Hastings Writers Group: GDPR Privacy Notice
(UK)
What is the purpose of this document?
HASTINGS WRITERS GROUP is committed to protecting the privacy and security of your personal information. This privacy notice describes how we collect and use personal information about members in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). It applies to all members
HASTINGS WRITERS GROUP is a “data controller”. This means that we are responsible for deciding how we hold and use personal information about you. We are required under data protection legislation to notify you of the information contained in this privacy policy.
This policy applies to all members. It does not form part of any contract to provide services. We may update this notice at any time.
It is important that you read this notice, together with any other privacy notice we may provide on specific occasions when we are collecting or processing personal information about you, so that you are aware of how and why we are using such information.
Data protection principles
We will comply with data protection law. This says that the personal information we hold about you must be:
- Used lawfully, fairly and in a transparent way.
- Collected only for valid purposes that we have clearly explained to you and not used in any way that is incompatible with those purposes.
- Relevant to the purposes we have told you about and limited only to those purposes.
- Accurate and kept up to date.
- Kept only as long as necessary for the purposes we have told you about.
- Kept securely.
The kind of information we hold about you.
Personal data, or personal information, means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified. It does not include data where the identity has been removed (anonymous data).
There are “special categories” of more sensitive personal data which require a higher level of protection.
We may collect, store, and use the following categories of personal information about you:
- Name
- Address
- Contact details (phone and email)
- Any information provided by you in members personal pages
- Competition results
- Personal contact details such as name, title, addresses, telephone numbers, and personal
- email addresses.
- Date of birth.
- Information about your health or disabilities if relevant to your attendance at an event, in order to ensure appropriate adaptations are available.
How is your personal information collected?
We typically collect personal information about members through the membership application process in which you provide information to enable us to process your membership and remain in contact with you.
Members are provide with this Privacy Notice as part of the Membership application process and are asked to confirm that they consent to HASTINGS WRITERS GROUP collecting and processing their data.
As a paid up member, you will be given your own personal password-protected space on the web-site and you may use this to store information relating to your experiences as a writer.
How we will use information about you
We will only use your personal information when the law allows us to. Most commonly, we will use your personal information in the following circumstances:
- Where we need to contact you with information about the Group or relevant activities (such as writing competitions, events or information from the National Association of Writers Groups, training or educational material).
- Where we need to comply with a legal obligation (e.g. management of our bank account, Health and Safety regulations)
We may also use your personal information in the following situations, which are likely to be rare:
- Where we need to protect your interests (or someone else’s interests).
- Where it is needed in the public interest [or for official purposes].
Situations in which we will use your personal information
We need all the categories of information in the list above (see “The kind of information we hold about you”) primarily to allow us to communicate with you as a member of the Group.
We will also, with member consent, share email addresses within the group (to members only) in order to allow members to communicate with each other. If members do not wish their email addresses to be shared with other group members, they will be BCC’d in all communications.
If you fail to provide personal information
If you fail to provide certain information when requested, we will not be able to process your application for membership of the group.
Change of purpose
We will only use your personal information for the purposes for which we collected it, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose. If we need to use your personal information for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and we will explain the legal basis which allows us to do so.
Please note that we may process your personal information without your knowledge or consent, in compliance with the above rules, where this is required or permitted by law.
Our obligations as Hastings Writers Group
We will use your personal information in the following ways:
- To communicate with you about Groups activities and plans and to provide you with access to information relating to writing and the activities and plans of Hastings Writers Group.
Data sharing
It is unlikely that we will share information with any third parties.
Situations in which we will need to share information include:
- Committee members who are signatories to the Hastings Writers Bank Account: The Treasurer will need to provide personal details of all signatories.
- The names of competition winners are included in meeting reports sent to the local press for publication
We require third parties to respect the security of your data and to treat it in accordance with the law.
We will not transfer your personal information outside the EU.
Data security
We have put in place measures to protect the security of your information. Details of these measures are available upon request.
We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected data security breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected breach where we are legally required to do so.
Data retention: How long will you use my information 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 reporting requirements.
In some circumstances we may anonymise your personal information so that it can no longer be associated with you, in which case we may use such information without further notice to you.
Your rights in connection with personal information
If you want to review, verify, correct or request erasure of your personal information, object to the processing of your personal data, or request that we transfer a copy of your personal information to another party, please contact the Hastings Writers Group Membership Secretary.
If you have any questions about this privacy notice or how we handle your personal information, please contact the Hastings Writers Group Membership Secretary.
You have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues.
Changes to this privacy notice
We reserve the right to update this privacy notice at any time, and we will provide you with a new privacy notice when we make any substantial updates. We may also notify you in other ways from time to time about the processing of your personal information.