Privacy Policy

At BirdLife International we are committed to protecting your personal information and privacy. It is important that you read this policy carefully to understand what information we hold, how we may use it, and what your rights are.

Introduction

BirdLife International respects your privacy and is committed to protecting your personal information. This policy explains what personal information we collect, why we use it, the legal reasons we rely on to collect and store your personal information, who we share it with, how long we keep it, and the rights you have.

This privacy policy is provided in a layered format so you can click through to the specific areas set out below. Alternatively, you can download a pdf version of the policy here.

Controller

BirdLife International is the controller of the personal information covered by this policy. This means that we are responsible for deciding how, when and why your personal information is used.

We have appointed a data privacy manager who is responsible for overseeing questions in relation to this privacy policy. If you have any questions about this privacy policy, including any requests to exercise your legal rights, please contact the data privacy manager using these details:
Full name of legal entity: BirdLife International, a company limited by guarantee (charity number 1042125, company number 02987546)
Email address: [email protected]
Postal address: The David Attenborough Building, Pembroke Street, Cambridge CB2 3QZ, United Kingdom

Purpose of this privacy policy

This privacy policy aims to tell you how BirdLife International collects and uses your personal information. This includes any information you may provide through this website when you sign up to our newsletter, make a donation to us, or subscribe to one of our data services.

This website is not intended for children and we do not intentionally collect data relating to children.

It is important that you read this privacy policy, together with any other privacy policy or fair processing policy we may provide on specific occasions when we are collecting or processing personal data about you, so that you are fully aware of how and why we are using your information. This privacy policy supplements other notices and privacy policies and is not intended to override them.

Important information for children and young people

If you are under 18 years of age and you want to do any of the following, you must ask a parent or other responsible adult to do it for you:

• enter one of our competitions
• carry out any form of sponsorship or fundraising activity
• make a donation to Birdlife
• join the World Bird Club
• sign up to any of our data services (e.g. World Database of Key Biodiversity Areas).

Otherwise, you must not provide any information to us without your parent or other responsible adult sending consent to us in advance.

Changes to the privacy policy and your duty to inform us of changes

We keep our privacy policy under regular review. This version was last updated on 15 July 2026.

It is important that the personal data we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your personal data changes during your relationship with us.

Third-party links

This website may include links to websites, plug-ins and applications controlled by other organisations. Clicking on those links or enabling those connections may allow third parties to collect or share data about you. We do not control these third-party websites, and are not responsible for their privacy statements. When you leave our website, we encourage you to read the privacy policy of every website you visit.

We might collect, use, store and transfer different kinds of personal information about you, depending on how you interact with us. Different kinds of personal information can be grouped together as follows:

• Identity: includes your name, username or similar identifier, title, date of birth and gender.
• Contact: includes your physical address, email address and telephone numbers.
• Financial: includes your bank account and payment card details.
• Payments: includes details of donations made by you to BirdLife, and any other payments you’ve made to us for any reason.
• Technical: includes internet protocol (IP) address, your login data, browser type and version, time zone setting and location, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform, and other technology on the devices you use to access this website.
• Profile: includes your donations, your interests, preferences, feedback and survey responses.
• Marketing and Communications: includes your preferences in receiving marketing from us, and your communication preferences.

We do not usually collect any Special Category personal information about you (this includes details about your race or ethnicity, religious or philosophical beliefs, sex life, sexual orientation, political opinions, trade union membership, information about your health, and genetic and biometric data). Nor do we collect any information about criminal convictions and offences. However, if this does occur, we’ll explain specifically why we need it and will take extra care to ensure your privacy rights are protected.

We collect personal information in different ways:

• Direct interactions: when you fill in forms or correspond with us through this website, or by post, phone, email or otherwise. This includes personal information you provide when you:
  • apply for membership of the World Bird Club
  • make a donation to us
  • subscribe to our data services or our publications
  • request marketing to be sent to you
  • enter a competition, promotion or survey
  • give us feedback or contact us.
• Automated technologies: through cookies or similar technologies when you interact with our website. Please see our cookie policy for further details.
• Third parties or publicly available sources: we will receive personal information about you from various third parties and public sources as set out below.
  • Technical information from analytics providers such as Google, and our internet service provider and providers of IT and system administration services.
  • Contact, Financial and Payments information from providers of technical, payment and delivery services, such as Stripe (for donations).
  • Identity and Contact information from publicly available sources such as Companies House and the UK Electoral Register.
  • Profile information from publicly available sources such as social media, LinkedIn, Companies House, the UK Land Registry, and the Electoral Register, as well as published directories and rich lists, online news archives and other publicly available information from the internet. We may also use non-personal information that utilises geographical and socioeconomic statistics to help us understand our supporter base more fully.

The law says we must have a lawful basis to use and store your personal information. We use different lawful bases, depending on the purpose and the type of information involved. Our lawful bases will usually be as follows:

• Where we need to perform the contract we are about to enter into or have entered into with you (for example, when you join the World Bird Club or subscribe to one of our data services).
• Where it is necessary for our legitimate interests in managing our charitable activities and our organisation. We will make sure we consider and balance any potential impact on you (both positive and negative) and your rights before we process your personal information for our legitimate interests. We do not use your personal information for activities where our interests are overridden by the impact on you (unless we have your consent, or are otherwise required or permitted to by law). You can get further information on this by contacting us at [email protected].
• Where we need to comply with a legal obligation – for example, we need to keep records of donations on which we are claiming Gift Aid from HM Revenue & Customs.
• Where you have consented to us using your personal information. You have the right to withdraw consent at any time by contacting us.

Purposes for which we will use your personal data

We have set out below a description of all the ways we plan to use your personal data, and which lawful bases we rely on to do so. We have also identified what our legitimate interests are, where appropriate.

Note that we may process your personal data on more than one lawful basis, depending on the specific purpose for which we are using your data. Please contact us if you need details about the specific lawful basis we are relying on to process your personal data.

Using publicly available information

In order to better understand our supporters, and assess how interested you may be in a particular campaign or conservation project, we may combine the personal information that you provide to us with other personal information (particularly Profile information as described in section 2) and non-personal information from publicly available sources, as described above. As a fundraising organisation we undertake in-house research and, in some cases, we may use trusted third party wealth screening and insight services such as Altrata, Kindsight, The Factary Ltd, CCS Fundraising or Prospecting for Gold to collate and analyse publicly-available information, or to undertake this research on our behalf.

You will always have the right to opt-out of this. We may also conduct research using publicly available information to identify individuals who we think have an affinity to our cause but with whom we are not already in touch.

We might also use commercially available information, provided to us at the postcode level, to analyse geographic and demographic trends. This is so we can send relevant campaigns and fundraising appeals to supporters who would be the most interested in them.

Due diligence

Before we accept significant donations from individuals or organisations, or enter into any other significant relationship with them, our policies and our legal obligations mean that we must carry out due diligence checks (a process sometimes called Know Your Donor, as it’s similar to the Know Your Customer checks carried out by financial institutions). We will do this through analysing your Identity and publicly-available Profile information, including through risk intelligence databases such as those provided by LexisNexis or Thomson Reuters.

If you do not want to have your personal information checked and analysed for these purposes, please contact us at [email protected]. However, this will mean that we may not be able to accept your donation.

Marketing communications from us

We may use your Identity, Contact, Technical and Profile Data to form a view on what we think you may want or need, or what may be of interest to you. This is how we decide which products, services and offers may be relevant for you (we call this marketing).

You will receive marketing communications from us if you have requested information from us, made donations to us or subscribed to a service provided by us, and you have not opted out of receiving that marketing.

Advertising online

To achieve effective online advertising, we sometimes share data with Google and social media providers such as Meta. This helps us reach individuals who are interested in BirdLife’s mission. We use ‘custom audiences’ tools to manage this.

Custom audiences allow us to do things like exclude our existing supporters from our advertising, and deliver tailored advertisements to users who share similar profiles on Facebook and Instagram. To do this, we may share limited personal information (such as your name and email address) in a secure, hashed (encrypted) format with Meta Platforms Ireland Ltd (“Meta”). Meta does not share these details with third parties and deletes the information once the matching process is complete. You can learn more about how Meta uses data by reviewing the Meta Privacy Policy.

We might also utilize the Custom audiences remarketing feature provided by Meta. This allows us to display interest-based advertisements to users of our website when they visit Meta platforms (Facebook, Instagram). Through the use of cookies and tracking pixels, we collect and share with Meta Technical information regarding your browsing behaviour on our site. For more details on how Meta processes your information, please visit the Meta Privacy Policy or manage your ad preferences in your Meta Ad Settings.

If you do not want your information to be used in this way, please let us know by emailing [email protected].

Third-party marketing

We will get your express opt-in consent before we share your personal information with any third party for their own marketing purposes.

Opting out of marketing communications

You can ask us to stop sending you marketing messages at any time by following the opt-out links on any marketing message sent to you, or by contacting us at [email protected].

Cookies

You can set your browser to refuse all or some browser cookies, or to alert you when websites set or access cookies. If you disable or refuse cookies, please note that some parts of this website may become inaccessible or not function properly. For more information about the cookies we use please see our Cookie Policy.

The consent choices you make for non-essential cookies will remain in place for 12 months. After this period, we will ask you to review and renew your preferences.

You can change your preferences at any time by visiting our Cookie Policy and scroll down to the section just above the table of cookies. If you would like to withdraw your consent for cookies entirely, select withdraw your consent. You may also click on Change your consent if you would like to change your preference.

The words change your consent and withdraw your consent are clickable links that will take you directly to the relevant options. You will also be able to see your cookie declaration date on the cookie settings page.

Change of purpose

Whenever we use your personal information (including storing it), we will do so because we have identified a specific purpose. For example, we will use your Financial information to process a donation. Any time that we use that information, it will be for that purpose, or one very similar (in data protection terms, one that is compatible). If we need to use it for a different purpose, we will communicate with you, unless there is a legal reason that we must not do so.

We may share your personal data with the parties set out below for the purposes set out in the table above.

• Internal third parties as follows:
  • BirdLife regional offices in Asia, Africa, mainland Europe, Pacific region and the Americas.
  • Friends of BirdLife International, Inc
• External third parties as follows:
  • For personal data involved in accessing and using the World Database of Key Biodiversity Areas and IBAT: members of the Key Biodiversity Areas Partnership, the IBAT Alliance.
  • For personal data submitted when making a donation to Trillion Trees (https://trilliontrees.org/): the other member of the Trillion Trees joint venture, WWF-UK.
  • Service providers based outside the UK who provide IT and system administration services.
  • Service providers such as fundraising agencies or fulfilment houses (who print and pack mailings for us).
  • Professional advisers including lawyers, bankers, auditors and insurers, based both within and outside the UK, who provide consultancy, banking, legal, insurance and accounting services.
  • HM Revenue & Customs, regulators and other authorities based in the United Kingdom and elsewhere.
  • BirdLife Partner organisations based in the UK and overseas (see https://birdlife.staging.hexdigital.com/regions-and-partners/).
  • Members of the BirdLife International Advisory Group (see https://birdlife.staging.hexdigital.com/who-we-are/ for their names) Friends of BirdLife International Board of Directors and, on rare occasions, other BirdLife stakeholders who support us with our fundraising efforts.
  • Service providers who help us understand our supporter base, as described under How we use your personal data.
• Other organisations to whom we decide to transfer or merge parts of our organisation. If a change happens to our organisation, then the new organisation may use your personal information in the same way as set out in this privacy policy.

Any sharing of your personal information will be limited to what is necessary for the purposes set out in in the table above and will be shared only via secure methods. We require all third parties to respect the security of your personal information, and to treat it in accordance with the law. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal information for their own purposes, and only permit them to use your personal information for specified purposes and only in accordance with our instructions.

Many of our internal and external third parties are based outside the UK, so their processing of your personal information will involve a transfer of your information outside the UK.

Whenever we transfer your personal information out of the UK, we ensure it’s protected by implementing at least one of the following safeguards:

• We will only transfer your personal information to countries that have been deemed to provide an adequate level of protection for personal information by the UK Information Commissioner.
• Where countries are not deemed to provide an adequate level of protection for personal information, we may use specific contracts approved by the UK Information Commissioner which give personal information substantially the same protection it has in the UK.

Please contact us if you want further information on the specific safeguard used by us when transferring your personal information out of the UK.

We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal information from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal information to people and organisations who have a business need to know. They will only use your personal information on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected breach of your information, and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so.

We will only keep your personal information for as long as reasonably necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of meeting any legal, regulatory, tax, accounting or reporting requirements.

To work out the appropriate retention period for personal information, we consider the following:

• The amount, nature and sensitivity of the information
• the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your information
• the purposes for which we use your information and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means
• the applicable legal, regulatory, tax, accounting or other requirements.

Details of retention periods for your personal information are available on request.

In some circumstances you can ask us to delete your information: see your legal rights below for further details.

In some circumstances, we will anonymise your personal information (so that it can no longer be associated with you) for research or statistical purposes, in which case we may use this information indefinitely without further notice to you.

You have rights under data protection laws in relation to your personal information. You have the right to:

• Request access to your personal data (commonly known as a “data subject access request”). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.
• Request correction of the personal data that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate data we hold about you corrected, though we may need to verify the accuracy of the new data you provide to us.
• Request erasure of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal data where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal data where you have successfully exercised your right to object to processing (see below), where we may have processed your information unlawfully or where we are required to erase your personal data to comply with local law. Note, however, that we may not always be able to comply with your request of erasure for specific legal reasons which will be notified to you, if applicable, at the time of your request.
• Withdraw consent at any time where we are relying on consent to process your personal data. However, this will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before you withdraw your consent. If you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide certain products or services to you. We will advise you if this is the case at the time you withdraw your consent.
• Object to processing of your personal data where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal data for direct marketing purposes. In some cases, we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process your information which override your rights and freedoms.
• Request restriction of processing of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your personal data in the following scenarios:
  • If you want us to establish the data’s accuracy.
  • Where our use of the data is unlawful but you do not want us to erase it.
  • Where you need us to hold the data even if we no longer require it as you need it to establish, exercise or defend legal claims.
  • You have objected to our use of your data but we need to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to use it.
• Request the transfer of your personal data to you or to a third party. We will provide to you, or a third party you have chosen, your personal data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format. Note that this right only applies to automated information which you initially provided consent for us to use or where we used the information to perform a contract with you.

If you wish to exercise any of the rights set out above, please contact us.

No fee usually required

You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal data (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request is clearly unfounded, repetitive or excessive. Alternatively, we could refuse to comply with your request in these circumstances.

What we may need from you

We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your personal data (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is a security measure to ensure that personal data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it. We may also contact you to ask you for further information in relation to your request to speed up our response.

Time limit to respond

We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month. Occasionally it could take us longer than a month, if your request is particularly complex or you have made several requests. In this case, we will notify you and keep you updated.

If you have any concerns or complaints about the way in which we’ve used your information, please let us know by contacting us at [email protected] or through the contact details listed in section 1 above.

You also have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues (https://ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint/). However, before doing so, please make sure you have made your complaint to us first, or asked us for clarification if there is something you do not understand.

If you are a resident of the EU and EU GDPR applies to our use of your information, you may make a complaint to the supervisory authority in the country where you live.