The British Society for Ecological Medicine - Privacy Policy, updated 4.12.2020
We take your right to privacy very seriously and respect any personal information you share with us and endeavour to keep it safe, whatever your relationship is with us. This privacy policy is intended to give you an understanding of how and why we use the information you give us. We will never sell or share your data with someone else for them to use for their own purposes. We keep this policy under review and therefore it gets updated from time to time. You can see the date of the latest update at the top of this document.
Who we are
The British Society for Ecological Medicine has existed as a professional body since 1983. We are a charity and our aims are to promote the study and good practice of allergy, environmental and nutritional medicine for the benefit of the public.
We do so by providing support, safety and a networking platform for doctors and other professionals who use the principles of Ecological Medicine in their practice by collecting and sharing audit and case studies, organising events and supervision opportunities and by publishing a regular newsletter.
We further promote education by organising training and scientific conferences and liaising with other like-minded educational organisations on a national and international level. We raise public awareness for Ecological Medicine via our publications and events.
The BSEM website address is www.bsem.org.uk. Here you find information on what we do and what we offer, this includes sales of educational material, online education courses and tickets for events including conferences we organise. You can contact us via the website to sign up to our newsletter or to become a member of the society. BSEM can also be contacted by phone (+44 (0) 7864 637723) if you have any queries that cannot be resolved on our website or by email.
By using our website, social media pages or providing us with your information you are consenting to this privacy policy and the ways in which we use your information as outlined in this policy. If you do not agree with this policy, then please do not provide us with your information or continue using our sites and social media pages.
What is Personal Data?
Personal Data is defined as “any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person ('data
subject'); an identifiable natural person is one who can be identified, directly or indirectly, in particular by reference to an identifier such as a name, an identification number, location data, an online identifier or to one or more factors specific to the physical, physiological, genetic, mental, economic, cultural or social identity of that natural person”. The definition is quite broad, so we’ve listed below some of what we specifically collect;
• your name, address, email address and other contact information.
• information you enter onto our website or on any of our social media sites/accounts; records of your correspondence with us, if you have contacted us, how and how often;
• financial information;
• details of your visit to the site.
• Any medical information you provide us with we take into consideration when replying to your enquiry, however we will immediately delete all correspondence including confidential medical information and not keep a record of it.
• For members, we would also need information to decide on the best membership status and a copy of the certificates of your membership to a regulatory body e.g. for doctors GMC registration
How we collect this information about Information you give us:
We may collect information from you in the following ways:
• When you sign up in person to our membership or newsletter distribution list at one of our events or on line sign up form or an event where BSEM has a stand or other presence.
• When you contact us by e-mail or phone.
• When you contact us with inquiries, correspond with us (including corresponding with us on behalf of a business) or become involved with us in another way.
Information we receive from other sources
There are occasions when members of the BSEM meet other doctors and then pass their contact details to the BSEM office – however this only happens if the person has explicitly asked to be put in contact with the office.
How we use your information for Marketing purposes
If you are a member, we will hold your details on our database. You have access to your own profile, where you can update your address and subscription details. If you cancel your membership, we offer to keep you on our mailing list unless you ask us to remove you. Every item of newsletter correspondence from the society always gives the option to unsubscribe. You may otherwise ask us to remove your data from our systems. The information we hold on our members is used to improve ways to communicate the workings of the Society and to allow us to provide services to our members.
Non-members are welcome to join our mailing list and use some of the services we provide to members of the public. We will keep details of your preferred means of contact on our system. We will use the details to send you our regular newsletters, updates on events of BSEM and those of affiliated organisations or any other information that we deem of interest for you in regard to the society’s work and interaction with other societies or third parties in accordance with your interest e.g. we might temporarily pass on your details to our event organiser. If you decide to unsubscribe from our communication services, we delete all information you have provided in the past and only leave your name on a list of people not to contact ever again unless you restart communication with us.
How we process your information
We will process your personal information in accordance with our obligations under applicable data protection laws and regulations, for the following reasons:
• to provide you with the services or information you have asked for; (e.g. membership, attendance at an event or our newsletter)
• to provide you with details of any of the doctors / practitioners listed on our website;
• to administer your donation or support your fundraising, including processing Gift Aid;
• to comply with applicable laws and regulations, and requests from statutory agencies;
• for our internal administrative purposes, including to administer any funding applications received;
• to provide you with information about us and our events, conferences, education, training, our member benefits and any other information, products or services that we provide or provide access to;
• to notify you about changes to our service and/or member benefits; and/or
• to ensure that content from our site is presented in the most effective manner for you and for your computer.
Whilst generally we will seek consent at the point of collecting your data, in some cases we may process data without consent when we are legally allowed to do so and where it is in our legitimate interests to do so. Occasionally, members of the public contact us with their health issues. When this happens, we will deal with the request e.g. try to connect them (refer them) to a suitable practitioner from our website listing and delete their sensitive personal data immediately. We will not keep any record of the correspondence.
If, at any time you do not wish to receive any further information about us and our services or you wish to change your contact details or preferences, please contact us at [email protected]. You can also write to us at:-
British Society for Ecological Medicine
FOA BSEM Secretary
Dr F Meuschel
BioLab Medical Unit
9 Weymouth Street
London W1W 6DB
How long we keep your data for
We will only keep your information for as long as we need it to provide you with the goods, services or information you have requested, to administer your relationship with us, to comply with the law, or to ensure we do not communicate with people that have asked us not to. When we no longer need this information, we will dispose of it securely.
If you cancel your membership your information will be held until the end of your subscription year. After that date we offer to keep you on our mailing list, holding on to your preferred contact details only. All other information we held until then will be deleted from our customer relationship management system. Since we are a charity we are obliged to keep records of the society’s membership and activities. Digital copies of our committee and trustee meetings, Annual General Meetings and of membership lists are saved and stored for 7 years in accordance with the Charity Commissions guidelines.
Where we store your personal data
We maintain and keep your data in the UK, only. However, we use a variety of software systems, including Microsoft Office 365 systems and they might process data both within the EEA or outside. A full list of software applications used by the Society where your data may be stored is available upon request, and will include a link to their respective security and privacy policies. Each company has been vetted to satisfy the necessary precautions, security and compliance for security, data integrity and GDPR. By submitting your details, you agree to your information being stored using the Societies chosen software and storage platforms.
All information you provide to us is stored on our secure servers. Any payment transactions will be encrypted using SSL technology.
Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. If you wish to avoid that inherent risk of communication via internet, you would need to contact us by post. Although we will do our best to protect your personal data, we cannot guarantee the security of your data transmitted to our site; any transmission is at your own risk. Once we have received your information, we will use strict procedures and security features to try to prevent unauthorised access.
Who has access to your information
We may allow our staff, consultants or other external providers acting on our behalf to access and use your information for the purposes for which you have provided it to us. For example, we will need to share your personal data with event organisers if you book for one of our conferences or trainings. Once your service need has been satisfied or the case has been closed, they will dispose of the details in line with our procedures. We only work with suppliers we trust, and they are only allowed to use the data to process on our behalf and never for their own purposes.
We will only share your sensitive information with third parties where it is directly relevant to the services you have requested. We make sure that your data is treated with the same level of care as if we were handling it directly. We may disclose your personal information to third parties if we are under a duty to disclose or share your personal data in order to comply with any legal obligation, or in order to enforce or apply any agreements, or to protect the rights, property or safety of us, or others.
Your rights
We understand that privacy and data are sensitive and important. You have a number of rights in relation to your data and these are;
The right to be informed
This privacy policy details how and why we collect, store and use your personal data
• The right of access
• You have the right to access the data and information we hold about you. Please see below for details on how request this information
• The right to rectification
• We want to make sure that your personal information is accurate and up to date. You may ask us to correct or remove information you think is inaccurate by contacting us using the contact details below
• The right to erasure
• You can request that we delete the information we hold on you. If this is because you no longer want to hear from us, then we will keep some basic information to ensure we don’t contact you again in the future. If we completely erase your records, then we wouldn’t be able to ensure we don’t contact you again in the future.
• The right to restrict processing
• You can let us know how you want us to use your data and this is one of the reasons we operate an opt-in communication model, so you can choose how and what we contact you about
• The right to data portability
• You have the right to request that your data is provided in an easy to use format to another supplier
• The right to object
• You can opt out of hearing from us at any point by contacting us using the details below
You have a right to access the personal information we hold about you and in certain circumstances to be provided with a copy of that information (this is known as a subject access request). You can request this by
email to [email protected] or by writing to us at:
BSEM Admin address:
British Society for Ecological Medicine
FAO BSEM Secretary
Dr F Meuschel
BioLab Medical Unit
9 Weymouth Street
London W1W 6DB
If you are unhappy with the way in which your personal data has been handled, please follow our complaints procedure (here). If you are not satisfied how we handled your complaint, you are entitled to make a complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office. https://ico.org.uk/concerns/
Data collection
Data is collected for three purposes:
- To assess eligibility and correct category for membership
- To allow the British Society for Ecological Medicine to provide support and resources to its members.
- To provide information about the society's work e.g. conferences, training programmes or fundraising opportunities to non-members who opted in to receiving our communications. The British Society for Ecological Medicine does not sell or lease its membership list and any information received as a result of completing a membership application form will come from the British Society for Ecological Medicine or its agents.
Membership
After an initial membership application has been accepted by the BSEM and the subscription paid for the current year, the new member will be provided with access to online resources and will be sent a welcome pack.
Applications which do not meet the relevant membership category criteria will be reviewed by the Secretary and/or the Committee. If accepted, membership will be confirmed in the relevant category.
In accordance with the British Society for Ecological Medicine’s Terms & Conditions of membership, it is the duty of members to advise the British Society for Ecological Medicine in writing of any change in personal circumstances that could lead to a change in subscription rates. For example, to notify us if you cease to qualify for a reduced rate subscription through returning to employment in the UK or ceasing to be a student.
It is also the members’ responsibility to notify the BSEM of changes to your bank account for continuity of subscription mandate payments. Where a mandate fails, due to failure of being notified, BSEM reserves the right to charge an admin fee of £30 to reinstate membership mandates or where a mandate has failed due to accidental cancellation or lack of funds in the member's bank account.
Membership of the British Society for Ecological Medicine requires an annual subscription via GoCardless. If membership is cancelled at any time during the year it is the responsibility of the individual to notify the BSEM Administrator on [email protected] in order to cancel the following year’s subscription. No refunds for the year of cancellation will be issued. If during this time further services have been purchased from the British Society for Ecological Medicine, such as event tickets at member rates, a liability will be incurred for any difference in the cost of member and non-member rates, which must be settled.
Membership Renewals / Applications
Historically, membership was due on the 1st of January or 1st of July, depending upon individual membership start date. From January 2016 all membership subscriptions were transferred to a direct debit system collected via GoCardless (GC). This is still in place; however, membership renewals now fall on the date of joining. Once your application is approved you will receive an email containing instructions on how to subscribe with a link to complete an on-line direct debit mandate. This is used to pre-authorise BSEM to collect your membership payments. This service is provided by GoCardless and every year will issue an email 2 weeks prior to renewal to alert members of their due date when the membership subscription will be collected from the bank. All personal data is secure and encrypted using SSL technology. The collection of subscriptions will be automatic thereafter, unless the BSEM Administrator is notified of cancellation.
The application data is initially collected and managed via JotForm which manages an automated communication to provide membership application status, as well as details on how to sign up for your online account once your membership is approved. The membership login allows members to see what membership payments have been made to the Society as well as providing access to member restricted areas of the website. Members may now also access training material from member restricted areas on the website and are now also able to register their attendance to events for the CPD Certificate.
Events
All events are bookable via the website (using the TicketTailor ticketing platform) and links contained in marketing communication emails from the British Society for Ecological Medicine (BSEM).
With effect from 8th July 2020 BSEM no longer accept American Express or Diners Club credit cards for the purchase of delegate tickets, CPD certificates or USB flash drive recordings.
With effect from 15th September 2019, delegate bookings will be subject to the following policy :-
Refunds will be provided for cancellation on a scaled rate (see table below) up to 7 working days before the event, subject to a £25 administration charge. Within 7 working days of an event no refund will be provided, although a downloadable recording of the event will be made available.
Example:
Ticket Value: £165, refund requested 25 days prior to event qualifies for 75% refund; £123.75, less admin fee of £25 therefore the total refund due would be £98.75.
Should you prefer to transfer your ticket to someone, this can be arranged for a £25 admin fee and you should email [email protected] with the name of the individual, their email address and any dietary preferences they may have. If such changes are made less than a week prior to the event, any dietary requirements may not be guaranteed.
Places are guaranteed on receipt of the appropriate payment by the BSEM. Admission will be guaranteed to all individuals on production of the ticket from the website or other confirmation from the BSEM that payment has been received.
Occasionally a very limited number of spaces may be available on the day and payment can be made by credit card at the time. However, any additional spaces cannot be guaranteed. Please check the website for such updated information.
A limited number of student tickets will be offered at a discounted price for all events. Student prices can vary by event and can be obtained by contacting the BSEM at [email protected]. Students will need to provide the BSEM with their current student details e.g. Course details, place of study. Upon approval you will be emailed a code that can be used to purchase at the discounted rate.
Special dietary requirements must be notified at the time of booking and is part of the on-line check-out process. Gluten and dairy free as well as vegetarian and vegan options will always be available, and these requests should be notified during the check-out process to ensure they are adequately provided for. For other special dietary requirements BSEM will do their best to accommodate them and will confirm within 5-7 working days. If other special dietary requirements cannot be met by the event venue, delegates are welcome to bring their own food. In such instances the delegate ticket price will remain unchanged.
If an event is cancelled, the British Society for Ecological Medicine’s liability will be limited to registration fees already paid to the Society for the event.
The British Society for Ecological Medicine accepts no legal responsibility for facts stated or opinions expressed during its events. It is the responsibility of individuals to satisfy themselves as to which facts and opinions should be relied on in any way whatsoever.
A copy of our Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy can be downloaded below:
BSEM Terms & Conditions / Privacy Statement 2/12/2020