Privacy Policy

1. Who we are

Give Us A Break, a registered charity in England and Wales (charity no. 1169333) with its registered office at Unit 4, The Old Print Works, 58 Marsh Lane, Leeds LS9 8AF, is the data controller for the personal data described in this policy. Data protection queries go to our data protection lead (a trustee role) at hello@giveusabreak.me. This policy covers our website at giveusabreak.me, our weekly lottery, our donation and Gift Aid processing, and our supporter communications.

2. What we collect

• Supporters and donors — name, contact details, donation history, Gift Aid declarations and (for Gift Aid) your home address and taxpayer confirmation.
• Lottery entrants — name, contact details, chosen numbers, entry and subscription history, your confirmation that you are 18 or over, and any age or identity verification data collected at entry or before a prize is paid.
• Payments — payment and subscription mandate data, processed by our payment provider (Stripe); we do not store full card numbers ourselves.
• Safer gambling records — self-exclusion requests and related records, kept so they can be enforced.
• Enquiries and marketing — contact form submissions, complaint correspondence and your marketing preferences.
• Website data — limited technical data (such as IP address and pages visited) where analytics are enabled, and cookie preferences.

3. How we use it

We use personal data to: run the lottery — processing entries, collecting subscriptions, drawing and verifying winners and paying prizes; take and administer donations and claim Gift Aid from HMRC; verify age and identity where the law requires it; maintain and enforce self-exclusion and other safer-gambling protections; answer enquiries and handle complaints; meet our licensing, accounting and charity-law obligations; and send marketing and newsletters only where you have opted in. A lottery entry or donation is never treated as marketing consent.

4. Legal bases

• Contract — processing entries, subscriptions, prize payments and donations you ask us to take.
• Legal obligation — age and identity verification, licensing records, Gift Aid records for HMRC, and accounting records.
• Legitimate interests — running and improving our services, preventing fraud, and enforcing self-exclusion (which is also in your vital interest).
• Consent — marketing emails and any non-essential cookies; you can withdraw consent at any time.

5. Who we share it with

We share personal data only where needed: with our payment processor (Stripe); with IT, hosting and email providers who process data on our instructions; with HMRC for Gift Aid claims; and with regulators — including the Gambling Commission or licensing authority, the Charity Commission and the ICO — where required. The draw is administered in-house and no External Lottery Manager is currently appointed. We never sell personal data.

6. How long we keep it

Supporter records are kept while our relationship is active and for a reasonable period after. Lottery entry, draw and prize records are kept as long as licensing and accounting rules require (typically six years). Gift Aid declarations are kept for the periods HMRC requires. Self-exclusion records are retained beyond the exclusion period precisely so the exclusion can be enforced. When data is no longer needed it is securely deleted.

7. Winners’ details

We publish results in a privacy-safe format — first name, last initial and town — on the basis of our legitimate interest in demonstrating that the draw is genuine. Winners are always notified directly first, and anything fuller (a photo, a full name, a quote) is published only with the winner’s explicit consent. Where the law or our licence requires us to make winner information available to a regulator, we do so under legal obligation.

8. Your rights

Under UK GDPR you can ask us for access to your data, rectification, erasure, restriction of processing, data portability, and to object to processing based on legitimate interests; you can also withdraw any consent at any time. Contact hello@giveusabreak.me and we will respond within one month. If you are unhappy with how we handle your data you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office at ico.org.uk. Note that some rights are limited where we must keep records by law — for example Gift Aid or self-exclusion records.

9. Security, international transfers and cookies

Data is stored on access-controlled systems and card payments are handled entirely by our payment provider. Where a service provider processes data outside the UK, we rely on UK adequacy decisions or appropriate safeguards such as the UK Addendum to standard contractual clauses. Our website uses only the cookies necessary for it to function plus, where enabled, privacy-respecting analytics; you can control cookies through your browser settings.

10. Changes to this policy

We will update this policy when our practices, providers or legal obligations change, and the latest version will always appear here with its effective date. Significant changes will be flagged to lottery subscribers and newsletter recipients by email. See also our Terms & Conditions and Responsible Gambling pages.