Privacy Notice

ICVA Data Protection Policy

The International Council of Voluntary Agencies (ICVA) respects your privacy and is committed to protecting your personal data. Any personal data that you volunteer to ICVA will be treated in accordance with this privacy statement, and with the Swiss Federal Protection Act September 2023.

This Notice explains when and how we collect your personal data when you use our website, and the rights you have over your own information.

Aside for helping us deliver membership services and events, the information you share with us means you will receive information about ICVA resources, services, events and information that may be of interest to you.

If you have any questions in relation to this Notice or would like to exercise your rights under it, please contact:

1. Collection of your personal information

We will only collect information that is necessary to carry out our business, provide the particular service you have requested and to keep you informed.

The type of information we collect depends on where and when it is collected.

We collect information that you provide directly to us. For example, we collect information that you provide when you subscribe to the ICVA email services and Bulletin, register for an event, or contact ICVA regarding our activities. The type of information we may collect includes name, email address, employer, job title, country, choice of interests and groups, and language preferences.

We may also receive information about you when you interact with third parties with whom we work. For example, when you register to attend a Learning Stream webinar through PHAP and given them permission to share your information with us. We may also receive information about you from social media platforms when you interact with us on those platforms

When visiting our websites, we collect standard internet log information and details of visitor behavior patterns, through the use a third party service, Google Analytics. We do this to find out things such as the number of visitors to the various parts of our websites. When you access our websites we automatically collect certain data such as; the operating system and version, your IP address, your general geographic location, as indicated by your IP address, your browser type, the web pages you view on our websites, whether you download a document, the search engine as well as the key words used to find our websites.

For full details of the cookies used on our website see Cookies Notice.

We use a third-party provider (PipeDrive) to deliver our monthly newsletters and other bulk emails. We gather statistics around email opening and clicks using industry standard technologies to help us monitor and improve our communications.

2. Use of your personal information

ICVA collects personal information in order to provide its services. Our services include the provision of membership, publications, events, and the provision of information and experiences to promote principled and effective humanitarian action and policy.

The information we hold on you will be used in a number of ways, which include:

  • to provide a service you have requested, inform you of events or trainings or updates as part of our membership services
  • To provide communications with you which we think may be of interest to you, where you have consented to be contacted for such purposes
  • To provide communications with you regarding an event that you may have registered for
  • To better understand how people interact with our websites
  • To notify you about changes to our services
  • To report on the number of attendees and disaggregated data requested by donors

When you provide your information to use, we will only use the information for the purposes for which it was provided, for any compatible purposes and to fulfil our legal or regulatory obligations unless you have agreed for your data to be used for any other purposes.

3. Protection of your personal information

ICVA is committed to protecting the personal information you entrust to us. We adopt robust and appropriate technologies and polices, so the information we have about you is protected from unauthorised access and improper use.

Our employees have access to your data only to the extent necessary for processing your request and/or fulfilling the services requested.

As part of the services offered to you through the ICVA website, the personal information you provide may be transferred to countries outside Europe. For example, the ICVA website is hosted in the United Kingdom. We will take all appropriate measures to ensure that your privacy rights continue to be protected as outlined in this privacy notice.

We undertake regular review of who has access to information that we hold to ensure that your information is only accessible by appropriately trained staff and contractors. We also take appropriate steps to ensure our network is protected and routinely monitored.

We will not sell, distribute or lease your personal information to third parties unless we have your permission or are required by law to do so.  We may use your personal information to send you promotional information about third parties which we think you may find interesting if you tell us that you wish this to happen.

If we use external companies to collect or process personal data on our behalf, we put a contract in place that sets out our expectation and requirements in relation to security of the data they access or process.

We will keep your information for only as long as is reasonably necessary for the purposes set out in this privacy notice and to fulfil our legal obligations and in accordance with any consents provide. We will not keep your information for longer than is necessary. The retention period will vary according to the purpose.

4. Following links to and from our website

When you visit our website, you may encounter links to other websites owned by our members and partners. It’s important to know that these websites have their own privacy policies. While we cannot be held responsible for these policies, we urge you to review them before sharing any personal information.

5. Accessing your information

You have a right to request details of the information we hold about you. If you would like a copy of some or all of your personal information, you can

6. Updating your information

We want to make sure that any personal information we hold about you is accurate and up to date. Please email us on secretariat@icvanetwork.org to correct or remove information that you think may be inaccurate.

You can withdraw consent to receive communications from us at any time by clicking on the unsubscribe button on any bulk email, or by sending an email to secretariat@icvanetwork.org expressing your preferences.

7. Changes to this Notice

We may make changes to this notice from time to time. You would be notified through our websites. This privacy notice was last updated in October 2023.