With this news item, we announce the latest update to the Privacy Notice for the National Plant Monitoring Scheme.
The changes relate to:
1. Indication of interest in “buddying” and volunteer link up opportunities
“Buddying” refers to the process of linking with another NPMS volunteer to conduct NPMS surveys, either to share effort or provide peer support and shared learning.
The NPMS support team receive a number of enquiries through each year around the possibility of linking up and expressions of interest. As such, an additional checkbox has been added to volunteers’ accounts to provide an indication of their own interest. These are all unchecked as default. The box can only be checked manually by new volunteers registering with the scheme, or by existing volunteers editing their accounts, if they wish to indicate that they are interested in opportunities to buddy with other volunteers in their area.
Indication of interest in “buddying” therefore managed by the volunteer and linked to their account via this optional check box and is only visible to NPMS admin staff. This allows NPMS support staff to respond to buddying queries quickly and effectively by having a clearer understanding of where there are other volunteers with similar interests in linking up.
Volunteer details will never be shared with another interested volunteer without an express request to do so and permission from both volunteer parties in advance. Should volunteers request to share details and link up with another volunteer for the purposes of buddying and peer-support, they do so knowingly as a self-led activity.
Volunteers previously indicating an interest in buddying can always withdraw this interest at any time, by unselecting this check box on their account.
2. Square Release Survey
The NPMS is committed to continually improving the experience of our volunteers. As such, scheme partners have developed a short automated square release survey when a volunteer chooses to release a square they were previously allocated. This optional and anonymous survey will help inform our future work and how we support existing volunteers.
Follow this link to read the new Notice: https://www.npms.org.uk/privacy-policy
See also our Data Access Policy for more information: https://www.npms.org.uk/content/data-access-policy-0
