Privacy notice

Overview

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into effect on 25 May 2018. While GDPR is a European Union regulation it is retained in UK law after Brexit.

The purpose of this Privacy Policy is to set out the principles governing Young Sounds UK's use of any personal information that we may obtain about you. Young Sounds UK is committed to the protection and correct use of the personal data of anyone who is involved with us, including participants, their parents or carers, staff, freelancers, donors and volunteers.

We aim to be clear and transparent and avoid anything you wouldn't reasonably expect. We do this by ensuring you are provided with an explanation about how Young Sounds UK collects and processes the information you provide us with, or that we collect about you, whether online, via phone, email, in letters or in any other correspondence or from third parties.

Changes to this Privacy Notice

This Privacy Policy is regularly reviewed and may be updated from time to time. This version is current and was last updated in March 2026.

1. Who we are

In this policy references to Young Sounds UK, or "Young Sounds", 'we' or 'us' are Young Sounds UK, the working name of Awards for Young Musicians which is registered with the Charity Commission in England and Wales as a Charitable Incorporated Organisation – Company Registration No. 3602851 and UK Registered Charity No. 1070994. Our postal address is PO Box 2754, Bristol, BS4 9DA.

Young Sounds helps young people who need financial and other forms of support to progress their musical talent. Each of our programmes is built around two key aims: removing the financial and access barriers that prevent young people getting into music and helping realise their potential once they're on their way. We're here to give the best help and support possible, inspiring them to not only succeed, but excel.

2. What personal information we collect and how we use it

What we need

Young Sounds is what's known as the 'Data Controller' of the personal information you provide to us. We will usually collect basic personal information about you like your name, postal address, telephone number and email address depending on your relationship with us. Sometimes we will collect other information about you such as your date of birth, gender identity, and other details. We will be very clear with you that we wish to collect such information, our reason for collecting such information, and we would only do so with your consent.

Why we need it

We collect your personal information in connection with specific activities, such as:

• Thrive application for an Award: We collect personal information if you apply for an Award via our open application process so that we can process your application. This includes sensitive information regarding the financial circumstances of the household in which the young musician lives, which we require to ascertain whether our income criteria are met. Financial information is provided by either a parent or carer or by an adult working in an official capacity with the young person, e.g. a representative from a school or youth service.
• Thrive programme activities: We collect personal information about you if you take part in activities as part of our Thrive programme, so that we can run our activities safely and effectively.
• Connect programme: We collect personal information if you are nominated for our Connect programme, in order to administer the programme and run activities safely and effectively. For this scheme we are generally joint controllers with our primary partner, the local Music Education Hub lead organisation, which means that both we and the Hub lead organisation have access to the data and have responsibility for protecting it. We are also required to share some of the data with the funders of the programme. We will ask for your permission to do so. The data is stored by Young Sounds on Salesforce (see below under 'Where is your Information held?').
• Discover programme: We collect personal information if you sign up to or attend training we run, in order to administer the activities.
• Marketing: We collect personal information from our partners or stakeholders to share information about our activities and raise our profile – including but not limited to: social media, website, email newsletters, listings, posters, fliers and word of mouth.
• Networking: We make and develop relationships with key stakeholders and other arts and charitable organisations to further the reach of Young Sounds UK's charitable activity and collect personal information to make and sustain these relationships.
• Fundraising: We collect personal information in the process of gathering voluntary contributions of money or other resources when requesting donations from individuals, businesses, crowdfunding, charitable foundations, or public funders (e.g. Arts Council England). Where appropriate we may research personal data (which may include background checks) of donors or those planning to make a donation or gift, before we accept it. In these cases we use a third party database which exclusively relies on published sources.
• Human Resources: We collect personal information during the recruitment process from applicants, volunteers, trustees, casual staff and employees.
• Website: Our website uses cookies but these are not used to identify you personally.

We also record sensitive information that may include:

• Medical information or additional needs
• Employment tribunal applications, complaints, accidents, and incident details

This is to ensure the safety of all the young people participating in our programmes.

Our marketing

Sometimes, with your consent, we will use your personal information to provide you with information about our work or our activities that you have requested or are expecting.

On other occasions, we may use personal information to fulfil a contract or where we are required to do this by law or other regulations.

If you would like to change the way you hear from us or no longer wish to receive direct marketing communications then please contact us directly or unsubscribe.

Young Sounds UK also processes your information when it is in our legitimate interests to do this and when these interests do not override your rights. Please see the section on 'Legitimate Interest' for more information.

How we obtain your details

We collect your personal information in several ways:

• When you provide it to us directly.
• When you provide permission to other organisations to share it with us (including social media sites).
• When we collect it as you use our website.
• When you have given it to a third party and you have provided permission to pass your information on to us.
• We combine the information from these sources with the information you provide to us directly.

Children

If you are under 18 please ensure you obtain your parent's/guardian's consent before sending any personal information to our website or to Young Sounds UK. As a parent or guardian, we encourage you to be aware of the activities in which your children are participating, both offline and online. If your children voluntarily disclose information, this may encourage unsolicited messages. We suggest that you discourage your child from providing any information without your consent.

Young Sounds does not request personal information from those under the age of 18 without the consent of a suitable supporting adult. Applications made to our Awards programme are signed by a responsible adult who agrees to Young Sounds UK's Privacy Policy. In most cases this is the parent/guardian of the young musician but can be a representative of a school/youth organisation with whom the young person is involved.

Where is your information held?

All the personal information we hold is processed within the UK. However for the purposes of IT hosting and maintenance your information may be situated outside the UK and the European Economic Area (EEA). This is done in accordance with guidance issued by the Information Commissioner's Office. Young Sounds UK uses various cloud-based platforms, some of which have operations outside the EEA. Young Sounds has undertaken a review of each platform's approach to data protection and privacy and are satisfied that they have adequate protections in place to protect personal data.

• Salesforce: for securely storing and managing data on all aspects of the charity's operation. You can read more about Salesforce's commitment to data protection here.
• Survey Monkey Apply: for the management of applications made to our Thrive programme. You can download Survey Monkey's publication 'Survey Monkey and GDPR' here.
• Wufoo forms: for event bookings, surveys and data collection related to events and activities. You can read about Wufoo's commitment to GDPR here.
• Office 365: for secure cloud storage of documents. You can read about Microsoft's commitment to GDPR here.
• Airtable: for the management of recruitment processes and other human resources and operational administration. You can read more about Airtable's commitment to GDPR here.
• Mailchimp: for the management of our electronic mailing lists. You can read more about Mailchimp's commitment to GDPR here.

3. Legitimate interests

We have several lawful reasons that mean we can use your personal information. A key one is called 'legitimate interests.' Broadly speaking this term means we can process your personal information if we have a genuine and legitimate reason and we are not harming any of your rights and interests.

4. Sharing your information

We do not share your information with any other organisations or individuals unless we are obliged to by law, for purposes of national security, taxation and criminal investigations and in the following instances:

• If you have agreed that we may do so.
• If we run a project or an event in partnership with other named organisations your details may need to be shared. We will be very clear about what will happen to your data when you register.
• We may disclose aggregate statistics about our programmes, supporters and beneficiaries to describe our services and operations to partners, funding bodies and other reputable third parties and for other lawful purposes, but these statistics won't include any personally identifying information.

We will never sell or rent your personal information to other organisations.

5. Retaining your information

As a general rule we will keep personal data for no more than a year after last use. This applies to employees, Trustees, Patrons, suppliers, Connectors of our Connect programme and Music Education Hub lead organisations. Retaining their data for longer is possible with their consent or if we can demonstrate a legitimate interest.

We will retain data of Alumni of all our programmes beyond the period of support, in line with a legitimate interest risk assessment. The need to further retain Alumni data will be reviewed each year as part of an annual review of our GDPR procedures. We will not retain unsuccessful applicants' data for more than a year, as they can re-apply whenever they wish.

As an exception to the general principle above, we are required by HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) to retain certain data for a period of seven years, including records of donors using Gift Aid. If donors have not donated for seven years we will delete their data, after checking whether they have any further interest. HMRC also requires retention of key accounting data for seven years in case they make enquiries and this obliges us to keep various items of personal data for that period, including for example supplier invoices and employee expenses.

6. Our cookie policy

This policy explains what cookies are, how we use them on our website, what third parties we share data with, and how you can manage your preferences.

Cookies and how they benefit you

Our website uses cookies to provide essential functionality, understand how visitors use our site, and deliver relevant marketing. Some of these cookies are set by third-party services. Cookies are small text files that are placed on your computer or mobile phone when you browse websites. Our cookies help us:

• Make our website work as you'd expect.
• Remember your settings during and between visits.
• Improve the speed/security of the site.
• Allow you to share pages with social networks.
• Continuously improve our website for you.
• Make our marketing more efficient.

Your consent

When you first visit our website, you'll see a cookie banner asking for your consent. You can choose which categories of cookies to accept or reject. You can change your preferences at any time by clicking the "Manage Cookies" link in the footer of our website.

How long do cookies last?

When a web server sends a cookie, it asks your browser to keep that particular cookie until a certain date and time. These dates can be:

• Some date in the future – which might be a few minutes or a few hours from now (to track something like your shopping cart in an online store). The cookie might expire many years in the future, to keep track of your browser for a long time.
• When you close your browser – this is called a session cookie; the next time you start your browser these will have vanished.
• Some date in the past – this is how the server asks a browser to remove a previously-stored cookie.

Analytics and behaviour tracking

We use analytics services to understand how visitors use our website, including which pages they visit, how long they spend on the site, and how they navigate through our content. We also use tools that record user behaviour such as mouse movements, clicks, and scrolling patterns to help us improve the user experience.

These services collect information including your IP address, browser type, device information, and browsing behaviour. Some of this data is shared with third-party providers.

Marketing and advertising cookies

We use marketing cookies to measure the effectiveness of our campaigns and deliver relevant advertising. These cookies track your visit to our website and may be used by third-party advertising networks to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant advertisements on other websites.

Data collected through marketing cookies is shared with third-party platforms including social media networks.

Turning cookies off

You can usually switch cookies off by adjusting your browser settings to stop it from accepting cookies. Doing so, however, will likely limit the functionality of ours and a large proportion of the world's websites as cookies are a standard part of most modern websites.

The cookies and services we use

Cookie Name	Provider	Purpose	Type	Duration
_ga	Google Analytics	Distinguishes unique users and tracks site usage	Analytics	2 years
_ga_*	Google Analytics	Stores and counts page views	Analytics	2 years
_gid	Google Analytics	Distinguishes unique users	Analytics	24 hours
_hjSession*	Hotjar	Holds current session data	Analytics	30 minutes
_hjSessionUser*	Hotjar	Ensures data from subsequent visits is attributed to the same user	Analytics	1 year
_fbp	Facebook Pixel	Used to deliver and track advertising on Facebook/Instagram	Marketing	3 months

7. What are your rights?

You have a number of rights about how the personal information you provide can be used. These are:

• Transparency over how we use your personal information (right to be informed).
• The ability to request a copy of the information we hold about you, which will be provided to you within one month (right of access).
• The right to update or amend the information we hold about you if it is wrong (right of rectification).
• Ask us to stop using your information (right to restrict processing).
• Ask us to remove your personal information from our records (right to be 'forgotten').
• Object to the processing of your information for marketing purposes (right to object).
• Obtain and reuse your personal information for your own purposes (right to data portability).
• Not be subject to a decision when it is based on automated processing (automated decision making and profiling).

If you would like to know more about your rights under the data protection law, you can find out more at the Information Commissioner's Office website.

Remember, you can change the way you hear from us or withdraw your permission for us to process your personal information at any time by contacting us or updating your preferences via our e-newsletters.

Third-party privacy policies

For more information about how our third-party service providers use your data, please see their privacy policies:

• Google Analytics
• Facebook
• Hotjar

8. How to contact us

If you wish to talk through anything in our privacy policy, find out more about your rights or obtain a copy of the information we hold about you, please contact us using the contact details below.

If you wish to raise a complaint on how we have handled your personal information, you can contact the Finance and Operations Director who will investigate the matter. If you are not satisfied with our response or believe we are not processing your personal information in accordance with the law you can complain to the Fundraising Regulator or the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO).

Our Finance and Operations Director can be contacted by writing to:

Finance and Operations Director
Young Sounds UK, PO Box 2754, Bristol, BS4 9DA
Email: [email protected]
Tel: 0300 302 0023