Privacy Policy

Spring Harvest Holidays is committed to protecting the privacy of your personal data. We will respect any personal data you share with us and keep it safe. We aim to be clear when we collect your personal data and not do anything you wouldn’t reasonably expect.

Privacy Policy

Spring Harvest Holidays is committed to protecting the privacy of your personal data. We will respect any personal data you share with us and keep it safe. We aim to be clear when we collect your personal data and not do anything you wouldn’t reasonably expect.

Spring Harvest Holidays Privacy Policy

(To view our Cookies Policy, see below)

Spring Harvest Holidays is committed to protecting the privacy of your personal data. We will respect any personal data you share with us and keep it safe. We aim to be clear when we collect your personal data and not do anything you wouldn’t reasonably expect.

Your privacy

Please read this privacy policy carefully to understand our practices regarding your personal data and how we will collect, use and store your personal data. We may update this policy from time to time so please check it regularly. If there are significant updates, we will inform those whom it may affect.

1. Who we are

Spring Harvest Holidays is a limited company registered in the UK no 08249875. We work closely with the Essential Christian charity, with whom we have a trademark agreement, a management contract and shared services.

Spring Harvest Holidays is the data controller of your personal data. Because for some purposes our activities may overlap with Essential Christian, personal data may be shared internally for certain purposes. Information may be shared between them to facilitate, support and integrate their respective activities. For example, Essential Christian may administer invoices and payments made by Spring Harvest Holidays, or organised mailings and emails. Essential Christian also provides Spring Harvest Holidays with technical and IT support connected with data management.

The data we hold may be used by the French non-profit organisation Association Le Pas Opton and by the French company SAS SHH Le Pas Opton for the purpose of planning and delivering your holiday in France. Association Le Pas Opton and SAS SHH Le Pas Opton may also amend or add data, for example if you make changes to your holiday arrangements while on site. SAS SHH Le Pas Opton is also authorised to act on our behalf regarding our GDPR compliance within the European Union and to deal with any supervisory authorities or data subjects in this respect. The address for Association Le Pas Opton is 1335 Route du Pas Opton, 85800 LE FENOUILLER, France.

The registered address for Spring Harvest Holidays is 14 Horsted Square, Uckfield, East Sussex, TN22 1QG, United Kingdom.

2.What personal data we collect and the purposes for which we use it

2.1 What personal data do we hold?

Some examples of the type of information we may collect and hold about you are as follows:

  • your full name and your title;
  • birth date;
  • postal address;
  • passport number;
  • telephone number(s);
  • email address;
  • records of your correspondence with us;
  • bank or credit card details (if you purchase something from us or donate to us). These are encrypted so we cannot read them;
  • information you enter into our websites and digital products and details of how you use those websites and digital products (more details can be found in our cookie policy);
  • dietary, accessibility, and mobility information;
  • photographs, film and digital images of individuals.

We may also collect, hold and process other personal data where it is appropriate and relevant, for example:

  • details of why you have decided to contact us and how you may have heard about us;
  • personal data about you that will enable us to be more precise in what we send you or how we approach you;

We will only process sensitive personal data also known as special categories of data (e.g. in relation to your health), with your explicit consent to facilitate a booking or allocation, or for reasons of substantial public interest or where necessary for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims.

2.2. How and why will we use this personal data?

2.2.1 We will use your personal data to:

  • provide you with the information, product or service you have requested from us, specifically to process a holiday booking, allocate accommodation at Le Pas Opton or enable us to forecast numbers and allocated children to age-specific groups;
  • provide you with other information which we feel may interest you. This may include newsletters, updates, voluntary surveys or questionnaires for you to complete, details of relevant recruitment opportunities, and details of any promotions and competitions we are running. We may also send you details of events we think you may be interested in attending;
  • analyse and understand how people use our websites and digital products so we can improve and personalise the experience for users and reflect your preferences and previous interactions;
  • keep a record of our relationship with you;
  • improve how we communicate with you, how we fundraise, and how we operate more generally; keep in contact with you in the ways that you have requested or agreed to;
  • personalise our services and communications to you (for example, to ensure that they take into account your age, location and previous interactions with Spring Harvest Holidays);
  • provide you with information about our official partner events and campaigns, where we are permitted to do so;
  • notify you about changes to our services;
  • administer and process payments you make for bookings, products and services;
  • verify your identity where required to use some of our services and benefits;
  • comply with applicable laws and regulations and requests from statutory agencies including for such purposes as health and safety; the detection and prevention of crime and safeguarding; and
  • carry out any obligations or provide you with any other services, functionality or content which you specifically request or agree to.

2.2.2 For the avoidance of doubt, Spring Harvest Holidays does not use personal data for automated decision-making which produces legal effects or similarly significantly affects individuals. However, we may use profiling techniques in certain circumstances for the purpose of evaluating personal data to provide you with more targeted advertising and for the purpose of segmenting our database and supporters so that we can communicate with you in the most relevant way possible. In some cases we use cookies to do this. Our cookies policy explains in further detail the types of cookies we use to allow us to do this.

2.4. Research and profiling using information in the public domain

2.4.1. To more accurately target our communications to potential guests and potential guests, we use information you have given us, sometimes together with data we collect from publicly available sources, to help us decide how best to do this.

2.4.2. If we do collect such information about you, whether jointly or on our own, we will inform you within one month of collecting this information in order to provide you with an opportunity to opt out of your data being used for these purposes. You can also opt out by emailing us at privacy@springharvestholidays.com.

3. What lawful bases do we rely on to use your personal data?

The legal bases that we rely on for processing your personal data are:

3.1. You have provided your consent to us using your personal data for a specific purpose:

we will ask for your consent to use your personal data to send you marketing emails.

You have the right to withdraw your consent at any time.

3.2. It is necessary in connection with the performance of a contract with you:

Sometimes it is necessary to process your personal data so that we can enter into contractual relationships with you. For example, if you book a holiday, we will require your personal data to enable us to perform our agreement.

3.3. It is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to which we are subject:

This would include where we have to retain certain records, for example, to keep proper accounting records, to manage health and safety, for the detection and prevention of crime, safeguarding obligations, for maintaining suppression lists to ensure we comply with marketing laws.

3.4. It is within our legitimate interests.

Where you have provided your details to us, we may contact you by post and phone for certain marketing and fundraising activities as set out in section 5 below. You can opt out of this activity at any time by emailing us on [email protected].

We will also rely on our legitimate interests for the proper administration of Spring Harvest Holidays, and to manage our operations (for example, maintaining appropriate records and databases, for the detection and prevention of crime and safeguarding all those who access our premises and facilities).
When we process your personal data to achieve such legitimate interests, we consider and balance any potential impact on you (both positive and negative), and your rights under data protection laws. We will not use your personal data for activities where our interests are overridden by the impact on you, for example where use would be excessively intrusive (unless, for instance, we are otherwise required or permitted to by law).

Please see section above for the limited legal basis for when we process sensitive personal data.

4. How we collect personal data

We collect information about you:

4.1. When you give it to us directly

You may give us your personal data in order to receive information from us; visit our facilities; buy products or services from us including such things as purchasing and administering; when you enter a competition or respond to a survey or when you otherwise engage with us on our websites and digital products.

4.2. When a third party provides us with your personal data

Where appropriate you should check any Privacy Policy of any third party when you provide your personal data to them in order to understand fully how they will process your personal data.

4.3. When it is available publicly

We may combine personal data you provide to us with personal data available from external publicly available sources such as Companies House and published articles and newspapers. Depending on your privacy settings for social media services, we may also access personal data from those accounts or services. We use this personal data to gain a better understanding of you, and to improve our communications and fundraising approaches (see section 3 above).

4.4. When you use our websites and digital products interfaces

We may collect personal data about you when you use our websites and digital products. Whenever you input personal data into our website (for example, requesting a brochure), we will collect the personal data that you give to us.

We use “cookies” to identify you when you visit our websites and digital products. Amongst other things this helps us to understand our website users and may enable us to improve the website experience for you and/or other users. Please refer to our Cookies Policy for details on how and why we use this data in our cookies policy.

We may collect other personal data from your use of the websites, such as your IP address and access times.

We may link our websites directly to other sites. This privacy policy does not cover external websites and we are not responsible for the privacy practices or content of those sites. We encourage you to read the privacy policies of any external websites you visit.

5. Communications and marketing

5.1 We may contact you by post and telephone, and, where you have provided consent, by e-mail, to let you know about our events and activities (and we may also mention those of third parties, particularly where they are collaborating with us or sponsoring our events) that might be of particular interest to you; offers and promotions, or about the work of Spring Harvest Holidays more generally. We provide the opportunity for you to opt-out from receiving our marketing communications every time we contact you.

You can opt-out from receiving our marketing communications or update your contact preferences at any time by emailing: [email protected].

5.2 Profiling

We know it is important to our partners to use our resources in a responsible and cost-effective way. To that end, we may use automated profiling and targeting to help us understand our partners and make sure that:

  • our communications (e.g. emails) and services (e.g. our website) are relevant, personalised and interesting to you
  • our services meet the needs of our partners
  • we use our resources responsibly and keep our costs down

If you’ve agreed that we can contact you for marketing purposes, we may also gather additional information about you from external sources, for example: updates to address and contact information made available by Royal Mail. This analysis may be carried out by us or by third party organisations working for us.

If you are a social media user, we will use certain social media tools as part of our relationship with you. These tools include such things as Facebook and Instagram Custom/Lookalike Audiences, Google Customer Match/Similar Audiences, Twitter Tailored/Lookalike Audiences and LinkedIn Matched Audiences.

Through using these tools, we will provide some of your data to the social media platform / organisation to allow them to identify your social media profile with them. The social media platform / organisation will then show you relevant advertisements relating to Spring Harvest Holidays which we think you will be interested in seeing on your newsfeed.

The social media platform / organisation will also use your profile to identify those with similar characteristics to you who we think may also be interested in finding out more about Spring Harvest Holidays and the work we do. These identified individuals will then be shown advertisements about Spring Harvest Holidays on their newsfeed. This activity is governed by the social medial platform’s own privacy policy and terms and conditions, so please do refer to these documents if you require any further information about this activity.

6. Data sharing

We do not sell your information under any circumstances. We may use your personal data with third party fulfilment contractors, such as email communication platforms, but only if they apply an appropriate level of security protection.

We work with service providers and other third parties who help us to operate and to provide and improve our information, products and services, and we may share information with them for this purpose.

Whilst we may allow our staff, consultants and/or external service providers acting on our behalf to access and use your personal data for the activities we have described in this policy (e.g. to provide services or products to you, deliver mailings, to analyse data and to process payments), we only permit them to use it to deliver the relevant information, goods or services, and only if they apply an appropriate level of security protection.

We may need to disclose your personal data upon request to regulatory and government bodies as well as law enforcement agencies. We may also merge or partner with other organisations and in so doing, acquire or transfer personal data but your personal data would continue to be used for the purposes set out above.

We may provide your email address to digital advertising or social media companies who work on our behalf, such as Facebook and Instagram. This is so we can reach you and others like you with information about how you can support our cause. This data is always provided in an encrypted format and is deleted immediately after use. If you don’t want to see targeted advertising from us on social media, please refer to the instructions provided by the social media site, for example on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Google.

The personal data we collect from you may be transferred to, shared and/or otherwise processed by organisations or companies outside the European Economic Area (“EEA”). Where your personal data is transferred outside the EEA, we will take reasonable steps to ensure that the recipient implements appropriate measures to protect your personal data (for example, by entering into EU Commission approved standard contractual clauses).

Unfortunately, the transmission of personal data via the internet is not completely secure. Although we will do our best to protect your personal data, we cannot guarantee the security of your personal data transmitted to or via our websites and digital products; any transmission is at your own risk. If you have any questions about the international data transfer of your personal data, please contact us using the details below in section 12.

7. Children’s data

Those aged under 18 are not permitted to receive our newsletters, or enter any competitions or prize draws with us. We will not knowingly have any other direct contact with those aged under 18.

8. How we keep your personal data safe and who has access to it

We are committed to ensuring that there are appropriate technical controls in place to protect your personal data including protection from misuse and unauthorised access. For example credit card information is encrypted and our network is protected and routinely tested.

Your information is only accessible by staff and contractors who are bound by appropriate policies and procedures to protect your information.

9. Your rights

Please note that you may only use/benefit from some of the following rights in limited circumstances. For more information, we suggest that you consult guidance from the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) – https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-the-general-data-protection-regulation-gdpr/ – or please contact us using the details in section 12 below.

9.1. Right to restrict processing

In certain circumstances as outlined in the ICO guidance referred to above, you have a right to require us to stop processing your personal data in a particular way.

9.2. Right to erasure

You have the right to request that your personal data is erased from our records in certain circumstances.

9.3. Right of access

You have a right to ask for a copy of the personal data we hold about you. If you want to access your personal data, please send proof of your identity along with a description of the personal data you want to see to Data Protection Officer, Essential Christian, 12-14 Horsted Square, Uckfield, East Sussex, TN22 1QG, or email [email protected]. Please send a copy of a form of identification containing a photograph (e.g. Passport, Photocard Driving Licence) along with a copy of a utility bill or bank statement etc to help verify your address. Please blank out any financial or other confidential information. If we are unable to verify your identity we will contact you as soon as possible.

Once we have all of the information necessary to respond to your request we will provide your information to you within one month. This timeframe may be extended by up to two months if your request is particularly complex, but we will inform you if this is the case

9.4. Right to rectification

We also want to make sure that your personal data is accurate and up to date. Please let us know if your details change. You may also ask us to correct or remove personal data which is inaccurate.

9.5. Right to object

You can also opt-out of receiving all or some of our marketing/ fundraising communications or request that we stop processing personal data about you for certain purposes at any time by contacting us using the details below.

9.6. Right to data portability

In certain circumstances you have a right to data portability which means we will provide you (or a third party you nominate) with your personal data in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format.

10. Complaints

If you are unhappy with the way in which we have handled your personal data please contact us using the details below.

Please let us know if you have any queries or concerns about the way that your personal data is being processed by us by contacting us on the details below. You are also entitled to make a complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office. For further information see the Information Commissioner’s guidance here: https://ico.org.uk/for-the-public/personal-information.

10.1 As part of our complaints procedure, we will:

  • Treat complaints seriously and deal with them properly
  • Resolve complaints promptly and informally whenever possible
  • Learn from complaints and take action to improve our service
  • Ensure that complaints are treated in confidence

10.2 What to do if you have a complaint

It’s always better if you can let us know straight away. Most complaints can be sorted out quickly by a member of our Customer Services team, and our team will welcome the opportunity to do this if at all possible.
You can contact Spring Harvest Holidays by email, in writing or by telephone.

Email: [email protected]

Write to:
Spring Harvest Holidays
12-14 Horsted Square
Uckfield
East Sussex
TN22 1QG

Tel: 01825 748318

We are open Monday to Friday 9.00am to 5.00pm. We are closed on bank holidays and at weekends.

If you are resident within the European Union (EU) or European Economic Area your complaint or enquiry should be directed to our authorised representative in the EU, SAS SHH Le Pas Opton, 1335 Route du Pas Opton, 85800 LE FENOUILLER, France. Email [email protected]. Tel +33 251 55 11 98.

10.3 What happens next?

Should you make your complaint over the phone, we will try to resolve the issue there and then. Similarly, if you complain by email or in writing we will do everything we can to resolve it within 10 working days. If this is not possible, we will explain why and give a new deadline.

10.4 What if the complaint is not resolved?

If you are not happy with our response, then you can write to our Chief Executive Officer, who will ensure you receive a response to your case.

11. Data retention

We keep personal data for as long as there is a need to keep it in connection with the purposes for which it was collected. We may keep your personal data after a particular matter or exchange has concluded but purely for record keeping purposes and to be able to respond to queries. In some cases, we are also obliged to retain your personal data to comply with legal or statutory obligations (for example, to keep records of contractual or financial matters).

In the event that you ask us to stop sending you marketing communications, we will retain certain details, such as your name and email address, but only to ensure that you are not contacted again.

12. Contact

For all enquiries in respect of this privacy policy, please contact via email to: [email protected] or by post to: Data Protection Officer, Spring Harvest Holidays, 12-14 Horsted Square, Uckfield, East Sussex, TN22 1QG.

If you are resident within the European Union (EU) or European Economic Area your enquiry should be directed to our authorised representative in the EU, SAS SHH Le Pas Opton, 1335 Route du Pas Opton, 85800 LE FENOUILLER, France. Email [email protected]. Tel +33 251 55 11 98.

13. Websites and digital products

In this policy “websites and digital products” refers to all Spring Harvest Holidays websites, including the primary Spring Harvest Holidays website found at https://www.springharvestholidays.com/ , and the booking website found at https://booking.springharvestholidays.com/bookings/create and all our digital products, such as email, applications and digital channels, including social media.

14. Changes to this privacy policy

We keep our privacy policy under regular review.

This privacy policy was last updated in October 2023.

Spring Harvest Holidays Cookies policy

This page tells you what you need to know about cookies and how they are used on Spring Harvest Holidays websites. The websites will work without cookies but if you choose to disable cookies you may lose some features and functionality.


What is a cookie?

A cookie is a simple text file that is stored on your computer or mobile device by a website’s server and only that server will be able to retrieve or read the contents of that cookie. Each cookie is unique to your web browser. It will contain some anonymous information such as a unique identifier and the site name and some digits and numbers. It allows a website to remember things like your preferences or what’s in your shopping basket.


How does Spring Harvest Holidays use cookies?

Spring Harvest Holidays websites will work without cookies, but you will lose some features and functionality if you choose to disable cookies.

Spring Harvest Holidays uses cookies to help improve your experience of using our sites. We use cookies that are strictly necessary to enable you to move around the site or to provide certain basic features. We use cookies to enhance the functionality of the websites, for example by storing your preferences. We also use cookies to help us to improve the performance of our websites to provide you with a better user experience.

We don’t sell the information collected by cookies, nor do we disclose the information to third parties, except where required by law (for example to government bodies and law enforcement agencies).


Cookies which are strictly necessary to run the sites

These include, for example:

Cookies that enable you to stay logged in for an entire visit to a site

Cookies which enable you to add things to a booking and retain them there until you complete and choose to pay for the booking.

Cookies which store your preferences

Functionality cookies record information about choices you’ve made and allow us to tailor the website to you. They allow the site to ‘remember’ you so that your preferences and settings are retained, either through the duration of your visit (using a ‘session cookie’) or for repeat visits (using a ‘persistent cookie’). Cookies cannot be used to identify you personally.

Cookies which help us improve the site

Some cookies help us to see how people are using our sites. These are known as ‘analytics cookies’ or ‘tracking cookies’. They let us know what areas of website content are popular and how people are using the site. This information is anonymous – we don’t collect anything that would identify a user. We use this data to build up a picture of how the site is performing and to inform us where improvements could be made.

We use services such as Google Analytics to help us to analyse how users use the sites. It counts the number of visitors and tells us things about their behaviour overall, such as the typical length of stay on the site or the average number of pages viewed by a user. To enrich our content, we sometimes embed photos and video content from websites such as YouTube and Vimeo. As a result, when you visit a page with content embedded from, for example, YouTube or Vimeo, these sites may set a cookie.

Spring Harvest Holidays websites may also carry embedded ‘share’ buttons to enable users of the site to easily share articles with their friends through a number of popular social networks, for example, Facebook, Twitter or Google+. These sites may set a cookie. Spring Harvest Holidays does not control the dissemination of these cookies and you should check the relevant third party website for more information about these.