Privacy policy

The Society for Endocrinology and our event management provider, Bioscientifica Ltd (hereafter referred to as ‘we’, ‘us’, and ‘our’) are dedicated to ensuring that your privacy is protected in accordance with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR). This privacy policy tells you what to expect when we collect information from you via this website. 

Personal data is any information relating to an identified or identifiable living person. When collecting and using personal data, our policy is to be transparent about why and how we process personal data.

The Society for Endocrinology is committed to ensuring that your privacy is protected. Should we ask you to provide certain information by which you can be identified, then you can be assured that it will only be used in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

What data do we collect?

Cookies

When you use the Society for Endocrinology website, we send your computer a small file called a cookie, which we can access when you visit this site in future. To analyse our cookie data, we use a third party service provided by Google LLC called Google Analytics. We collect this information to help this site run smoothly, to automatically populate your login information, and to analyse trends in the way our users interact with the site.

We will never process your cookie data in a way that identifies you as an individual. We may use cookies that contain pseudonymous identifiers (for example your membership number), but we do not connect this information to any personal data that we hold about you.

If you use third-party social media services such as Twitter and Facebook via this site, those services may also place cookies on your computer when you use this site. Third-party cookies are not covered by this policy, and we encourage users to read the cookie policies of these sites.

You can change your cookie settings for this site at any time by clicking ‘cookie settings’ in our website footer (at the bottom of every page on this site).

Data you supply via online forms

You may choose to submit your personal information to us by filling in an online form on this website. Examples of when we may collect personal information from you in this way include:

• when you apply for, or renew, your Society for Endocrinology membership
• when you apply for a Society for Endocrinology grant
• when you vote for a Society for Endocrinology award
• when you register for a Society for Endocrinology event.

The types of personal information that we may collect from you in this way include the following.

• First name, last name and title
• Membership status
• Membership category and career stage
• Job title
• Contact information (including postal, email address, and telephone number)
• Demographic information such as nationality, postcode, country, preferences and interests
• Credit/debit card information

This list is not exhaustive.

We will only ever use your personal data for marketing purposes if you have consented to this.

Information we collect at receipt and opening of emails

Members of the Society for Endocrinology and other interested individuals have the opportunity to subscribe to email communications from the Society. 

We use a third party provider, Dotdigital, to deliver our marketing emails. If you have opted-in to receive marketing communications from us, we will collect the following information on your email consumption.

• How you interacted with each email: e.g. whether you opened, deleted or forwarded the email, and details of any links you clicked.
• The type of device you used to open the email.
• Your browser type and operating system.
• Your geographic location.

For more information, please see Dotdigital's privacy policy.

You can withdraw your email subscription at any time by following the ‘unsubscribe’ link contained within the communication you have received. If you are a member, you can also update your email preferences in the members' area.

Inclusion in the Society for Endocrinology membership directory

Members of the Society for Endocrinology have the opportunity to include their details in the Society's membership directory to maximise opportunities for networking and collaboration. If you consent to this, the following personal information will be displayed in the membership directory.

• Your name
• Your job title
• Your institution
• How long you have been a member
• Your telephone number and email address.

This information is only ever available to other members of Society for Endocrinology, and will never be made available to the wider public. You can give or withdraw consent to be included in the membership directory at any time by changing your preferences in the ‘my profile’ section of the members’ area.

How is my information stored?

The information you provide to us via this website is stored on the Society for Endocrinology's systems on a secure remote server. We have implemented stringent security policies and technical measures to protect your information from unauthorised use, or accidental loss. Any personal information held by us is stored securely, and is only accessible by authorised personnel.

How long do we keep the information?

We retain the personal data processed by us in a live environment for as long as is considered necessary for the purpose(s) for which it was collected (including as required by applicable law or regulation, typically 6 years).  

In addition, personal data may be securely archived with restricted access and other appropriate safeguards where there is a need to continue to retain it. 

Security

We are committed to ensuring that your information is secure. In order to prevent unauthorised access or disclosure, we have put in place suitable physical, electronic, and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure the information we collect online.  

If you pay your fees by credit or debit card, we will not retain your card details after processing your payment. You will need to resubmit this information for future transactions.  

Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. Although we will do our best to protect your personal data, we cannot guarantee the security of your data transmitted to our site; any transmission is at your own risk. Once we have received your information, we will use strict procedures and security features to try to prevent unauthorised access.

Our legal basis for processing your data

We rely on the following lawful bases to process your personal data: 

• Consent (for example, to send you direct marketing by email).
• Contractual relationship (for example, to provide you with goods or services that you have bought from us, or when you agree to participate in user experience research).
• Legal obligation (for example, carrying out due diligence on agreements).
• Legitimate interests (see below).

Personal data may be legally collected and used if it is necessary for a legitimate interest of the organisation using the data, as long as its use is fair and doesn’t adversely impact the rights of the individual concerned.

We will always assess if our processing of your personal information is fair and balanced and if, in our opinion, it is within your reasonable expectations. We will balance your rights and our legitimate interests to make sure that we use your personal information in ways that are not unduly intrusive or unfair.

Our legitimate interests

• Achieving our charitable aims – to promote for the public benefit research, education and clinical practice in endocrinology by the organisation of conferences, training courses and publications, by raising public awareness, liaison with national and international legislators, and by any other appropriate means.
• Administration and operational management - this includes running the charity, legal and financial reporting and meeting legal requirements, responding to your enquiries, providing information and our support, research, surveys, events management, the administration of volunteers and employment and recruitment requirements.

Disclosure

We do not disclose your personal data to other organisations other than as necessary for the purposes for which you have supplied your information, to comply with our legal obligations, or to ensure data integrity.

Links to third-party websites

This website may contain links to other websites. Any third party websites are not covered by this privacy policy, and we encourage our users to refer to the privacy policies on these websites.

Your rights

You have the right to access any personal information that we hold about you. If we do hold information about you we will, upon your request:

• give you a description of the information we hold about you
• tell you why we are holding this information
• tell you who this information could be disclosed to
• allow you to have a copy of the information in an intelligible form.

If you would like access your personal information, please email our Data Protection Officer: [email protected]

Changes to this privacy policy

If we make any changes to this privacy policy, we will make the updated version available via this website. We will not make changes to the way that we use your personal data without first obtaining your consent to do so.

This policy was last updated on 15 March 2024.