Cats Protection is the UK’s leading cat welfare charity, registered in England and Wales (no. 203644), Scotland (no. SC037711) and is listed as a Section 167 institution by the Charity Commission of Northern Ireland.
As a charity that receives no government funding, we rely entirely on the kindness and generosity of our valued supporters to help around 157,000 cats and kittens every year. We are completely committed to protecting our supporters’ personal information and will only use the information that you provide lawfully.
This policy explains how we collect and use your information, and it may be necessary to update it at any time without notice so please check it regularly. We will also use reasonable efforts to inform you of any significant changes to this policy.
If you have any queries about this policy please contact the Cats Protection Information Governance team, by post at: Cats Protection, National Cat Centre, Chelwood Gate, Sussex, RH17 7TT or by email at: dataprotection@cats.org.uk
We may obtain personal information from you in a variety of ways, including when you:
We may also obtain your information from third-party sources on some occasions, for example:
All information collected is processed in accordance with our legal requirements and applicable data protection legislation.
The information we collect depends upon your reason for visiting our website or one of our centres, branches or shops, but may include:
We will use personal information to:
Cats Protection must have a reason under the law (also known as a ‘lawful basis’ to collect and use your personal information. We rely on the following lawful bases for processing your personal information.
Cats Protection will never swap or sell your details. When dealing with your personal information we will always comply with the current UK data protection law and any other applicable legislation.
We will only use your personal information for direct marketing purposes if we are permitted to do so by law or if we have your consent. Find more information on direct marketing here. The law does permit us to send marketing mail (post) without prior consent until you opt-out of this service, which you can do at any time.
You can update your communication preferences by writing to Freepost Cats Protection or emailing supporter.services@cats.org.uk
Yes, we may create a profile of your interests, preferences and ability to donate. At Cats Protection our work is only made possible thanks to the generosity of our supporters, so it’s vital that our fundraising efforts are as effective as they can be. By developing a better understanding of our supporters through researching them, including using publicly available sources, we can tailor and target our fundraising events and communications (including volunteering opportunities) to those most likely to be interested in them. This enables us to make appropriate requests to those who may be willing and able to donate more than they already do, or leave a gift in their will, and allows us to be more efficient and cost-effective with our resources and in the way that we raise funds. It also helps to ensure communications are relevant and timely and reduces the risk of someone receiving information that they might find irrelevant, intrusive, or even distressing, so that we can provide an improved experience for our supporters.
Our Fundraising team uses information that is already in the public domain (information that has been published in print or online) to identify high net worth individuals who may be interested in supporting our work with a major gift. This might also include estimating their gift capacity, based on their visible assets, history of charitable giving and how connected they are to Cats Protection.
The publicly available sources of information we use include Companies House, the electoral register, the phone book, the Charity Commission’s Register of Charities, Who’s Who, LinkedIn, company annual reports, Land Registry and articles in newspapers and magazines.
We also carry out research to identify existing supporters who may be able to become ‘major donors’. This is based both on publicly available information, and information our supporters have given us (for example, where a person lives, who they bank with, what their occupation is and their age). We may from time to time engage a specialist third party prospect research company to screen our database against their demographic database for this purpose.
We’re committed to putting you in control of your data and you have the right to op-out of your data being used for profiling purposes by contacting us at dataprotection@cats.org.uk
We are also legally required to carry out checks on individuals who give us large donations, to comply with our duties in respect of anti-money laundering legislation and the prevention of fraud.
Social media advertising
You may receive targeted advertisements through our use of social media tools. This will depend on your settings or the privacy policies for the social media platforms. For example, we use Facebook/Meta’s ‘Custom’ and ‘Lookalike Audiences’ programmes, which enable us to display adverts to our existing supporters or other people who have similar interests in organisations like us.
In order to use these tools, we may provide your data (including your name and email address) to Meta or the relevant social media platforms. This is to check if you have an account and to create a ‘lookalike’ audience so that we can advertise to potential new supporters. Our adverts may then appear when you use the social media platform.
We work only with social media platforms that provide a facility for secure and encrypted upload of data and immediately delete any records that do not match their own user base. For more information on the social media platforms we use, and to manage your social media ad preferences, please see:
Meta Custom Audiences Guides
Meta (including Facebook and Instagram) Data Policy
LinkedIn Privacy Policy
When we engage with Meta to identify you on their platform and provide you with our adverts, we are joint controllers of your personal information with Meta. Our agreement with Meta sets out our responsibilities to you, for example, we are responsible for informing you about this activity. Cats Protection and Meta are both responsible for keeping your information secure. You can exercise your privacy rights with either of us individually.
We do not collect remarketing data for users who have visited our advice and information pages.
If you do not want us to use your data for social media advertising you can opt-out by contacting us using the details set out at the top of this policy.
You may still see adverts related to us even if you have asked us not to use your information for targeted advertising because the social media platform or advertising network may hold information about you (such as your age, location or websites you have visited) that was not provided by us.
Data collected by us (such as the fact that you visited a Cats Protection page) may also be shared with Meta via our use of Meta Pixels. Meta uses this information to display our ads on your social media page and to create ‘lookalike’ audiences as detailed above. For more information about Meta Pixels and how you can opt in or out please see our Cookie Policy.
We take the security of your information very seriously and have put appropriate measures in place to minimise the risk to your information from loss, theft or misuse. These include:
While we seek to use appropriate organisational, technical and administrative measures to protect personal information within our organisation, unfortunately no data transmission or storage system can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. If you have reason to believe that your interaction with us is no longer secure, please immediately notify us using the details set out at the top of this policy.
We will never share your personal information:
There are some circumstances where we may need to share your information. For instance:
International data transfers
In certain, limited circumstances we may transfer your personal information outside of the UK, including to the USA. If we do so, we will take steps to ensure that your personal information is protected in accordance with appropriate safeguards, especially where the recipient country is not considered to be adequate under UK law. In particular, we will rely on the appropriate safeguards under data protection legislation, such as standard contractual clauses approved by the UK Government to protect your personal information.
Under certain privacy laws, you have rights relating to your personal information. You may have a right to the following:
If you wish to pursue any of the above rights or have any other concerns regarding your information that Cats Protection may hold please email dataprotection@cats.org.uk and/or write to us at: Cats Protection, National Cat Centre, Chelwood Gate, Sussex, RH17 7TT. Please be aware that we may be unable to provide these rights to you under certain circumstances, for example if we are legally prevented from doing so or can rely on exemptions.
Change contact details or consent
If your personal details change, please help us to keep your information up to date by notifying us. If at any time you’d like us to change the way we contact you, if you would prefer that we did not profile your data, or if you would like to opt out of our communications altogether please contact a member of our Supporter Services team to action your request by:
freephone – 0800 917 2287
email – Supporter.Services@cats.org.uk
write to – Freepost Cats Protection
We will only email or text you if we have your consent to do so, but if you receive anything you would rather not, please let us know. We include an unsubscribe option within every email/text message we send so you are always in control of what you receive. There are also details of how to opt out of mailings in every pack sent in the post. If you receive a mailing you do not want please let us know so we can update your communication preferences. This will help us to ensure we only ever send you materials that you would like to receive.
Please allow a 28-day period for any changes to take effect.
Cookies are small pieces of information stored by your internet browser onto your computer or mobile device. Cats Protection uses session cookies to ensure that you can interact with our websites successfully. Read our Cookie Policy.
If you access any other websites published via Cats Protection on website or email communication, please ensure you read their Privacy Policy as they are independent from Cats Protection and we have no control over how they manage your personal information that is collected from your visit to their website.
This policy covers how we will use your information from social media pages that you visit but you will also need to read how the providers of the social media websites will use your information. Please ensure you read their Privacy Policy (or equivalent) before sharing data and make use of their privacy settings and reporting mechanisms to control how your data is used.
All information published on this site is provided to the best of our knowledge.
However, while Cats Protection is happy to supply any assistance and guidance regarding feline welfare to Cats Protection supporters and members of the public, it must be appreciated that such guidance is based only on information supplied to Cats Protection and Cats Protection will not be liable for injury, loss or damage arising from such guidance supplied.
You may print any newsletter or factsheet on this site for your own information but you may not sell it, reproduce it on the internet, distribute it, alter it, or reprint it in any publication without permission from the Digital team, Cats Protection, National Cat Centre, Chelwood Gate, Sussex, RH17 7TT or email websites@cats.org.uk
If you have a complaint about Cats Protection or any of our policies or procedures please contact us here or email CustomerComplaints@cats.org.uk
Should you be dissatisfied with our response to your complaint in relation to the handling of your personal information, you can contact the Information Commissioner’s Office or telephone 0303 123 1113.
If you prefer you can also write to them at Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF.
This policy was last updated 30 January 2025