Privacy policy

How the Biochemical Group collects and uses your data

Who we are

The Biochemical Society is a Registered Charity no. 253894 and Registered Company in England and Wales (no. 892796), limited by guarantee. We are registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office (no. Z5546006) in the UK under the Data Protection Act 1998.

Portland Press Ltd is a Registered Company in England and Wales (no. 2453983). We are registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office (no. Z6404184) in the UK under the Data Protection Act 1998

Data that we collect

The biochemical group comprises of The Biochemical Society and Portland Press Limited. To support the organisational functions or either member benefits or published materials we collect the following data

How we use your data

How we use your data depends on the services that you have chosen to sign up to or consent. For every instance that we require your consent there will be a clear notification. If you sign up to one of our services, there will be processing on your data to provide you with the service. This may include processing by third parties.

We may process information contained in or relating to any communication that you send to us. The correspondence data may include the communication content and metadata associated with the communication. Our website will generate the metadata associated with communications made using the website contact forms. The correspondence data may be processed for the purposes of communicating with you and record-keeping. The legal basis for this processing is our legitimate interests and the serving of a contract of services, namely the proper administration of our business and communications with users.

We will process your personal data that has been provided during the use of our services. The table in the appendix contains all the data we collect. The services that process your data are listed below additional purposes for processing are ensuring the security of our website and services, maintaining back-ups of our systems and communicating with you.

Services that require the use of your data

a) Biochemical Society membership

Retention periods are specific to each service and data item collected. Detailed below are links to specific service areas policies.

Biochemical Society Membership

To be a member of the society we will collect and retain data from you to provide you with member services, the mandatory data collected is required to fulfil this service.

While a membership is active all the mandatory items of the membership profile are retained under the ‘contract’ legal basis.

Marketing and communication materials that are optional will be held under consent and mechanisms will be in place to revoke this consent as desired by the member.

Upon lapsed membership the membership record is reduced to retain only the Name, membership number, email address, start date and lapsed date. The organisation will retain this for a year.

After a year the record is removed.

If the member had been in any historical, scientific, award, grant or bursary related activity there will be retention of that information on historical, scientific archival and/or financial records grounds.

Conferences and Events

The data provided for Events and Harden bursaries will be processed for the purposes of registration at an event, speaking at an event or management of a submitted abstract. The legal basis for this processing is the performance of a contract between you and us and/or taking steps, at your request, to enter into such a contract.

2.7   We may process information relating to transactions, including event registrations, which you enter into with us and/or through our website (“transaction data”). The transaction data may include your contact details and the transaction details. The transaction data may be processed for supplying the purchased registration and keeping proper records of those transactions. We do not record your credit card details. If bank details are provided for reimbursement or payment of invoices these are processed by our Finance Department only. The legal basis for this processing is the performance of a contract between you and us and/or taking steps, at your request, to enter into such a contract and our legitimate interests, namely our interest in the proper administration of our business.

2.8   We may process data about your use of our website and services (“usage data”). The usage data may include your IP address, geographical location, browser type and version, operating system, referral source, length of visit, page views and website navigation paths, as well as information about the timing, frequency and pattern of your service use. The source of the usage data is ouranalytics tracking system. This usage data may be processed for the purposes of analysing the use of the website and services. The legal basis for this processing is our legitimate interests, namely monitoring and improving our website and services.

2.9 We may process information that you provide to us for providing feedback on our events (“feedback data”). The feedback data may be processed for the purposes of improving our events and, where explicit consent is given, to receive further information on user-selected Portland Press publications. The legal basis for this processing is consent.

2.10   We may process any of your personal data identified in the other provisions of this policy where necessary for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims, whether in court proceedings or in an administrative or out-of-court procedure. The legal basis for this processing is our legitimate interests, namely the protection and assertion of our legal rights, your legal rights and the legal rights of others.

2.11 In addition to the specific purposes for which we may process your personal data set out in this policy, we may also process any of your personal data where such processing is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to which we are subject, or to protect your vital interests or the vital interests of another natural person.

2.12   Please do not supply any other person’s personal data to us, as we require a record of consent.

What data do we share and why?

Data is primarily shared between The Biochemical Society and Portland Press Limited. To perform the service contracts for you or to comply with legal and regulatory requirements your data is shared with third parties. The agreements with these parties are regularly reviewed to ensure your data’s protection.

Third party services we use

Cookies and other tracking technology

A cookie is a text-only string of information that a website transfers to the cookie folder of the browser on your computer’s hard disk so that the website can remember who you are. The new rules require that cookies can only be placed on machines where the user has given their consent.

Where relevant, this website uses cookies to store login session information during your login session. If you choose to remember your login, then the cookie will be retained on your computer after you log out. By logging in to the system you are – by necessity – accepting these cookies.

Your Rights

Person type
Member	As a member you sign up to our services to receive a range of benefits, you will not be able to unsubscribe certain electronic communication without the termination of your membership
Proposer	You provide us your name and details as the proposer, for us to confirm an application this is required to complete a service contract for membership, awards or editorial commissions
Award applicant	Consent will be sought, you have the right to revoke this consent. If you revoke your consent there will be no award
Award supporter	Consent is sought and recorded from a supporter to the applicant you can revoke this consent. This will result in no award for the applicant if successful
Award nominator	Consent is sought and recorded from a nominator to the applicant you can revoke this consent. This will result in no award for the applicant if successful
Grant applicant	Applicant’s details will be held in line with financial and organisation policy to enable us to fulfil the contract even in the event of non-award of grant
Grant application academic sponsor	Sponsor’s details will be held in line with financial and organisation policy to enable us to fulfil the contract even in the event of non-award of grant
Author	Your details are kept as a scientific/historic record, there is no impact on your right for rectification or notification
Author reviewer	Your details are kept as a scientific/historic record, there is no impact on your right for rectification or notification
Editor	Your details are kept as a scientific/historic record, there is no impact on your right for rectification or notification
Conference lead	Your details are kept as a scientific/historic record, there is not impact on your right for rectification or notification
Panel member	Your details are kept as a scientific/historic record, there is not impact on your right for rectification or notification
Theme panel/Research area nominator	Your details are kept as a scientific/historic record, there is not impact on your right for rectification or notification
Committee member	As a committee member you will receive communication via email, if you wish to no longer receive emails or wish to have your data removed it will coincide with your removal from the committee. If you are a member of a committee your name will be available on public registers maintained by the Biochemical Society.
Policy network	The Policy Network is a group of members who are interested in the Society’s Policy work and who wish to get involved and stay up-to-date with the recent policy news.  As a member of the Policy Network, you will receive:· A quarterly newsletter updating you of recent changes in the policy landscape that may affect the Molecular Biosciences and the Society’s work in these areas. · A Bi-monthly Policy Spotlight – the Spotlight focusses on a policy area and asks for your views and opinions. The Spotlight occurs every two months and you will receive a maximum of four Spotlight emails during this period.· Requests to comment on consultations as and when they are released based on your stated interests.· Invitations to policy related events. The Network does not meet in person and does not share your personal data or contact details with other members of the network. All emails you receive will be from the Biochemical Society.

• how to revoke consent

Within the system that you provided consent you will have an option to revoke that consent. In our legacy systems which are in the process of being retired please emailmydata@biochemistry.org or mydata@portlandpress.com to have someone manually remove you from our services.

• right to rectification

Any rectifications can be made using your login to the Biochemical Society or Portland Press based system, where there is no user login available a rectification requests can be made via email to the ‘mydata’ email addresses detailed above.

• right to be forgotten
  
  

For more information on what data is retained under the rights to be forgotten or to submit a data subject request (DSR) should be made to dsr@biochemistry.org for any function across the group.

• right for notification
  
  

If we change systems of data providers, you will be contacted via email or post

Support and Complaints

Support with any system or services can be accessed by emailing support@biochemistry.org or support@portlandpress.com any requests or information concerning data and privacy can be sent through to mydata@biochemistry.org or mydata@portlandpress.com

Data Subject Requests

Can be made on the dsr@biochemistry.org email address, however if the data resides in one of our legacy systems (which are currently being retired) there may be an associated fee if acquiring and redacting the data requires unreasonable admin support. All work will be clearly and fairly detailed and we always attempt to deliver the data at no cost where possible.