Policy
Privacy notice
How TIDES Mediation NI collects, uses and protects your personal information, and the rights you have over it. Last updated 20 August 2026.
Who we are
TIDES Mediation NI is the working name of Mediation Northern Ireland, a registered charity (NIC100935) and a company limited by guarantee (NI033978), at Mediation House, 83 University Street, Belfast, BT7 1HP. We are the data controller for the personal information described here.
If you have any question about how we handle your information, contact us at info@mediationni.org or on +44 (0) 28 9043 8614.
The principles we work to
Whenever we process personal information, we hold to three principles:
- Fairness and lawfulness. Personal information is collected and processed lawfully and fairly, and the rights of the person it belongs to are protected.
- A specific purpose. We collect personal information for stated purposes and do not repurpose it for something unrelated.
- Transparency. You are told what we collect, why we collect it, and what we do with it.
What we collect
Depending on how you deal with us, we may hold:
- your name
- your email address and telephone number
- your postal address
- your organisation and job role, where you contact us in a work capacity
- records of your correspondence with us
- course bookings, attendance and, where a course is accredited, assessment records
We do not ask for more than we need, and you are not obliged to give us information that is not necessary for what you have asked us to do.
How we use it
We use personal information to:
- provide the services, training and mediation you have asked for
- register learners with awarding bodies and issue certificates
- answer enquiries and provide support
- tell you about changes to a service or course you have booked
- send marketing about our work, but only where you have asked us to
- understand how our website is used so we can improve it
- meet our legal, funding and regulatory obligations
We do not sell your personal information to anyone.
Our lawful basis
The basis on which we process your information depends on what we are doing with it. In most cases it is one of the following:
- Contract — we need it to deliver a course, mediation or other service you have booked.
- Consent — you have asked to hear from us, for example by opting in to marketing. You can withdraw consent at any time.
- Legitimate interests — running and improving the organisation, where doing so does not override your rights.
- Legal obligation — where the law, a regulator or a funder requires us to hold or report it.
Mediation and case material
Information shared in the course of a mediation, facilitation or coaching is treated as confidential and is handled under the terms of the agreement you sign at the outset of that work, which sits alongside this notice.
Where we are told something that indicates a risk of serious harm, or where we are required by law to disclose, confidentiality may not be absolute. Those limits are explained to everyone before the work begins.
Who else sees it
We use a small number of trusted suppliers to run our services, and they process personal information on our behalf and on our instructions only:
- our customer relationship and email platform, used for enquiries and mailings
- our booking platform, used to take course bookings and payments
- our learning platform, used to manage learners, attendance and certification
- our IT, hosting and email providers
We may also share information where we are legally required to, or with an awarding body where you are being registered for a qualification.
How long we keep it
We keep personal information only for as long as we need it for the purpose it was collected for, and then for as long as we are required to keep it to meet our legal, funding, insurance and audit obligations.
Learner and assessment records are kept for the period the awarding body requires. Marketing contacts are kept until you ask us to stop, and then only enough to remember not to contact you again.
Cookies and the website
Our website uses cookies to make it work and to help us understand how it is being used. You can refuse non-essential cookies without losing access to any part of the site, and you can clear or block cookies through your browser at any time.
Your rights
Under the UK GDPR you have the right to:
- be told what personal information we hold about you, and get a copy of it
- have inaccurate information corrected
- have information erased, in certain circumstances
- restrict or object to how we use it
- have it transferred to another organisation, in certain circumstances
- withdraw consent at any time, where consent is the basis we rely on
To exercise any of these, email info@mediationni.org. We will respond within one month. There is no charge.
Complaints
If you are unhappy with how we have handled your personal information, please tell us first so we can put it right — see our complaints procedure.
You also have the right to complain directly to the Information Commissioner’s Office, the UK supervisory authority for data protection, at ico.org.uk or on 0303 123 1113.
Changes to this notice
We review this notice from time to time. Where a change is significant we will say so on this page. This version was published on 20 August 2026.