie has been deleted by the browser operator, and the browser subsequently visits your site, a new __utma cookie is written with a different unique ID. This cookie is used to determine unique visitors to your site and it is updated with each page view. Additionally, this cookie is provided with a unique ID that Google Analytics uses to ensure both the validity and accessibility of the cookie as an extra security measure. |
2 Years from set/update. |
| __utmb |
This cookie is used to establish and continue a user session with your site. When a user views a page on your site, the Google Analytics code attempts to update this cookie. If it does not find the cookie, a new one is written and a new session is established. Each time a user visits a different page on your site, this cookie is updated to expire in 30 minutes, thus continuing a single session for as long as user activity continues within 30- minute intervals. This cookie expires when a user pauses on a page on your site for longer than 30 minutes. You can modify the default length of a user session with the _setSessionCookieTimeout() method. |
30 minutes from set/update |
| __utmc |
This cookie is no longer used by the ga.js tracking code to determine session status. Historically, this cookie operated in conjunction with the __utmb cookie to determine whether or not to establish a new session for the user. For backwards compatibility purposes with sites still using the urchin.js tracking code, this cookie will continue to be written and will expire when the user exits the browser. However, if you are debugging your site tracking and you use the ga.js tracking code, you should not interpret the existence of this cookie in relation to a new or expired session. |
Not set |
| __utmz | This cookie stores the type of referral used by the visitor to reach your site, whether via a direct method, a referring link, a website search, or a campaign such as an ad or an email link. It is used to calculate search engine traffic, ad campaigns and page navigation within your own site. The cookie is updated with each page view to your site. | 6 months from set/update |
| __utmv | This cookie is not normally present in a default configuration of the tracking code. The __utmv cookie passes the information provided via the _setVar() method, which you use to create a custom user segment. This string is then passed to the Analytics servers in the GIF request URL via the utmcc parameter. This cookie is only written if you have added the _setVar() method for the tracking code on your website page. | 2 years from set/update |
| __utmx | This cookie is used by Website Optimizer and only set when the Website Optimizer tracking code is installed and correctly configured for your pages. When the optimizer script executes, this cookie stores the variation this visitor is assigned to for each experiment, so the visitor has a consistent experience on your site. See the Website Optimizer Help Center for more information. | 2 years from set/update |
Let us know the best time for us to call you and we'll schedule an appointment.
Previous
Next
