Privacy statement
Last updated: 19th July 2018
Your privacy is very important to us, which is why we make sure you are always in control of what we do with your personal information.
The purpose of this Notice is to tell you what information we collect from you as a data subject, how and when it may be collected and what happens to it. For the purpose of this Notice “we”, “our” and “us” refer to The Royal Society of Chemistry (and each of its subsidiaries) as an organisation (also referred to as “RSC”). Transmission of information online is not 100% secure and we cannot guarantee the security of data sent to us in this way. Transmission of data over the internet is at your own risk.
RSC is a data controller and our address for contact is:
The Royal Society of Chemistry
Thomas Graham House (290)
Science Park, Milton Road, Cambridge, CB4 0WF
Our Data Protection Officer is David Barr, he can be contacted via telephone (01223 420066), e-mail (DPO@rsc.org) or in writing at the address above. If you have a specific question about this Notice or how we use your personal information, you should contact us via the contact methods set out above. Please mark your communication as “Data Protection Enquiry”.
This Notice only applies to:
- personal information processed by or on our behalf.
- Individual contacts/participants from within your business (for example Directors) or information about you as a sole trader or partnership
Third party websites and services we link to through our websites have their own privacy policies, independent of the Royal Society of Chemistry. We hold no responsibility or liability for those independent policies and encourage you to review the privacy policies of any third party website you visit.
This Privacy Statement explains in general terms how we seek to comply with data privacy laws and regulations, including but not limited to the General Data Protection Regulation (“Regulation”).
The information we collect about you
We collect information to provide you with a better experience of using our websites and applications, amongst other reasons (see the “How will we use your information?” section below). In order to provide you with access to our services or data within our websites and applications, we may require that you provide certain personal information. This information may include:
- Your name, postal address, telephone number, fax number, e-mail address, subscriber name or screen name, password used to access our services, country of residence and/or method of payment
- personal and contact details you give us when subscribing to receive marketing information from us (for example name, role and email address)
- date of birth
- passport details
- information relating to your place of employment and affiliations
- information we collect via cookies or similar technology stored on your device about how you use our websites (please see section below re use of Cookies)
- your IP address, and home server and domain names
- information from our web servers about online activity
- information from social media activity (such as likes, shares and tweets) when you interact with us on social media
- information you provide if you report a problem with our website or service
- your financial information, such as account name and account number
How we collect your information
This will depend on the reason we are collecting your personal information. Our processes for collection are:
- online via our various application platforms and databases that we use which are either wholly owned or used by us under license
- via post
- telephone
- face to face
- from publicly available sources, such as LinkedIn, institution websites
- collected as a business contact
- use of Cookies
Who we may share your personal data with, and why
-
Royal Society of Chemistry staff across each of our service departments in order to provide you with applicable services.
- Banks, finance management, direct debit, and accountancy software systems: personal information is collected and used in order that we can make payment to you in accordance with the appropriate transaction that you are entering into with us, for example processing card details to secure payment before dispatching a product to a customer.
- Our internal and external judges: information supplied in relation to an application for awards, scholarships, bursaries (including research bursaries), funding (via our various Funds) internship, travel and outreach grants, will be used by our internal and external judges to assess whether you should receive such an award. Financial details will be collected in order to make payments under such Grants and to competition winners.
- Appropriate third parties whom will provide mentoring services and products.
- Membership management systems in order to enable us to manage and effectively provide you with membership services, including managing the status of your membership.
- Telesales providers in order that they may assist us with our renewal of membership process, including managing the status of your membership.
- Mailing and delivery companies to send you written communications and hard copies of newsletters, journals etc as appropriate.
- electoral service companies in order to assist us with facilitating and running our elections process
- Sponsors and external judges: information may be provided in relation to their assessment of participants in our events and competitions.
- Document storage management systems in order to store copies of contracts and relevant documentation.
- Third party Legal service, counselling and career service providers: on receipt of your completed contact form we will pass your information on to such service providers.
- Twitter (which may include your institution’s twitter handle) and Facebook where you have submitted a community related news story to us and we have published it, publication may be via http://www.rsc.org/news-events/community/, and in the print version of Voice.
- Print supplier companies
- Travel booking systems, travel companies, taxi services and flight providers where you ask us to make such arrangements on your behalf.
- Venues: where we are running an event, conference or symposium and the venue requires personal details of attendees to make bookings, for example for hotel rooms.
- Publishing software and solutions companies: your personal information may be inputted into such software systems in order for us to generate royalties details.
- Books sales agents, book distributors, shipping agents – used in order to fulfil our sales obligations to you.
Our sources of personal data if it has not been supplied directly by you:
- Cogent Skills – this service is used in relation to recruiting applicants for industrial placements.
- Our contracted editors: we may source your personal information via publicly facing websites, journal papers, institution websites and contracted 3rd party databases to collate recommended contact lists for potential authors and editors.
- Applications for travel grants made through the Society of Chemical Industry website (SCI) – SCI secretary provides us with personal data in order for application to be assessed and decision made. Applications for the Newton Fund are made via the British Council website, we receive a PDF of all applications from the British Council in order to assess if an award should be made.
We will not sell your information.
We may disclose your personal information to third parties if we are under a duty to disclose or share it, in order to comply with any legal regulations, good governance obligations, in order to enforce or to protect our rights, property, or safety, that of other persons with whom we have a business relationship, or to purchasers or prospective purchasers in relation to a disposal of our business or assets.
We may use third party service providers to support our provision of our services. Such will relate to business functions, including (without limitation) IT support, hosting our data on cloud platforms, legal, accounting, audit, consulting and other professional service providers, and providers of other services related to our business.
Portions of our services may be provided by organisations with which we have a contractual relationship, including subcontractors, and, accordingly, your personal information may be disclosed to them. We only provide these organisations with the information that they need to be able to perform their services. We will have in place an agreement with our service providers which will restrict how they are able to process your personal information.
Our simple promise
- We will never pass your personal details to anyone outside the RSC for them to use for their own marketing purposes unless you have previously provided us with your informed and specific consent.
- We will make sure that our contact with you is relevant and in accordance with the preference information that you give us and in order to enable us to provide the service you require to you.
- You can change your contact preferences at any time. All you need to do is update your preferences by contacting us at marketing@rsc.org. But remember, you may miss out on important news and developments in chemical sciences.
- Your personal information will be stored safely and will remain secure at all times.
- No statistical information which identifies you personally will be published.
- No personal information will be kept any longer than necessary in order to fulfil the purpose it was collected for, and if you ask us to, it will be deleted.
We will collect and process your personal information in accordance with this Notice.
If you make an enquiry via our website, on the telephone or via email, or via any third party, we will collect the information you provide to us, together with any information provided by that third party.
How we will use your information
We will process your personal data:
- As necessary to perform our contract with you for the relevant service: to take steps at your request before entering into it, to decide whether to enter into it, to manage and perform that contract and to update our records.
- As necessary for our own legitimate interests: for example to monitor emails, record calls, and other communications to train staff and activities relating to your membership (including managing the status of your membership, or in dealing with a complaint that you raise.
- As necessary to comply with a legal obligation: for example when you exercise your rights under data protection laws and make requests, for establishment and defence of legal rights or obligations, for example in dealing with any complaint from you.
- Based on your consent: for example to send you marketing communications where we’ve asked for your consent to do so.
Marketing
We want to share information and news about our products and services with you. We can do this in various ways including e-mail, post, phone or social media (or such other method(s) as may become relevant) but only if you would like us to.
In accordance with applicable laws and lawful basis for processing, we may use your personal information to provide you with direct marketing information about our products and services as well as those of third parties and to take part in our marketing research.
We will ensure that any direct marketing from us and which is sent by electronic means will provide a simple means for you to stop further communications, in accordance with applicable law. Once you have provided your express consent for us to contact you on our behalf, or on behalf of other organisations, there are a number of methods available to you in order to change your preferences, to correct or update your personal information at any time by:
- clicking the ‘unsubscribe’ link in any promotional e-mail you receive from us
- contacting our product or service team where a correction is required
- contacting us at marketing@rsc.org
In addition, if we need your consent for direct marketing communications under applicable law, and if you provide your consent, you will be able to change your mind at any time.
We use 3rd parties to conduct some of our email campaigns using their contact lists, such as for scientific research, scholarly publishing and scientific education and for reasons such as promoting our journal products to drive manuscript submissions and promotion of our education resources, etc. We will provide such 3rd parties with a stop list of those who have specifically opted out of receiving such emails on the proviso that this list is deleted after the campaign is completed.
In the instance that marketing material we send you is returned, we will remove your incorrect details from our systems, where possible.
If you complete a contact form on one of our websites, your query and information will be forwarded to our relevant internal team to answer and respond.
Publishing
Databases:
The National Chemical Database Service (NCDS) is a portal to allow access to third-party databases. We have contracts with Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) to host the service and with third-party providers to license the databases. We do not send your personal information to EPSRC or the third-party providers.
Your personal data is only used for operational purposes (such as sending service messages or resetting forgotten passwords) unless you have opted in to receive marketing messages.
It is necessary for us to gather evidence of the scientific impact of the NCDS to secure continued funding. Therefore we may occasionally contact registered NCDS users about their use of the service.
Journals:
Authors submit their manuscript and personal details via online submission and peer review systems.
If a manuscript is accepted the files will be transferred to our Production system, including your personal information.
We may use your personal information to contact you to invite you to serve as a peer reviewer. We will refrain from doing this if you inform us that you do not want to take part in such activity.
Your personal information may be included in our internal tracking and archiving processes.
If you provide us with your personal data, we will ask you if you would like to receive information from us about our other activities, products and services. If you choose to opt-in to receiving this information then we may contact you regarding journal news, journal symposia, Themed Issues, nominations for lectureships and awards. You will not be automatically opted-in and if you do opt-in you can opt-out at any time.
Profiling and automated decision making
RSC does itself carry out automated decision making or profiling. We will share email addresses, which have been given directly to RSC by data subjects, or browsing information, obtained in ways such as pixel tracking, to enable us to show tailored adverts on a third party platform, such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google, whom may perform profiling.
Film and Video
We have a procedure in place in relation to our use of images through use of photographs and video, including process for consent to use (as applicable), retention and deletion. For more information please contact our Data Protection Officer at the address shown above.
CCTV at Thomas Graham House or Burlington House
RSC operates use of CCTV surveillance cameras at these offices. Surveillance is monitored through a live feed by RSC staff within our Facilities Management and Hospitality teams. Off-site/remote access to surveillance footage is only granted to our staff and is provided securely through our IT system, subject to our off-site working practices and policies. Surveillance cameras are located in public access areas such as meeting rooms, post rooms, corridors, cafes, canteens, libraries, stairs, lifts, reception areas and fire exits. Surveillance cameras on these sites record images only; there is no recording of sound.
Our staff will have 24 hour access to the surveillance feeds and may access them during out of office hours in the case of an emergency, incident or alarm activation at our sites.
Surveillance footage is stored securely for a period of 60 (sixty) days in our UK based servers, after which time the surveillance footage is automatically deleted.
In the event of an incident or accident at either site, the footage may be downloaded by our staff and stored securely on our UK based servers in the interests of preserving evidence for any potential investigation and/or claim(s). Any such downloaded footage may also be shared with the relevant authorities, including the Police, where we are required to do so by law. We may retain footage that is downloaded and/or stored for these purposes for a period up to 6 (six) years to take into account the statutory limitation periods for any potential investigation(s) and claim(s). Once any potential investigation(s) or claim(s) has concluded, we will delete the relevant footage.
Access to the surveillance footage is limited to our staff and those third party contractors that are required to perform maintenance and servicing of the surveillance camera equipment, including ADT Fire and Security PLC (“ADT”). ADT are our chosen third party contractors for this service at both sites, however, alternative third party contractors in the same industry may be used by us to maintain and service our surveillance camera equipment in the event of an emergency or a change in our requirements. ADT, or any such third party contractor, will not have access to the surveillance footage off-site/remotely.
International transfer
The Royal Society of Chemistry is a global organisation with subsidiary companies located around the world. This Notice establishes our global principles for the collection, use and disclosure of information gathered through our websites and applications. The country in which you are doing business with us or where the website you are visiting is located/hosted may have specific requirements concerning personal information.
The data that we collect from you may be stored in a location outside of the European Economic Area. Where we transfer your personal information outside of the EEA, we ensure it is protected by making sure at least one of the following safeguards is in place:
- by transferring your personal information to a country that has been deemed to provide an adequate level of protection by the European Commission;
- by using specific contracts approved by the European Commission which give your personal information the same protection it has within the EEA; or
- we may transfer data to them if they are part of the Privacy Shield which requires them to provide similar protection to personal data shared between Europe and the US.
We have not set out the specific circumstances when each of these protection measures are used. You can contact us at DPO@rsc.org for the details as to how we protect specific transfer of your data.
Children’s Data
We recognise any individual under the age of 18 years old as being a child. We take safeguarding of children (including the protection of their personal data) seriously and will take all reasonable steps to ensure that children are provided with sufficiently clear information on how we will collect, process and store their personal data, and that children and their guardians understand the nature of the processing of their personal data together with their rights in respect of the same.
Children below the age of 13 years old will always require the consent of an adult with parental responsibility to provide personal data to, and consent to the processing of that data with us.
Save for photography and filming, children between the ages of 13 years old and 18 years old may be able to provide consent in their own right to the processing of their personal data depending on their maturity and ability to understand the nature of the processing of that data. We will take reasonable steps to assess a child’s maturity and ability to understand the nature of data processing before determining whether a child can reasonably consent to processing in their own right. Further information on how we will assess a child’s ability to consent in their own right can be supplied on request via our contact details above.
Special categories of personal data
We may collect special categories of personal data if it is provided to us by you, or on your behalf with your consent and it is appropriate to the service that we will provide to you. By giving us this information, you agree that we may use such information as set out in this Notice.
Examples of sensitive information that we may collect are: gender and marital status.
Data anonymisation and aggregation
We may anonymise or aggregate your personal information in such a way as to ensure that you are not identified or identifiable from it, in order to use the anonymised or aggregated data, for example, for statistical analysis and administration including analysis of trends, to carry out actuarial work, to tailor products and services and to conduct risk assessment and analysis of costs and charges in relation to our products and services. We may share anonymised or aggregated data with third parties.
Your rights
We also offer the following controls:
- You may request access to, or copies of, the personal information that we hold about you. If you would like to exercise this right, please contact us at DPO@rsc.org or the RSC designated address above;
- If you believe that any data we have about you is incorrect or incomplete, or have concerns as to how we are using your data please contact us at DPO@rsc.org as soon as possible. We will take steps to seek to correct or update any data if we are satisfied that the data we hold is inaccurate.
- You may request that your personal data is deleted, where it is no longer necessary for the purposes for which it is being processed and provided there is no other lawful basis for which we may continue to process such information;
- If we are processing your personal information to meet our legitimate interests, you may object to the processing of your personal information by us. If we are unable to demonstrate our legitimate grounds for that processing, we will no longer process your personal information for those purposes;
- You may withdraw any consent given to processing (this will not affect the lawfulness of processing based on consent before its withdrawal); or
- If we are processing your personal information automatically, for the purposes of performing our contract with you, or based on your consent you may have the right to request that the personal information we hold about you be transferred to a third party data controller.
If you consider that we are in breach of our obligations under data protection laws, you may lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office. You have the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority, in particular in the Member State of your habitual residence, place of work or of an alleged infringement of the GDPR.
Retention
We have criteria in place in relation to how we determine the period for which we use your personal information, as well as a process for deletion of your personal information at the end of the relevant retention period. For more information please contact our Data Protection Officer at the address shown above. In certain circumstances, we may be required to retain your personal information for longer where such retention is required by law or record-keeping requirements, including managing our relationship with you, defending any claims, or for tax purposes.
Changes to this Notice
This statement is not a contract, and it does not create any legal rights or obligations. We may change this Notice from time to time in order to reflect changes in the law and/or our privacy practices. We will update the date at the top of the Notice accordingly. We encourage you to regularly check this Notice online for changes.