Practical Action respects the privacy of visitors to our website. This policy sets out the manner in which information about visitors is collected and used.

We do not collect personally identifying information about you when you visit our site, unless you choose to provide such information to us. Providing such information is strictly voluntary.

Cookies

Practical Action may collect information on how users access the website by using a tracking ID unique to each user through the use of cookies. A cookie is a piece of data stored on the user's computer tied to information about the user. This can include IP addresses, browser type, operating system, screen size, referring pages, search terms, pages visited and documents downloaded. You may set your browser's preferences to block the storage of cookies. Please be aware that restricting or blocking cookies may impact on the functionality of the Practical Action website, and in particular, our Practical Answers information service.

In common with most websites, Practical Action use web server log files to collect aggregate information about visitor behaviour. This information is only stored in aggregate and is not linked to personally identifiable information.

Read more about how this website uses cookies

How we use this information

Practical Action uses data collected from log files and cookies for internal analysis of user behaviour and trends, to evaluate traffic flow (eg. busiest times of day/week) and to assess the relative popularity of different parts of the website. We use the information we collect to measure the number of visitors to the different sections of our site, and to help us make our site more useful to visitors.

We do not share individual data, although we may share aggregate information with partners and donors. We do not track user behaviour after you have left our site.

Practical Answers technical information service

We collect basic information about users of Practical Answers at the point of download, ie. when a user requests a Technical document. This includes email address, potential number of beneficiaries, country of use and nature of user. Email addresses are collected to identify users for the analysis of trends, and where permission is given, to contact users subsequently to enquire after the effectiveness of our materials and supply updates about our work. Email addresses are not used for any other purpose, and will not be shared with any third party.

E-mail addresses

We sometimes ask you for an e-mail address. This will be:

• to send you news and information on Practical Action's work and campaigns in form of an e-newsletter (only available by specific request);
• to follow up a request for technical information, so as to measure the effectiveness of that information;
• to take a campaign action; or
• to follow up a feedback form, in order to get a better picture of our audience's needs

If you sign up for an e-newsletter or take a campaign action, the e-mail address you supply will only be used to send you information on Practical Action's work. If you give us your e-mail address when downloading technical information, that address will only be used to follow up that request or supply updates on our technical information.

Storage of information

With the exception of credit card details, the information provided to Practical Action is saved indefinitely and may be stored on one or more databases directly maintained by us.

Online donations

All our online donations go via a secure server. Data sent to and from this server is encrypted to prevent interception. Credit card details are not kept following a transaction. Practical Action's online donations are managed by Baigent.

1998 Data Protection Act

Practical Action holds any details you give us for administration and marketing purposes as a Data Controller. If you do not wish to receive any future information or updates from us at Practical Action please write to the Data Controller at this address: Data Controller, Practical Action, The Schumacher Centre for Technology & Development, Bourton on Dunsmore, Rugby CV23 9QZ, United Kingdom. Telephone: +44 (0) 1926 634400, e-mail: practicalaction@practicalaction.org.uk. We will never supply your information to a third party for marketing purposes if you tell us not to.