Chiz Dakin/Ronald Turnbull compiled January 2018
Revised RT May 2020 to adjust to new website. Deleted refs to ‘website header images’, ‘initial passwords’, ‘recent publications page’. Updated webmanager and memsec email addresses.

What information is being collected and held?

Your membership records (contact details, joining date, membership status etc) held in spreadsheet form on personal computers of guild officers

Your name, login name, email address, and IP address held in online database form on our website, Forum, and Mailchimp member mailing list

Information you post yourself for public viewing such as Website profile, Media News Bulletin postings, OF articles; these may be shared widely, as intended.

Media News Bulletin Names and email addresses of members and non-members for our ‘Media News Bulletin’ information letter, distributed four times a year, and for press releases.

Who is collecting it?

The membership secretary.

How is it collected?

By online form, email, postal methods and (rarely) by telephone call.

How will it be used?

To supply you with the membership services you request from us. By paying your membership fee each year we consider you have consented to your information being used for these purposes.

Who will it be shared with?

Your personal information and membership records will be held by the Membership Secretary, the Secretary, and the Website Manager. It will be shared with other Guild Officers (and occasionally others, such as our website developer, OWPG Awards judges, or AGM weekend accommodation provider) only as required, and to the extent required, for providing you with membership services.

In particular, members’ contact details are not distributed to third party enquirers: such enquiries will be forwarded to the member concerned. Nor are they stored on the open Internet (though backup copies may be stored in Cloud storage linked to the appropriate Guild Officers’ private PCs.)

Information you post yourself, or submit, and which is intended for public viewing, may be shared widely, as intended.

What will be the effect of this on the individuals concerned?

The effect will be to provide our members with the membership services they request from us; and to publicise members and their work as requested, authorised and intended by the members themselves.

Is the intended use likely to cause individuals to object or complain?

The intended use should not cause any complaints from members. If you feel your privacy rights have been infringed or are insecure, please contact the website manager. Please see the “in detail” section with regard to “Other Website Use” for information on IP addresses, cookies and Google analytics.

Changes to the Privacy Policy

Over time we may need to update this policy (usually to take account of new legal requirements or changing technology, sometimes it may be to do with a new or changed service we offer as part of membership). We will alert members by email and update this webpage immediately here; your continued use of the website and member services after this will be taken as acceptance of the new version.

In detail

What information is collected about you: and when and how it is stored and deleted

Material supporting your application for membership Deleted soon after your membership approved or rejected, unless you request its retention for a possible later membership application.

Membership records Basic membership contact details (name, email, joining date, leaving date, membership category) will be retained for reference (eg for your obituary) on spreadsheet (and in cloud storage) by the membership secretary unless you request otherwise to the membership secretary

Mailchimp mailing list Members can unsubscribe from the regular secretary mailing list at the foot of every email. If doing so, we request you let the membership sec know so you can be marked up on the membership records to be sent individual emails of constitutionally required messages such as notifications of the AGM. Otherwise you may cease to receive these notifications.

On request to the Forum Manager members may unsubscribe from Forum Digest notifications while remaining on the main mailing list.

Website and Forum Profiles

Any data which you contribute to your website or forum profile record may be removed or altered by yourself at any time (in case of difficulty please apply to the web manager webmgr@owpg.org.uk). Your user record of both these, and on the Mailchimp mailing list, will be deleted at the end of the year following non-renewal, but a month or two later if renewal is still in doubt.

Forum Contributions

You may modify or delete any of your posting while a member, but may not modify or delete any other user’s posting (unless you are a moderator or admin). We would obviously like to keep your contributions to the forum as a useful resource to members even after you leave, as deleting parts of a conversation make the rest of the topic unreadable. However, if you wish for these to be deleted please let us know – preferably at the time of leaving the guild. From time to time we may also have a clear out of user postings that have become out of date.

Other information submitted to the Guild

You may submit other material to the guild at your discretion. This is not limited to information on new books published, awards, submissions to the Media News Bulletin and/or Outdoor Focus, award entries, images for the website, votes, nominations (eg for committee positions, or for Golden Eagle candidates), surveys, emails and general correspondence. Submissions for print will be deemed to be submitted under legitimate interests and deemed irreversibly submitted once printed (as it is not possible to reverse this and they are usually part of a collaborative work). Images for the website will be kept until you ask us to remove them, or they are refreshed by newer images as the website is updated. Information may be passed on to those who have a need to process it – eg awards submissions go to judges for judging.

Media News Bulletin

Subscribers are collected for the media news bulletin by an explicit ‘click to subscribe’. The mailing list is managed via the Mailchimp software, and every bulletin has a link to unsubscribe.

Please note that unsubscribing from the MNB will not unsubscribe you from the general member mailings, nor vice versa.

Other website use

Under legitimate interests we may collect anonymous information about how individuals use the site to help us understand how the website is being used and to aid us maintain it and add improvements that will benefit the membership. (We use Google Analytics at present).

Our website may also log personal information such as IP address of any login attempt. This is to aid our efforts at keeping spamsters from hurting our site. We do not make use of it ourselves unless there is highly suspicious activity from a particular IP address, at which point we reserve the right to use it to protect our site and comply with law enforcement.

Cookies

Our website uses cookies to aid in the functionality of our site, typically in remembering any settings you change so that you don’t have to re-enter them next time. (This can include your login details). Other uses include our firewall verifying that you are a human not a robot. We use these for legitimate interests in the functionality of our site, but you are welcome to block them (see Firefox, Safari, Chrome and IE) if you wish. Like many sites, we cannot guarantee that all parts of the site will work if you do this. You may also remove them at the end of every session if you wish to – this may prevent the “remember me” functionality of your browser working.

External Links/Third Party Login Options

We are not responsible for any interaction taken when following external links on our website – as any such interactions will be governed by the privacy policy of the external site. We do not knowingly transmit any data to any external link. However, if in the future our website allows sign-in from a third party solution such as Facebook or Google, then please ensure you read their privacy policy carefully, as using such systems may give data to that third party. We have no control over this and your use of any such systems must be with regard to the third party’s privacy policy.

Financial Information

Financial transactions are handled by our payment service providers – either Paypal, or by transfer between banks (cheque or electronic banking). We share transaction data with these service providers only to the extent necessary for processing payments (to you or from you) and dealing with complaints and queries. Click the link for information about Paypal’s privacy policy [https://www.paypal.com/uk/webapps/mpp/ua/privacy-full].

Our treasurer and accountant have a legitimate need to see this information; other members of committee may do so rarely if there is a specific legitimate need. It will be stored in the service providers’ systems and on our own financial software. It will not be transmitted elsewhere unless specifically required to do so by law.

Closure of the Guild

On the winding up of the Guild, all member information will be deleted from the Guild website, Forum, online mailing lists within 12 months. Membership records not stored online, may be retained for archive purposes and to ensure the proper winding up of the Guild’s affairs.

We have used the “information required” in https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-the-general-data-protection-regulation-gdpr/lawful-basis-for-processing/ as the basis for our Privacy Policy with some supplementary information from a template from SEQ Legal (http://www.seqlegal.com).

Notes for Committee Members and Officers (to go to Committee page of website)

1 The law requires that we have a strict and open privacy policy detailing how members’ information will be held, used and deleted. See [url]owpg.org.uk/privacypolicy

2. Guild officers should only hold member info for the purpose of supplying membership services. Please delete information that is not being used. Refresh when necessary from the master document held by the Membership Secretary or Secretary.

3. We do not distribute members’ contact details to third parties. Enquiries from third parties should be referred onwards to the member concerned.

4. Do not use guild records for personal purposes. If you want to make personal contact with a member, then use contact details they’ve posted themselves on their profile, or enquire via the membership secretary or secretary in the same way as an external third party would.