INTRODUCTION

About Us
In this Privacy Notice references to “we” or “us” or “our” are to: The Academy of Social Sciences (AcSS), which is a private limited company by guarantee (reg. no. 03847936) and a registered charity (reg. charity no. 1088537). Our registered address is c/o Knox Cropper LLP, 5 floor, 65 Leadenhall Street, London EC3A 2AD. We act as data controller in respect of the personal information that we process. If you have any questions about how we collect, store or use your information, or you would like to update the information we hold about you, you may contact us through the following email address operations@acss.org.uk 

About this Privacy Notice
This Privacy Notice tells you what personal information we collect, and why we need it, how we use it and what protections are in place to keep your personal information secure. This Privacy Notice applies to

Visitors to our website, acss.org.uk
Staff members, contractors and subcontractors of AcSS
A list of AcSS Fellows and Social Science Societies are available. The type of personal information we collect about you – and the personal information we obtain from third parties – depends to some extent on your circumstances, your role within the organisation and our legal obligations. This Privacy Notice was last updated on 30 September 2021. Any changes to this Privacy Notice will be highlighted to you in an updated Privacy Notice.

What is ‘personal information’?
Your ‘personal information’ means information about you, and any information from which you can be identified – either by reference to an identifier (for example your name, location data or online identifier (IP address)) or from factors specific to your physical, cultural or social identity.

WHO DO WE COLLECT PERSONAL INFORMATION FROM?

We may collect personal information:

• From you, where you visit our website, complete one of our online forms or contact us;
• From AcSS members (Fellows and Learned Societies) and;
• When you attend an AcSS event.

HOW DO WE COLLECT PERSONAL INFORMATION?

Information provided to us by you
Personal information is provided to us by you:

• when you enter information into our website or online forms; and
• when you contact us by email, by telephone or by post.

Information collected automatically by us
We may collect information about your computer, including where available your IP address, operating system and browser type, for system administration and to report aggregate information to our advertisers. This is statistical data about our users’ browsing actions and patterns, and does not identify any individual and we will not collect personal information in this way.

We may obtain information about your general internet usage by using a cookie file which is stored on the hard drive of your computer. Cookies contain information that is transferred to your computer’s hard drive. They help us to improve our site and to deliver a better and more personalised service. They enable us:

• To estimate our audience size and usage pattern.
• To store information about your preferences, and so allow us to customise our site according to your individual interests.
• To speed up your searches.
• To recognise you when you return to our site.

You may refuse to accept cookies by activating the setting on your browser which allows you to refuse the setting of cookies. However, if you select this setting you may be unable to access certain parts of our site. Unless you have adjusted your browser setting so that it will refuse cookies, our system will issue cookies when you log on to our site.

Information provided to us by third parties
Personal information provided to us by third parties such as AcSS members and suppliers may include:

• your name and contact details;
• your disciplinary background and areas of expertise;
• your organisation / employment details; and
• your CV.

WHAT DO WE USE YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION FOR?

What your personal information i;s used for
We use your personal information for the following purposes:

Information you give to us
We will use this information:

• to provide you with any information or assistance requested by you.
• to send you emails regarding AcSS events, news and other membership benefits.
• to administer your membership.
• to populate our online member directories.

In these circumstances, the legal basis for processing the data is your consent. Please note that you have the right to withdraw your consent to this processing at any time by contacting us using the details set out in the Introduction section above. If you choose to withdraw your consent to processing all or part of the data this will not affect the lawfulness of the processing that occurred prior to the withdrawal.

Information collected automatically by us
We will use this information:

• to administer our website and for internal operations, including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, research, statistical and survey purposes;
• to improve our website to ensure that content is presented in the most effective manner for you and for your computer;
• to allow you to participate in interactive features of our website, when you choose to do so; and
• as part of our efforts to keep our website safe and secure.

In these circumstances, the legal basis for processing the data is our legitimate interest in administering and improving our website and its features, and keeping our website secure.

Information provided to us by third parties

We will use this information:

In these circumstances, the legal basis for processing the data may be the legitimate interest of AcSS, its members and third party suppliers to conduct business operations.

WHO DO WE SHARE YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION WITH?

Your personal information
We may share your personal information with the following third parties, where relevant:

Mailing fulfilment suppliers for distribution of materials.
If another member or someone else requests to contact you via AcSS, we will never pass on your contact details and will instead contact you directly unless previously requested otherwise.

We may also share your information where we are under a legal obligation to disclose your information (for example where we are required to share information in accordance with legislation, to prevent fraud and other criminal offences, or because of a court order). We may disclose your information in order to enforce our legal rights or to protect the legal rights of our members or others.

HOW DO WE KEEP YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION SAFE?

What we do
We have security measures in place to restrict access to personal information, to guard against unauthorised or unlawful processing of personal information and against damage to, accidental loss or destruction of, your personal information.

The security measures applied include:

hard copy records and manual files are kept to a minimum but those kept are in locked filing cabinets with additional access security; and
electronic records are kept in an electronic filing system with access restricted to AcSS staff.

Third parties
This website may include links to third-party websites, plug-ins and applications. Clicking on those links or enabling those connections may allow third parties to collect or share data about you. We do not control these third-party websites and are not responsible for their privacy statements. When you leave our website, we encourage you to read the privacy notice of every website you visit.
The terms of our contracts with third party contractors include obligations on them in relation to what personal information they can process and what they can do with that information. Our third party contractors include:

• Eventbrite: eventbrite.co.uk,  ThankQ CRM: www.theaccessgroup.com/crm-nfp/, Web CMS systems https://www.berlinersueden.de
• the right to access your personal information;
• the right to rectification of your personal information;
• the right to erasure of your personal data;
• the right to restrict or object to the processing of your personal data;
• the right to data portability; and
• the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office about the use of your personal information.
• the right to object to direct marketing

HOW LONG DO WE KEEP YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION FOR?

We keep your personal information only for as long as is reasonably necessary for the purposes for which we process your personal information. These purposes are listed at section 5 of this Privacy Notice ‘What do we use your personal information for?’.

Your personal information is kept for as long as you or your organisation remains a member of AcSS.

AUTOMATED DECISION-MAKING AND PROFILING

What we do
No automated decision making or profiling is carried out by AcSS.

INTERNATIONAL DATA TRANSFERS

We do not transfer your personal data outside of the EEA. Where our third party contractors process your personal data outside of the EEA they are required to ensure the adequate protection of your personal data.

YOUR RIGHTS

You have certain rights under data protection legislation in relation to the personal information that we hold about you. These rights apply only in particular circumstances and are subject to certain exemptions such as public interest (for example the prevention of crime). They include:

To contact us about your data or AcSS data privacy policy, please email: operations@acss.org.uk