Privacy policy statement

This policy was last updated on 02/10/2024.

This privacy policy encompasses products and services of Humanitarian Outcomes (henceforth ‘us’/’our’/’we’), located at Unit 326 Canalot Studios, 222 Kensal Road, London W10 5BN, UK. Please send any questions to our data protection representative at info@humanitarianoutcomes.org.

We have a presence online through our two websites: www.humanitarianoutcomes.org and www.aidworkersecurity.org.

Background

The following policy will highlight the ways in which your data is used and processed, as well as how it is stored by Humanitarian Outcomes and any third-party processors. You, the user, have the right to be forgotten, right to object and right to rectification, which are detailed in later sections. More information on legislation surrounding data privacy agreements in your jurisdiction and geographic area are available online. Some of the legislation on data privacy requirements covered in this policy stem from the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), adopted in 2016 by the EU—comprehensive legislation regulating personal information is processed and controlled.

This policy includes all potential collection and processing of client data, except for third party advertisements on our website, which we do not use. However, you may be tracked, or your information logged, on third-party sites that use advertisements and cookies should you engage with the social media icons on our site and any affiliate links.

We will only use the personal data gathered over this website as set out in this policy. Below you will find information on how we use your personal data, for which purposes your personal data is used, with whom it is shared and what control and information rights you may have.

Definitions

  • Personal data: ‘Personal data are any information which are related to an identified or identifiable natural person (‘data subject’). An identifiable natural person is one who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to an identifier such as a name, an identification number, location data, an online identifier or to one or more factors specific to the physical, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural or social identity of that natural person.’ These identifiers could be as simple as a name or a number or could include other identifiers such as an IP address or a cookie identifier, or other factors.
  • Processing: ‘processing means any operation or set of operations which is performed on personal data or on sets of personal data, whether or not by automated means, such as collection, recording, organisation, structuring, storage, adaptation or alteration, retrieval, consultation, use, disclosure by transmission, dissemination or otherwise making available, alignment or combination, restriction, erasure or destruction.’
  • You and Yours and the User: refers to the person that is utilising Humanitarian Outcome products, i.e., reports, data, visual graphics, websites and other digital products.
  • Us, We: Humanitarian Outcomes LLC.

Overview of our processing activities

We publish data, research reports, news, visualisations, videos of expert events, and links to external pages through our websites. We also provide icons that link to our social media profiles. Most of the material that we provide is freely available to the public and there is currently no subscription-based service or registered account required to access our products which would create a point of personal data collection.

These data processing activities occur when you engage with our websites.

  • When you visit the aforementioned Humanitarian Outcomes websites, some limited personal data will be processed to support your user experience within the website itself. You may limit some of these collection efforts by allowing or disallowing the use of cookies when presented with the data security banner on our websites.
  • If you subscribe to our mailing list, social media accounts, or other third-party services which provide access to our newsletters and any other informational services, additional data will be collected and processed within the scope and parameters of that service.
  • When you visit our websites or download our products (reports, images, visualisations), some user information will be collected for the purposes of  maintaining accountability and reporting to our donors who fund those products. This is further explained below.
  • We have undertaken data privacy protections to help ensure that we only collect the data that we need to provide you with an optimal user experience on our site.

Using our site:

  • Depending on the laws of your geographical jurisdiction, you may be entitled to certain rights in regard to the processing of your personal data.
  • By using certain elements of our website, your personal data may be disclosed outside of your country of residence and different data protection standards may apply in those jurisdictions.

Informational use of the website

When you visit our website for informational and do not register for additional services (newsletters, email distribution lists and social media linked services including any other services that require registration), we may automatically collect additional information about you which will contain personal data only in limited cases and which is automatically recognised by our server. These are ‘first party cookies’ and ‘third party cookies’ that are meant to improve the user experience and we consider essential for our analytics gathering.

Some of these analytics may include, but are not limited to:

  • your IP address;
  • your device type, name and IDs;
  • the date and time of your requests;
  • the content of your requests;
  • information on your browser version;
  • information on your operating system, including language settings;
  • your location (country and city).

We use this information to help us determine which content is the most useful to our users and how to present similar content for optimal engagement. (Refer to Article 6 sec. 1 sent. 1 lit. b GDPR.) We collect broad, anonymised, and aggregated demographic information to understand and assess our report dissemination spread and uptake.

Registration for our services

We provide personal digital services, including a newsletter subscription service and a mailing list to keep our users appraised of new reports and available data on our website.

This data is collected and maintained by a third-party service and data may be stored on their servers.

The following information is processed if you subscribe to our mailing list and newsletter:

  • Information (such as your name and email address) that is provided by registration;
  • If provided by you, information about your professional position and place of work

We will never sell this information or use it in a way that is incompatible with the reasons for the collecting this information.

We will process the personal data you provide to:

  • Provide you with the services and information offered through the website;
  • Communicate with you within the parameters that you requested;
  • Provide access (where appropriate) to other Humanitarian Outcomes content that you request.

You, the user, can object and opt out of the use of your data by our services at any time. Opt-out links (“unsubscribe” links) are provided in email and newsletter communications

You can also inform us about your objection by contacting data protection focal points through info@humanitarianoutcomes.org

Subscription data is kept until a request is made to remove it or when the user removes themselves from the mailing and subscription lists. When removal requests are made, data will be erased within 30 days. Statutory storage obligations or the need for legal actions that may arise from misconduct within the services or payment problems can lead to a longer retention of your personal data. In this case, we will inform you accordingly.

Analytics

Google Analytics

All Humanitarian Outcomes reports and publicly visible data is free for non-commercial use. While downloads do not require registration on the website, all Humanitarian Outcomes websites collect user data through Google Analytics. This data is collected to help us report aggregated product downloads to our funders in order to determine the breadth of dissemination and uptake of the products. Google Analytics anonymizes and aggregates the data on their end before it is accessed by their account holders.

The data that is collected and utlised by Humanitarian Outcomes is:

  • Geographic country and city level location data to determine the dissemination reach of our reports and data;
  • Pageviews and sessions to determine how many times individual users viewed reports, project pages, data, graphics;
  • Events to estimate potential downloads of products;
  • Aggregated users over time;
  • Gender breakdown.

Google Analytics is a web analytics service that tracks and reports website traffic. It is

operated by Google Inc., 16000 Amphitheater Pkwy, Mountain View, CA 94043-1351, USA. We use Google Analytics to track visitor data on both of our websites and databases. Google Analytics stores cookies on your browser or reads cookies that are already there. Google has its own privacy and terms in regard to users of its apps and services, including Google Analytics. Google also provides a detailed description on how data is safeguarded. You may prevent the collection of data by Google Analytics and the processing of your information by adding an Opt-out Browser Add-on.

We also use User ID, a feature of Google Analytics, to track user interaction with the elements of our site.  You can choose to stop tracking via Google Analytics and cookies, but this may limit your user experience on our websites as certain features may not be available as a result.    

Google Consent Mode (Beta)

We use Google Consent Mode (Beta) with Google Analytics to adjust how our Google tags behave based on the consent status of our users. Google tags will adapt, meaning that they will only utilise measurement tools when consent is given by the user for specific purposes. The behaviors are defined on Google’s page on consent mode behavior.

Third party content: article alerts and newsletters

Mailchimp

Using your email address, you can subscribe to receive occasional newsletters and alerts about our latest research and reports. The legal basis for this processing is Article 6 sec. 1 sent. 1 lit. a GDPR. Your email address will be retained as long as you subscribe to our newsletters.

You can unsubscribe from this service by opting out via the link provided in each newsletter. Our email and newsletter subscription processing service is managed by MailChimp which is owned and operated by The Rocket Science Group LLC. More information about MailChimp’s private policy and GDPR compliance is available through their website.

Third party content: social media plug-ins

Social media plug-ins

We use the following social media plug-ins: Facebook, Bluesky and LinkedIn. This allows you to communicate with these services and follow a link to their services in order to add our accounts (“follow us”) and to share our posts and see other information about us. Social media plug-ins enable a direct communication between your device and the servers of the social media provider, allowing the social media provider to communicate with you and collect information about you browsing our website.

We do not have control over the type of personal data that is collected by the plug-ins and the way that the collected information is used, or how long it is retained by that service. Each service comes with its own policies and procedures that can be found on their respective websites.

Transfer of personal data takes place whether you have an account with the provider or not.

Further information about the processing of your personal data in the provider’s course of operation is provided via their respective privacy policy. While every one of these services differs in the way that it handles information, they generally have the same operational protocol once the user clicks on the embedded plugin on our website.

When one clicks on the social media logo/plug-in (a white “f” on our Humanitarian Outcomes site for Facebook, a white bird logo for Twitter and a white “in” for LinkedIn), the user’s browser will connect directly with the associated social media service and its servers. If the user is signed in, then the social media service may collect data on the user, including the website that they were previously visiting or being forwarded from. If the user then interacts by commenting, liking or reposting information, the social media service may transmit this data to the social media service. Certain social media services, in this case Facebook, will log the users IP address if the user is not a member of the service and save it on its servers. If the user is a member of these social media services and they do not wish for the service to log their information or track them than they have the option of logging out of the service before clicking on our associated social media plug-ins.

Information on the social media services that we use on our website(s):

Facebook Inc., 1601 S. California Ave, Palo Alto, CA 94304, USA ("Facebook"). More detailed information can be found on Facebook’s data policy.

Twitter Inc., 795 Folsom St., Suite 600, San Francisco, CA 94107, USA. ("Twitter")

More detailed information can be found on Twitter’s privacy statement.

LinkedIn Inc., More information can be found on LinkedIn’s privacy statement and their cookie policy.

Bluesky's privacy statement. Bluesky, the company, is a Public Benefit Corporation.

Affiliate links

We currently only use one affiliate link on our website to provide you with the opportunity to purchase paid content that, once clicked, will take you to the affiliate’s purchase page which is owned by Springer Nature Group.  Springer-Verlag GmbH is located in Heidelberg, Zweigniederlassung der Springer-Verlag GmbH Berlin, Tiergartenstrasse 17, D-69121 Heidelberg, Germany. They can be contacted at customerservice@springernature.com.

To purchase books via the link, you will need to create an account which will retain certain financial information and other personal data to support the transaction. This data is kept for 10 years but after two years certain restrictions will be made to comply with statuary requirements. The affiliate, Springer Nature Group, retains your personal information in accordance with Article 6 sec. 1 sent. 1 lit. c GDPR. For further and more detailed information on their web shop policies, see section 5, 2. Web shop under their privacy statement.

By clicking on the affiliate link, Springer Nature and any third-party data processing tool it is using, may be collecting personal information about you. We do not control those e-commerce tools, associated cookies and processes, but you may be able to turn off or choose your preferences in regard to these settings. Read more under Springer Nature’s private policy statement, section V11.

Information sharing

We may disclose your personal data if legally entitled or required to do so (for example if required by law or by a court order). The legal basis for this will be Article 6 sec. 1 sent. 1 lit. c GDPR and any national laws.

Security

We ensure that we protect your data by authorising a limited the number of people that have access to it, preventing the forwarding or use of your data for means that you did not define or subscribe to, and ensuring that we have reasonable protection measures in place to keep your data secure. We only keep data that is necessary to perform the tasks as defined above and support your requests. We ensure that our websites are maintained, and that security updates and certifications are kept up to date.

We review our privacy policies annually or earlier if there are changes to legislation to enhance any areas that are evolving.

We use all reasonable efforts to prevent misuse, alteration or loss of personal data, but you should keep in mind that we can make no guarantees that this will not occur. Submission of information, whether intended or occurring in the background, is never entirely secure, especially as it is being transmitted over the internet and the submission of such information is at your own risk.

Data retention

You data will only be retained for as long as it is required to fulfil our obligation to the services that you requested. You will always be able to request removal from these services. Please contact our data protection officer at info@humanitarianoutcomes.org  for removal from these services and your request will be processed within 30 days of the request being made.

Your rights

Under the legislation applicable to you, which may differ depending on your geographic boundaries, you may have these and/or other rights:

  1. right to be informed about the collection and use of your personal data, information on the purposes for processing your personal data, the retention periods for that personal data, and who it will be shared with, if anyone.
  2. the right to access and receive a copy of your personal data, and other supplementary information.
  3. The ability to request the removal, restriction or change to your data because (i) it is no longer needed for the purpose you had originally intended, (ii) you wish to withdraw consent, (iii) it is inaccurate or complete.
  4. You have the right to receive your personal information in a (i) format that is accessible, concise and intelligible and (ii) in a manner that the information is disclosed securely.

Amendments to this policy

We reserve the right to change this policy as needed and as laws change on website use and personal data processing. This policy was last updated on 10 February 2024.