PRIVACY POLICY

PRIVACY POLICY May 2018
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into force on 25 May 2018. This has implications for how the Birmingham Civic Society handles your data and how we communicate with you. The Birmingham Civic Society has always taken all reasonable steps to ensure that data held about its members is treated confidentially. However, the introduction of the GDPR means that you have to be told in detail how the Society handles your personal data and how we communicate with you. Although the GDPR comes from the European Union the British Government has confirmed that the rules will not be affected by the withdrawal of the UK from the EU.
Your personal information will only be used to process your requests, to provide you with our services, and to provide you with information relating to our services and all other services which we think you may be interested in.
What Personal Data we may collect
We may collect the following information:
• Name and job title
• Contact information including email address
• Your telephone number and/or mobile number where you have provided one
• Demographic information such as postcode, preferences and interests
• Other information relevant to customer surveys and/or offers
• Details of membership subscriptions you have paid
• Details of any Standing Orders you may have signed
• Details of any events you may have attended and payments you have made in this regard
• In addition we may have retained emails or letters you have sent us to book events or to ask questions about the Birmingham Civic Society and its activities.
Your personal data is stored on electronic equipment and/or hard copy used by members of the Board on a need to know basis. That means information is usually only held by the Chair, Secretary (who is also the Membership Secretary) and the Treasurer. Some of our records, such as membership forms and Gift Aid authorities, are held in paper format by the Secretary and Treasurer. All personal data is stored securely and is regularly updated and backed up.
We keep the information for as long as we deem necessary within the remit of the legislation. Membership details and Gift Aid authorities will be retained for as long as you are a member. We may also need to keep financial information for a period of six financial years after the end of the financial year in which the transaction occurred so that we can respond to any enquiries from HMRC about our income or applications for Gift Aid.
We only use the information we keep to help us administer the functions of a membership based organisation and to notify members of our latest news, activities and events. We may occasionally tell you about events organised by others that we think may be of interest to members.
We do not routinely share personal information. On Members’ instructions we may need to share personal information where the services we provide involve an identified third party supplier in which case we will take reasonable steps to ensure that any information shared will be limited to what is necessary for the specific purpose and will only be processed in accordance with GDPR principles.
Your Rights
You have the right to ask us to tell you what information we hold about you at any time. You can do this by writing to our Secretary at his/her postal address or by emailing us at info@thebirminghamcivicsociety.org.uk
You also have the right at any time to correct any information we hold about you which is incorrect or out of date.
You have the right to cancel your membership at any time and ask for your details to be removed from our records. Please note that we may need to keep details of payments you have made to us even after your membership ends as explained above.
How we will contact you
When you join the Society we add your name to our mailing lists and then keep you informed about the Society’s events and activities. We will occasionally contact you about your membership of the Society and will remind you when your subscription is due.
We will tell you about Birmingham Civic Society related events organised by other organisations and other civic societies in the area. We will use our judgement and discretion to decide which events not organised by us we decide to tell you about.
We will usually only contact you by email (preferred) or by post. People who have provided us with an email address will receive information from us more frequently than those who have only provided us with a postal address. The reason for this is based primarily on the costs of printing and postage but can also be due to the fact that we sometimes receive information from others at very short notice and there may not be time to issue postal communication to members.
Very rarely we may need to contact you by telephone but this would usually only be to let you know about late changes to our events where an email or letter may not reach you in time.
This policy was updated on 25 May 2018 to comply with the EU General Data Protection Regulation.