- Our contact details
- How we collect information
- Information we may collect from you
- How we use your information
- Who will see your information?
- Transferring information outside of the UK
- How long will we keep your information?
- Your rights
- How to contact us or complain
- Our EEA representative
- Changes to this privacy notice
Please note this privacy notice is for &Us only. To find out about the other ways processes your data for the website, go to the website privacy policy.
If you would like someone to talk you through this please get in touch by emailing and_us@rcpch.ac.uk.
Our contact details
Name: Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health ()
Address: 5-11 Theobalds Road, London, WC1X 8SH
Phone: +44 (0)20 7092 6000
Email: Data Protection Officer (for privacy/data protection enquiries only) information.governance@rcpch.ac.uk
General enquiries can be sent via our contact form or by contacting and_us@rcpch.ac.uk.
The current law says that young people aged 13+ can give their own consent to share information with online. Children aged 12 and under will need to get their parents or carers to consent.
When you give your personal information to , there is a law called the “General Data Protection Regulation” (GDPR) that helps us to keep it safe. It also tells you how we use it properly by:
- collecting the information fairly
- letting you know how we will use it
- keeping the information secure.
Whenever you give us your personal information, we will follow this privacy statement, and data protection law in how we use it.
How we collect information
We get information from you when you get in touch about our activities, apply to volunteer with us, contact us or share your information with us, e.g. contact information or your ideas or views.
Information we may collect from you
When you get in touch with us and register for &Us online or join one of our events or projects, we may collect both personal information and sensitive information.
Personal information (data) includes:
- name
- age or date of birth
- email address
- postal address
- telephone number
- gender.
Sensitive information (special category data) includes:
- racial and ethnic origin
- religion
- your sexuality or gender identity
- disabilities/health needs you may have.
There may be another example of personal or sensitive information – these lists are an example.
When you visit our website, we also sometimes use cookies to collect information about your visit.
How we use your information
We may use your personal data in a few ways, depending on how you interact with us. Under UK data protection law, we have to let you know what legal bases we are relying on to process your personal data. We explain this below in a table. For more information about the different legal bases, please see our page: Understanding GDPR and your data rights
| How we use your personal data | Legal bases | Notes |
| Give you information about and the &Us network | legitimate interest | We need to process your personal data so we can keep you up to date with &Us network activities and relevant activities. If you no longer want to be part of the network, please let us know: and_us@rcpch.ac.uk. |
| Send you volunteer opportunities we feel may be of interest to you | legitimate interest | We will use the personal data you have provided so we can match you to volunteer opportunities you may be interested in, where you have shown an interest in volunteering. If you are no longer interested and want to be removed from the mailing list, please contact us: and_us@rcpch.ac.uk. |
| Reply to any messages, emails or letters you have sent to us | legitimate interest | We need to use the personal data you have provided so that we can reply to the communications you send us- for example if you email us with a question, we will use your email address to respond. |
| Administrative support | legitimate interest | We will need to process your personal data where necessary to run our events and activities. We will always use the minimal personal data we need to, to do the job we are doing. |
| Promotional material for &Us | consent | We may ask to use photos, videos or comments as part of promoting the &Us network. We will only do this where we have a signed consent form. he consent form will have more information about how your information will be used. |
| We may ask for your opinions/viewpoints in relation to a consultation or through a survey. | consent | Unless otherwise stated, we do not aim to collect any personal data. If we do, we will only use it for the purpose stated in the consultation/survey, and we will anonymise anything that we share with any external bodies |
| We might also use your comments, views or ideas in reports. | consent | We will only use your name or any other information that will identify you where you have given us consent to do this. |
| We may look at the information to understand you and your interests so that we can contact you in the way you want and about the things that matter to you. | legitimate interests, consent | We will only send this to you if you agree to receive them. You can be removed from the mailing list at any time by contacting us: and_us@rcpch.ac.uk. |
| We may occasionally need to process your personal data if there is an emergency situation where we need it to help you or others or where we have a safeguarding concern | vital interests, legitimate interests, recognised legitimate interests, legal obligation, substantial public interest (special category data) | Sometimes we may have an emergency or a safeguarding concern where we need to process your personal data to protect you or to keep you safe. Where we are relying on a legal obligation, this is where it is necessary to fulfil our obligations in relation to safeguarding under the Children's' Act 2004. Where we are relying on recognised legitimate interests, this is where we need to use your personal data to respond to or deal with an emergency situation, or to protect the physical, mental or emotional well-being of people who need extra support to do this or protect them from harm or neglect (the ‘safeguarding condition’). Where we are processing special category data, such as data about a health condition, we need an extra legal bases for processing. In this case, we rely on substantial public interest and Schedule 1, 18 of the Data Protection Act 2018 which allows us to process personal data where it is necessary for the safeguarding of children and individuals at risk |
Who will see your information?
We will keep your information confidential and it will only be seen by authorised staff.
If there is an emergency situation or medical emergency, we may need to share your personal data with a third party (such as a doctor). We will only do this where absolutely necessary and only the minimal amount required.
We may sometimes use other organisations (third-party suppliers or data processors) to help us provide a service, such as WhatsApp to communicate with you or Dotdigital to send our newsletter. If we do, we may need to share some of your information with them, but we will keep this to only what is necessary for them to provide that service. We will not share your information with anyone else unless we check with you first unless we have to do so by law.
Our website may contain links to third-party websites (run by somebody else). This policy applies to the website, so if you follow a link to a third-party site, please make sure you read the privacy policy on that site. We do not accept any responsibility for third-party sites.
Transferring information outside of the UK
We will keep your information safe and keep it in Europe although to provide some products and services we, or our data processors (like WhatsApp), may transfer and process information in countries outside of the UK. Some of these countries, such as those in the European Economic Area (EEA), will have an officially recognised equivalent level of protection to the UK (adequacy decision).
A list of these countries can be found on the ICO website. Where there is no equivalent level of protection, we will take all reasonable steps necessary to ensure that your information is protected by having a recognised agreement with our partners and suppliers, such as regulatory approved Standard Contractual Clauses, Binding Corporate Rules or Codes of Conduct, explicit consent, or an adequacy decision except where an exception from article 49 of the GDPR applies. We will only use suppliers that have the right rules in place to protect your information and will check these to make sure they are safe and have the right rules in place to be trusted with your information.
To find out more about any specific uses of information in countries outside of the UK, or for further information about the safeguards that we have put in place, please contact the Data Protection Officer: information.governance@rcpch.ac.uk
How long will we keep your information?
When you join &Us as a child or young person, or if you are a parent or carer and register with &Us, you will stay registered with us until you ask us to remove you from the list. You can unsubscribe at any time using the link at the bottom of the &Us newsletter or by emailing and_us@rcpch.ac.uk.
If you are taking part in a project or attending an event, we will sometimes need to keep information longer under certain laws, for example for Health and Safety or safeguarding purposes.
If you have given consent and work with us regularly, we will contact you every year to make sure your information is still correct and you are still happy for us to use your information in the same way. We will work with you to gain appropriate consent, which may be from you or from your parent or carer.
Your rights
Please tell us if any of your details change – this will help us to keep our records up to date. You can update your details, including updating how we contact you, or to be taken off of the &Us list by contacting us at and_us@rcpch.ac.uk.
If you want to withdraw consent at any time, for any of the activities you have consented to, please contact us at and_us@rcpch.ac.uk.
Under data protection law you have certain rights about the information (data) we hold about you. To find out more about these and how you can contact us, please see our page: Understanding GDPR and your data rights.
How to contact us or complain
If you are unhappy with how we are using your personal data, you should contact us in the first instance so that we can understand and try to resolve your concern. If we can't resolve the issue you have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO). The ICO is the UK's independent body set up to uphold information rights.
The ICO’s address:
Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
Helpline number: 0303 123 1113
ICO website:
If you have any questions about our privacy policy, or the information we hold about you or you wish to make a complaint, please send an email to: information.governance@rcpch.ac.uk
Our EEA representative
If you are resident in the EEA or Switzerland, you can contact us via our EEA/Swiss Representative. You can also still contact us direct. To find out more please visit our page: EEA and Swiss representative for GDPR queries
Changes to this privacy notice
We keep our privacy notice under review, and we will place any updates on this web page. This privacy policy was last updated on 1 April 2026.