PRIVACY POLICY.

Last reviewed and updated: August 2026

​

Make Polluters Pay International is convened by Stamp Out Poverty, which acts as the coalition's secretariat. Your data is therefore collected and processed by Stamp Out Poverty, in line with this policy.

​

Stamp Out Poverty is committed to keeping personal data secure and being transparent about how we collect and use your data, so you can be confident about supporting our work. All personal information is held in line with UK data protection law, namely the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018, as amended by the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025.

​

The purpose of this policy is to help you understand what personal information we collect, how we use it, and what your rights are.

This policy applies to makepolluterspayinternational.org and other sites run by Stamp Out Poverty. It does not apply to our coalition partners, national campaigns or other organisations we link to, all of which operate their own privacy policies.

​

If you have questions about our data protection practices, or wish to contact us in relation to this privacy policy, you can email us at office@stampoutpoverty.org

​

The information we collect about you

​

We collect personal information about you in a number of ways. When you engage with us by:

• Signing up to receive updates from the coalition

• Signing a petition or pledge hosted or promoted by us

• Contacting us about joining the coalition or the wider network

• Taking part in coalition activities, events or campaign moments, online and offline

• Visiting our website

• Contacting us via our website or by email

​

To comply with UK data protection law, we will always ensure we have a legal justification for collecting and using your personal information.

 

The legal basis we rely on will depend on the circumstances, and in almost all cases will fall into one of the following categories:

​

• Where you have provided your consent to allow us to use your data in a certain way.

• Where it is necessary for us to process your data in order to comply with a legal obligation.

• Where it is in our legitimate interests to contact you in order to achieve our campaign objectives. Where we rely on a legitimate interest, we will always ensure this is done in a way that is not intrusive, does not cause distress, and respects your rights. We carry out a balancing assessment before relying on legitimate interests, and you can ask us for information about it.

• Where it is necessary for us to process your data in order to carry out the performance of a contract with you.

​

Petitions and campaign actions

​

Where we ask for an email address on a petition or campaign form, that information is used to verify your action.

Some petitions may provide an option for you to give additional consent to be contacted about the coalition's work. You can opt out at any time using the link included in every email we send, or by contacting us using the details in this policy. Where no such option is offered, your information is used only to verify your action and is not processed for any other purpose.

​

Some actions we promote are hosted by our coalition partners rather than by us. The Polluter Pays Pact, for example, is an initiative of Greenpeace International and is hosted on their platform. Where you take an action on a partner's website, your data is collected by that organisation under their own privacy policy, not ours. We would encourage you to read the relevant policy before signing.

​

How we use your data

​

We use personal data in a variety of ways, which include the following:

​

• Providing you with information you have requested from us

• Keeping you updated on the coalition's campaigning work

• Inviting you to take part in campaign actions, events or international moments of action

• Responding to enquiries about joining the coalition or the wider network

• Responding to any complaints from you

• Inviting you to participate in surveys or research

• Analysing and refining our communications and campaigning to increase our effectiveness

• Working with authorities in cases of fraud or criminal investigations

​

Personalised communication and profiling

​

To ensure our communication with you is relevant and timely, we may build up a picture of your interests based on your previous interactions with us, for example, which campaign actions you have taken, or which country you are contacting us from. This helps us send you information that is genuinely useful rather than everything we produce.

​

We do not make decisions about you based solely on automated processing that produce legal effects or similarly significantly affect you. You have the right to object to profiling for direct marketing purposes, and you may opt out of profiling at any time by contacting us using the details at the end of this policy.

​

Visitors to our website

​

Cookies

​

Cookies are small files downloaded onto your computer or mobile device by websites you visit. They contain information that allows a website to recognise that you have used it before.

​

We use cookies to analyse website traffic and improve your experience of the site. Where cookies are not strictly necessary for the website to function, we will ask for your consent before setting them, in line with the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR). You can choose which categories of cookies to accept when you first visit, and change your preferences at any time via the cookie settings on our website.

​

Third party cookies and online advertising

​

You may see our campaign content online or on social media if you have engaged with us before, or if your use of those platforms suggests you would find our campaigns relevant. Where we use cookies to measure how well individual pieces of content perform, these are issued by third party service providers we have assessed as secure.

​

If you do not wish to see this content, you can change this by managing the privacy settings on your social media accounts.

​

How your data is kept secure

​

We use industry-standard tools to safeguard the confidentiality of your personally identifiable information, and make every effort to protect against the loss, misuse and alteration of information under our control.

​

The link between your web browser and our server is secure if your browser displays a padlock symbol, or the address bar shows a web address beginning https:// rather than http://.

​

International transfers

​

As an international coalition, we work with partners and service providers in a number of countries. We endeavour to keep supporter data within the UK or the European Economic Area (EEA). Where personal data is transferred outside the UK, we ensure an appropriate safeguard recognised under UK data protection law is in place. Depending on the destination and provider, this will be one of the following:

​

• A UK adequacy decision, where the Secretary of State has determined that the destination country provides an adequate level of protection.

• The UK Extension to the EU-US Data Privacy Framework (the “UK-US data bridge”), where the receiving organisation in the United States is actively self-certified to the Data Privacy Framework and has opted into the UK Extension.

• The ICO's International Data Transfer Agreement (IDTA), or the UK Addendum to the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses, supported by a Transfer Risk Assessment where required.

​

We keep the transfer mechanisms we rely on under review, and will update them if the legal framework changes.

​

Who has access to your data

​

Within Stamp Out Poverty

​

Only those authorised to process your data can access it. We work to ensure staff can only see the data they need to perform their tasks, and all staff are trained in data protection. We review that training regularly.

​

Coalition partners

​

We will never sell or swap your details with other organisations, including our coalition partners, without your explicit permission.

Being part of an international coalition does not mean your data is shared across it. If we ever want to pass your details to a national campaign or partner organisation, for example, to connect you with a campaign in your own country, we will ask you first and explain clearly who will receive your data.

​

Service providers

​

We use trusted third party service providers to help run our website, communications and campaigns, including our website platform, email platform and campaigning or petition tools. These providers act on our instructions as data processors, are bound by written contracts, and may only use your data to deliver the service we have asked them to provide.

​

Data retention

​

We retain data only for an appropriate length of time. In some cases retention periods are governed by law, and in others we are guided by best practice and operational need.

​

When we no longer need your personal information, we will ensure it is securely disposed of.

​

If we are processing your data on the basis of consent and we do not hear from you for five years, we will stop contacting you. If that happens and you would like to hear from us again, you can tell us using the contact details below.

​

Your data protection rights

​

Under data protection legislation you have a number of rights:

​

• The right to be informed about how we use your data.

• The right of access - to ask for a copy of the personal information we hold about you.

• The right to rectification - to correct your personal information if it is incomplete or inaccurate.

• The right to erasure - to request deletion of your personal information in certain circumstances.

• The right to restrict processing - if there is disagreement about the accuracy or legitimate use of your data.

• The right to data portability - to receive the data you provided to us in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format.

• The right to object - including an absolute right to object to processing for direct marketing purposes at any time.

• The right to withdraw consent at any time, where we are processing data on that basis.

• Rights in relation to automated decision-making and profiling.

​

Exercising these rights is free of charge. We will respond within one month, though this may be extended by up to two further months for complex requests, in which case we will let you know.

​

How to make a complaint

​

If you are unhappy with how we have handled your personal data, you have the right to complain to us directly. Please email office@stampoutpoverty.org with the details of your complaint.

​

We will acknowledge your complaint within 30 days of receiving it, and keep you informed of the progress and outcome of our investigation.

If you are not satisfied with our response, you have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), the UK's independent data protection regulator:

​

• Website: ico.org.uk

• Helpline: 0303 123 1113

• Post: Information Commissioner's Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF

​

You may complain to the ICO at any time and do not have to raise your complaint with us first, though we would always welcome the chance to put things right.

​

Changes to this policy

​

This policy may change from time to time. The amended version will be published on our website, and any significant changes will be communicated either on the website or directly.

​

This replaces any previous privacy policy wording, and all conditions and terms of use will be in force from the date of publication.

​

This policy was last reviewed and updated in August 2026.