At Refugees At Home (“us”, “we”, or “our”), we take privacy and our use of your data seriously and acknowledge the importance of protecting any personal information – that is, any information from which a person can be identified, such as names, contact details and ID information (in this policy we call this “Personal Information”) – that we hold. This policy informs you how we collect and process Personal Information about you when you visit our website together with any Personal Information that you may provide to us when you sign up to host or apply for accommodation. We have developed this policy because we want you to feel confident about the privacy and security of your Personal Information.

We are the data controller for the purposes of the Data Protection Act 2018, the UK GDPR (as defined in the Data Protection Act 2018), the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025, and any other applicable data protection legislation (together, the “Data Protection Legislation”).

1. Personal Information Collection and Use

The types of Personal Information we collect may include, but are not limited to:

• identification information, such as your name, date of birth, country of origin,
• contact details (being your email address, telephone number and address);
• immigration details, such as your immigration status, date of refugee status (if applicable), date of arrival in the UK;
• application / referral details, such as information about Universal Credit, current living situation, details of financial support, education and English language information, Covid-19 vaccination status, gender identity, family members, accommodation needs / details (as applicable), character references;
• special category data, such as heath data, sexual orientation data, criminal offence data; and
• log data that includes your computer’s Internet Protocol (“IP”) address, browser type, browser version, website pages that you visit, time and date of your visit, time spent on those pages, and other statistics.

Generally, we collect this information directly from you, however in some cases we may receive this information from a third party (e.g. another charity or organisation) if the third party refers you to us.

We collect Personal Information for the following purposes:

• Facilitating connections between refugees and people seeking asylum and hosts;
• Providing updates and newsletters; and
• Improving our website by analysing trends and monitoring website usage.

 

We primarily process your Personal Information on the basis that it is necessary for the purpose of pursuing our legitimate interests as a charity providing hosting services and fulfilling the above purposes. In some instances, we will process your Personal Information on the basis that it is necessary for our compliance with legal obligations or where we have your consent to do so.

Where you have consented at the time we collected your Personal Information or where we otherwise have a right to do so, we may use your Personal Information to provide you with updates and newsletters. You may opt out of receiving our newsletter and marketing emails from us by following the instructions outlined in any newsletter or marketing email.

2. Lawful bases for use of special category Personal Information

We need to have additional grounds to process any Personal Information that is classed as “special category” data (please see section 1 for further details about the kinds of special category personal information we may collect).

Our lawful basis for processing these types of special category data is that the processing is based on your consent in order for us to establish connections between guests and hosts and to ensure the safety and wellbeing of guests when finding a placement for them. You have the right to withdraw consent at a later date should you wish to.

3. Failure to provide Personal Information

The provision of Personal Information by you to us is not mandatory but, if we do not receive it, we may not be able to proceed with your application, or otherwise engage with you.

4. Sharing your Personal Information

We may share your Personal Information with our employees, officers and agents where it is necessary to carry out our hosting services. We may also engage third-party service providers to technically support our services, including website hosting, maintenance, backups, data analysis, and customer support. These service providers may have access to your Personal Information only for the purposes of performing these tasks on our behalf and are obligated not to disclose or use it for any other purpose.

We may also disclose your Personal Information when required to do so by law.

5. Security and Retention of your Personal Information

The security of your Personal Information is important to us. We take reasonable technical and organisational precautions to protect your Personal Information from unauthorised access and against unlawful processing, accidental loss, destruction and damage. However, no method of transmission over the Internet or electronic storage is 100% secure, and we cannot guarantee its absolute security.

We retain your Personal Information for only as long as is necessary to fulfil the purposes for which it was collected and, in any event, only for as long as Data Protection Legislation allows, and we dispose of it securely by deleting it from our systems.

6. Third-Party Links

Our Service may contain links to third-party sites or services that are not operated by us. We do not endorse or guarantee the content, privacy policies, or practices of these third-party sites or services. We encourage you to review the privacy policies and terms and conditions of these third-party sites or services before using them.

7. International Data Transfers

We may transfer Personal Information outside the UK and European Economic Area (EEA) to service providers who assist us in the operation of our services. We will only transfer your personal information in such circumstances if:

• the relevant third party is located in a country that has been confirmed by the UK Government or European Commission to provide adequate protection to Personal Information; or
• the third country has agreed (by way of written contract or by some other form of data transfer mechanism approved by the UK Government or European Commission) to provide all protection to your Personal Information as required by the Data Protection Legislation; or
• the transfer is otherwise permitted by law.

8. Children’s Privacy

Our website is not intended to be used by individuals under the age of 18 (“children”). We do not knowingly collect or process Personal Information from children, unless for the purposes of providing hosting to families. In such circumstances, we may collect special category Personal Information relating to children (for example, health information, where specific accessibility requirements are required for their housing), but we will only process this special category Personal Information where we have your consent to do so.

9. Your Rights and Data Accuracy

In certain circumstances and subject to certain exemptions, you have the following rights in relation to the Personal Information that we hold about you:

• the right to be informed about how we are using your Personal Information;
• the right to access the Personal Information that we hold about you;
• the right to request the correction of inaccurate Personal Information that we hold about you;
• the right to ask us to erase the Personal Information we hold about you, in certain circumstances;
• the right to object to, or ask us to restrict, the processing of your Personal Information;
• the right to request that we transfer certain Personal Information; and
• the right to withdraw consent to any consent-based processing at any time.

If you wish to exercise any of these rights, please contact us using the contact details set out below. The supply of appropriate evidence of your identity may be required when exercising your rights.

10. Cookies

We use cookies, which are small text files that are placed on the hard drive on your computer, when you use our website. We use cookies in order to collect information and improve the website. You may instruct your browser to refuse all cookies, however, if you do not accept cookies, you may not be able to use some portions of our website.

Essential Cookies

We use essential cookies that are necessary for the website to function and cannot be switched off in our systems.

Cookie Name	First Party / Third Party	Description of cookie	Duration
Necessary	First	Required for core site functions such as secure login and saving consent preferences. These are always active and do not store personally identifiable information.	Never

 

Analytics Cookies

We would like to use analytics cookies which monitor website performance and usage, personalise content and provide social media features. They may be set by us or third-party providers. These cookies are used to analyse use of the website so we can understand how visitors interact with the website and measure and improve the performance of the website. They may be set by us or by third party providers.

Cookie Name	First Party / Third Party	Description	Duration
Google Analytics	Third	No personal data is used. Instead it assigns a unique identifier so Analytics can distinguish one visitor from another. The Cookes help Google Analytics: – Count unique visitors – Distinguish new visitors from returning visitors – Track which pages are viewed – Identify where visitors came from (search engine, social media, another website, etc) – Measure conversions and user journeys – Generate reports about website performance	All time

 

Functional Cookies

These cookies enable the website to provide enhanced functionality and personalisation. They may be set by us or by third party providers whose services we have added to our pages. If you do not allow these cookies then some or all of these services may not function properly.

 

Cookie Name	First Party / Third Party	Description	Duration
Functional	First	Used for features such as social media sharing, feedback collection and other third-party functionality	All time

 

Other than in respect of essential cookies which are strictly necessary for this website to function and which are always active, and any analytical cookies for which the sole purpose is to improve the website, all cookies are switched off by default. You can manage your cookie consent preferences at any time by clicking on the blue cookie on the bottom left on all of our website pages:

11. Changes to this Privacy Policy

We reserve the right to modify this Privacy Policy at any time. We will notify you of any changes by posting the new Privacy Policy on this page. It is your responsibility to review this Privacy Policy periodically for any changes. Changes to this Privacy Policy are effective when they are posted on this page.

12. Privacy Support

Should you have any queries or complaints in relation to how we use your Personal Information, or in relation to our compliance with Data Protection Legislation more generally, please contact us via info@refugeesathome.org. Should you wish to take any complaints or queries further, you have the right to contact the Information Commissioner’s Office (which is the supervisory body in the UK) regarding such issues.

Reviewed, amended and accepted by the board of trustees on 23 September 2026