Privacy policy

This webpage sets out when and how we use your personal information that you or others provide to us.

Who we are
How do you use my data?
If our organisation’s structure changes
What about technical information and analytics?
Cookies
Where is my data stored?
How long do we retain your data for?
Your right to object under data protection laws
What are my rights under data protection laws?
What about websites we link to?
When will you change your privacy policy?
How do I contact you with feedback?

Who we are

We are the British Pharmacological Society (“We", " our" or "us”) a charity registered in the UK (registered with charity number 1030623 and company number 02877400).

Our registered address is 16 Angel Gate, City Road, London, EC1V 2PT.

We are made up of different legal entities, details of which can be found here.

We have appointed a data compliance manager who is responsible for overseeing questions in relation to this privacy notice. If you have any questions about this privacy notice, including any requests to exercise your legal rights, please contact us by email at info@bps.ac.uk.

How do you use my data?

When you create an account on our website

When you create an account on our website, we will use your personal information to process your account registration and to create your account profile. The details we collect from you when you register include your name, address, email address, phone number, date of birth and nationality. We need to process your personal information in this way to create your account, in accordance with the terms and conditions between us.

If you choose to become a member of our Community website at community.bps.ac.uk, we will also use your data to create a profile on that site. Your profile will be searchable in that website. You will be able to add further details to that profile should you wish, and also choose to hide your email address and address details. The details are outlined in the Profile and the Resources sections of the Community website.

When you become a member

When you become a member of the Society, we will use your personal information to process your membership application and provide you with your membership information and benefits (such as our monthly e-newsletter). The details we collect from you when you become a member include your name, address, email address, phone number, date of birth, nationality and CV.

To complete your membership application, we share your personal information with our subcontractors who are involved in the membership application process, such as payment providers. As a member, to enable you to vote in elections and at our Annual General Meeting (AGM) we share your personal information with a third party, such as Mi-Voice, which uses such information to send you information about our elections.  We need to process your personal information in this way to register you as a member and provide the ongoing membership services and benefits to you.

We occasionally share your personal information with a third party in order to survey you. We do this because of our legitimate interest to improve the member experience.

When you purchase a ticket to one of our events from our website

When you purchase tickets from our website, we will use your personal information to complete your purchase. The details we collect from you will include your name, and payment details.

To complete your purchase, we share your personal information with our subcontractors who are involved in the purchase process, such as payment providers.

We need to process your personal information in this way to enter into and perform the contract for the item you have purchased from us.

When you attend one of our ticketed events (such as scientific meetings)

When you attend one of our events (such as one of our scientific meetings), we will collect the following information from you: name, address, email address, phone number, organisation, date of birth, nationality and payment details. We may also ask you to provide additional information (such as accessibility requirements) on an optional basis to ensure we are able to meet your requirements. If you are already a member and register to attend an event, we will use the membership details we already hold on file for you to confirm your booking. We need to use your personal information in this way to complete the booking contract between us.

We provide a delegate list to the sponsors of our events (if applicable) and any organisations and other individuals who attend our events. We do this because our events provide a useful network opportunity and we have a legitimate interest in wanting to help build and develop the scientific community. You can object to us using your information in this way by contacting us.

When you phone us

When you phone us or contact us by email with general queries, we may also handle your personal information (your name, contact details and the other details you provide to us) in order to provide the customer services you have asked us to. This could be when you ask us to provide more information about us, or explain how our membership works.

We rely on your consent to handle your personal information in this way. If you do not provide us with the personal information we request from you for customer services purposes, we may not be able to fully answer your queries.

When you have expressed an interest in us

This section applies if you have opted in to receive marketing communications from us, or have previously expressed an interest in us and not opted out.

We will handle your personal information (email address and subscription preferences) to provide you with marketing communications in line with any preferences you have told us about.

When we send you marketing emails because you have opted-in to receive them, we rely on your consent to contact you for marketing purposes.

If you have not opted-in and we send you marketing emails, we do this because of our legitimate interest to promote the success of the Society.

Every email we send to you for marketing purposes will also contain instructions on how to unsubscribe from receiving them.

You are not under any obligation to provide us with your personal data for marketing purposes.

You can tell us that you do not want your personal information to be processed in this way at any time by contacting us at info@bps.ac.uk or, where relevant, by following the unsubscribe link shown in every marketing communication you receive from us.

To make our site better

We also share your aggregated, anonymous data with third party analytics and search engine providers that assist us in the improvement and optimisation of our site.

We will also use your personal information for the purposes of making our site more secure, and to administer our site and for internal operations, including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, research, statistical and survey purposes.

We process your data for this reason because we have a legitimate interest to provide you with the best experience we can, and to ensure that our site is kept secure.

You can prevent us from using your personal information in this way by using the 'do not track' functionality in your internet browser. If you enable do not track functionality, our site may be less tailored to your needs and preferences.

If our organisation’s structure changes

We will transfer your personal information to a third party:

  • if we sell or buy any business or assets, we will provide your personal information to the seller or buyer (but only to the extent we need to, and always in accordance with data protection legislation); or
  • if the Society or the majority of its assets are acquired by somebody else, in which case the personal information held by us will be transferred to the buyer.

We process your personal information for this purpose because we have a legitimate interest to ensure our organisation can be continued by the buyer. If you object to our use of your personal information in this way, the relevant seller or buyer of our organisation may not be able to provide services to you.

In some circumstances we may also need to share your personal information if we are under a duty to disclose or share it to comply with a legal obligation.

What about technical information and analytics?

Information we collect about you: When you visit our site we will automatically collect the following information:

  • technical information, including the Internet protocol (IP) address used to connect your computer to the internet, your login information, browser type and version, time zone setting, browser plug-in types and versions, screen resolution, operating system and platform; and
  • information about your visit, including the full Uniform Resource Locators, clickstream to, through and from our site (including date and time), page response times, download errors, length of visits to certain pages, page interaction information (such as scrolling, clicks, and mouse-overs) and methods used to browse away from the page.

Information we receive from other sources: We are also working closely with third party advertising networks, analytics providers, hosting providers and search information providers from whom we may also receive general aggregated anonymous information about you.

We will combine the information you provide to us with information we collect about you.

Cookies

Our site uses cookies to distinguish you from other users of our site. This helps us to provide you with a good experience when you browse our site and also allows us to improve our site. By continuing to browse the site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies.

A cookie is a piece of data sent by our website [or service], stored by the browser on your device and sent back to our website [or service] by your browser each time it makes a request. We only use (and store) non-essential cookies on your computer's browser or hard drive if you provide your consent.

Cookie Purpose

Browser Session Cookie

(ASP.NET_SessionId

CMSCookieLevel

CMSPreferredCulture

CMSPreferredUICulture)

These cookies are set after a user visits the site to display the preferred content culture and store the user session ID for security reasons.

My Society

(.ASPXFORMSTUH)

This authentication cookie keeps users signed into the site, and allows the site to verify and retrieve their details from our database. This does not contain any personal information.

AddThis

(_atuvc

_atuvs)

These cookies store up-to-date page share counts for the AddThis page sharing widget.

Google Analytics

(_ga

_gat)

These cookies are used to collect information about how visitors use our site. We use the information to compile reports and to help us improve the site. The cookies collect information in an anonymous form, including the number of visitors to the site, where visitors have come to the site from and the pages they visited.

Hotjar

(hjClosedSurveyInvites
_hjDonePolls
_hjMinimizedPolls
_hjDoneTestersWidgets
_hjMinimizedTestersWidgets
_hjDoneSurveys
_hjIncludedInSample
_hjShownFeedbackMessage)

Site visitors are assigned a unique user identifier, UUID, so that Hotjar can keep track of returning visitors without relying on any personal information, such as the IP address.

These cookies are used to collect information about how visitors use our site. We use the information to compile reports and to help us improve the site. The cookies collect information in an anonymous form, including the number of visitors to the site, where visitors have come to the site from and the pages they visited.

Facebook Pixel

This cookie is used to measure, optimise and build audiences for advertising campaigns served on Facebook.We use this information to see how our users move between devices when accessing the Society's website and Facebook, to ensure that  Facebook advertising is seen by users most likely to be interested in such advertising.

Please note that third parties (including, for example, advertising networks and providers of external services like web traffic analysis services) may also use cookies, which we do not have any control over. These cookies are likely to be analytical/performance cookies or targeting cookies.

You can block cookies by activating the setting on your browser that allows you to refuse the setting of all or some cookies. However, if you use your browser settings to block all cookies (including essential cookies) you may not be able to access all or parts of our site.

Except for essential cookies, all cookies will expire after two years.

Where is my data stored?

Most of your data is stored within the EEA. Whenever we transfer your personal information outside of the EEA, we ensure it is protected by making sure at least one of the following safeguards is in place:

  • by transferring your personal information to a country that has been deemed to provide an adequate level of protection by the European Commission;
  • by using specific contracts approved by the European Commission which give your personal information the same protection it has
  • where we use providers based in the US, we may transfer data to them if they are part of the Privacy Shield which requires them to provide similar protection to personal data shared between Europe and the US.

To keep this privacy policy as short and easy to understand as possible, we have not set out the specific circumstances when each of these protection measures are used. You can contact us at info@bps.ac.uk for the details as to how we protect specific transfer of your data.

All information you provide to us is stored on our secure servers or those of our third party data storage providers.

How long do we retain your data for?

We will only retain your personal information for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting or legal requirements

To determine the appropriate retention period for the personal information we hold, we consider the amount, nature and sensitivity of the personal information, the risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal information, the reasons why we handle your personal information and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal requirements.

In some circumstances we may anonymise your personal data so that it can no longer be associated with you for research or statistical purposes, in which case we may use this information indefinitely without further notice to you.

Your right to object under data protection laws

You have the right to object to us handling your personal information when:

  • we are handling your personal information based on our legitimate interests (as described in the “How do you use my data” section above). If you ask us to stop handling your personal information in this way, we will stop unless we can show you that we have compelling grounds as to why our use of your personal information should continue; or
  • for marketing purposes. If you ask us to stop handling your personal information on this basis, we will stop.

What are my rights under data protection laws?

You have various rights under the data protection laws, which you can exercise by contacting us. The easiest way to do this is by email at info@bps.ac.uk.

Right of access

You are entitled receive confirmation as to whether your personal information is being processed by us, as well as various other information relating to our use of your personal information.

You also have the right to access your personal information which we are handling.

Right to rectification

You have the right to require us to rectify any inaccurate personal information we hold about you. You also have the right to have incomplete personal information we hold about you completed, by providing a supplementary statement to us.

Right to restriction

You can restrict our processing of your personal information where:

  • you think we hold inaccurate personal information about you;
  • our handling of your personal information breaks the law, but you do not want us to delete it;
  • we no longer need to process your personal information, but you want us to keep it for legal reasons; or
  • where we are handling your personal information because we have a legitimate interest (as described in the “How we use your data” section above, and are in the process of objecting to this use of your personal information.

Where you exercise your right to restrict us from using your personal information, we will then only process your personal information when you agree, except for storage purposes and to handle legal claims.

Right to data portability

You have the right to receive your personal information in a structured, standard machine readable format and to send this to another organisation controlling your personal information.

This right only applies to your personal information we are handling because you consented to us using it or because there is a contract in place between us.

Right to erasure

You have the right to require us to erase your personal information which we are handling in the following circumstances:

  • where we no longer need to use your personal information for the reasons we told you we collected it for;
  • where we needed your consent to use your personal information, you have withdrawn your consent and there is no other lawful way we can continue to use your personal information;
  • when you object to our use of your personal information and we have no compelling reason to carry on handling it;
  • if our handling of your personal information has broken the law; and
  • when we must erase your personal information to comply with a law we are subject to.

Right to complain

You have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner's Office, the supervisory authority for data protection issues in England and Wales.

What about websites we link to?

Our site may, from time to time, contain links to and from the websites of our partner networks and affiliates.

Our site connects you to different websites. If you follow a link to any of these websites or use our services, please note that you have left our site and these websites have their own privacy policies.

We do not accept any responsibility or liability for these policies or websites. Please check their policies before you submit any personal information to these websites.

When will you change your privacy policy?

Any changes we make to our privacy policy in the future will be posted on this page and, where appropriate, notified to you by email or post.

Please check back frequently to see any updates or changes to our privacy policy.

How do I contact you with feedback?

Questions, comments and requests regarding this privacy policy are welcomed and should be addressed to The Data Compliance Manager at info@bps.ac.uk.

This privacy policy was last updated on 19 January 2021.