The Royal Society is committed to protecting and respecting your privacy.
This Policy sets out the basis on which any personal data we (the Royal Society) collect from you, or that you provide to us, will be used or processed by us.
Please read the following carefully to understand how we will use your 'personal data' ('personal data' means any information relating to you, through which you can be identified, such as name and contact details, biographical information or information about your interests/qualifications).
Changes to this privacy policy
We keep our Policy under regular review and it may be modified from time to time. Please check back here for further updates. This policy was last updated on 16 May 2018.
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Fellows and Foreign Members
When you are elected as a Fellow or Foreign Member of the Royal Society, your personal data is stored on our central database using information from your nomination forms and from your completed New Fellows Forms. This information is periodically updated at your request and from surveys that we conduct and you participate in. As your Fellowship or Foreign Membership is for life, we retain this information in perpetuity (without prejudice to your data protection rights, as outlined below).
As part of your relationship with us, you may be asked to support or get involved in some of the Society’s activities, such as joining a committee, becoming a referee, speaking at events, or attending meetings or events. You will also receive Fellowship communications from the President and Executive Director which you are welcome to unsubscribe from at any time.
Factual information, such as your name, the year you were elected, any Medals or Awards you have received, reports for which you were on the Working or Advisory Group, and any Committees you have served on may be made available in the public domain through our website, and in reports where relevant. Records of conferences or major workshops we hold (alone or jointly) may also be published, including the names of those attending.
Candidates for Fellowship and Foreign Membership
Candidates being elected for Fellowship or Foreign Membership are requested to acknowledge their nomination and will be informed of our intention to keep their personal details on file. Personal data that is provided to us for the purposes of the election process will be kept securely at the Society for seven years (from the initial year of nomination) in the case of a first nomination, and three years (from the initial year of nomination) in the case of any subsequent nominations.
As part of the election process, your personal data will be supplied to third parties in a selected peer group chosen from the same scientific field or knowledge sector for the purposes of refereeing. These third parties will be mainly Fellows and Foreign Members of the Royal Society, however some non-Fellows within and outside of the European Economic Area ('EEA') may also be approached. References that we receive about you will be retained for two years while you are a nominee. On election, or in the event of your nomination lapsing, your references will be removed from the nominations system to our historical archives. Personal data stored in our archives will be held for the purpose of historical public and research interest and, in the case of nominations to the Fellowship, will not be made accessible until the death of all individuals involved.
If you are successfully elected to the Fellowship, the information that was submitted about you will be used as the basis for your Fellowship record and Royal Society website profile. If you are unsuccessful, your nomination and identifying data such as name, date of birth and contact details will be retained by us should a further nomination be made at a later date, but all other personal data about you will be deleted.
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Grant applicants and holders
The Royal Society Grants Programme includes all grants listed under https://royalsociety.org/grants-schemes-awards/grants/.
The Royal Society uses personal data submitted by users of our grants management and awards system, Flexi-Grant®, for the following purposes:
- Processing applications, making and administering grants and awards for monitoring, evaluation, and reporting, including statistical analysis in relation to the evaluation of research and the study of trends;
- Evaluation and assessment by selected third parties such as independent evaluators, consultancy groups, and career development organisations (some of whom may be based outside of the EEA) of activities, research outputs and impact arising from grants and awards;
- In connection with any independent internal and external audit of the Royal Society;
- Processing award finances and payments to your employing host organisation, including higher education institutes, independent research organisations and private companies;
- Contacting you about our activities and events - or to help inform or evaluate these events, our application processes, strategy and policy work - in the form of newsletters, social media, surveys, and questionnaires. Where required by law, we only send direct marketing communications by email (or other electronic means) to an individual's private address when we have their prior consent;
- To hold your details as part of our alumni programme once your grant comes to an end.
We may publish details of successful grants and awards, and their outputs, including your name, employing host organisation, project title, summary of the award, scientific abstracts, lay summaries, and the value of your award on our public website, or via publically available databases or other publications, some of which may be accessible from outside of the EEA.
We may contact you for your consent to use information relating to you or your grant in the promotion of the Royal Society’s programmes for example in the form of case studies, blog post and other similar activities.
Any information you elect to provide during the application processes relating to gender, age, disability, ethnic origin, or nationality will be used only for the purposes of monitoring diversity and equality and stored confidentially in accordance with applicable legal obligations. Diversity data is reported on anonymously.
Alumni
If you have previously been a recipient of a Royal Society grant or award, we may wish to contact you from time to time for the following purposes:
- Evaluation and assessment by selected third parties such as independent evaluators, consultancy groups, and career development organisations (some of whom may be based outside of the EEA) of activities, research outputs and impact arising throughout the course of your career, to help us monitor and track the effectiveness of our grants and awards;
- Publishing details of previous recipients of funding, this may include your name and title, employing organisation and career summary on our public website, or via publically available databases or other publications, some of which may be accessible from outside of the EEA;
- Contacting you about our activities and events - or to help inform or evaluate these events, our application processes, strategy and policy work - in the form of newsletters, social media, surveys, and questionnaires.
You are under no obligation to remain in contact with the Society following the end of your grant or award. In accordance with your data protection rights, we will respect any request from you as an alumni to remove the data we hold on you from our alumni database after the end of your award, and to refrain from contacting you thereafter for the above purposes.
Partners and Funders
The Royal Society receives funding from government departments including the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and the Department for International Development (DFID), philanthropic organisations and private donors. We work in close partnership with our funders and partners including other Academies and learned Societies, to process applications and administer grants and awards.
As part of our agreement with our funders and partners (or their representatives), the personal data you provide in your application, subsequent reports, and financial statements will be used for the purposes of:
- Reporting activities, research outputs and impacts arising from grants and awards;
- Monitoring and evaluation, including statistical analysis in relation to the evaluation of research and the study of trends;
- Contacting you about our activities and events or those of the partner/funder - or to help inform or evaluate these events, our application processes, strategy and policy work - in the form of newsletters, social media, surveys, and questionnaires.
If your grant or award is funded through a source other than the core BEIS grant, we will inform you of the funding source and the reporting requirements of our partner, in accordance with our agreement with the partner. Occasionally some funders and partners may wish to contact you directly. We will seek your consent to share your personal contact details with funders and partners before they are able to contact you in this regard. You are under no obligation to accept funding from a funder or partner that you would not want your personal data shared with.
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Medals and awards nominees and winners
Nominators
When you complete a nomination for a Royal Society award as a nominator you submit your information and usually that of the nominee in an application form. Any personal data that you provide is used for the purpose of reviewing the nomination. Some of the information you submit may be published on the Royal Society website and social media channels if the nominated individual is selected to receive the award. You should seek permission from the nominee before submitting their details to us.
Nominees
When you complete a nomination for a Royal Society award as a nominee you submit your information in an application form. Any personal data that you provide is used for the purpose of reviewing the nomination and if you are selected as the winner some of the information you submitted will be published on the Royal Society website and in social media.
Panel members and independent reviewers
Grants programmes
The Royal Society relies on the assessments of panel members and independent reviewers from a pool of worldwide scientific experts across a broad range of disciplines. This is a fundamental component of our decision making process with respect to the research proposals and activities we fund. As part of our peer review process, we share your application details with our peer reviewers, some of whom may be based outside of the EEA.
Assessment of applications by panel members and peer review undertaken by independent reviewers is conducted confidentially and with the utmost integrity, for the purpose of obtaining the best quality views and opinions.
With respect to independent reviewers, it is highly important to maintain the confidentiality of the individual providing the review, to ensure that views and opinions can be exchanged freely and candidly, in the knowledge that their comments will only be disclosed to those involved in the decision-making process. On written request, we will share unattributed comments with applicants.
We ask panel members and independent scientific experts that we work with to maintain confidentiality at all times.
Policy reports
The Society’s policy reports and similar outputs are independently reviewed and, in most cases, reviewers’ names are published as part of the report for transparency.
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Working group and committee members
When you are invited to join a working group, advisory group or committee, we will hold your details in order to send you information about meetings related to the group. We will also include your details (typically name, role and affiliation) in the notes of those meetings. If you are expected to attend more than one meeting we will hold your bank account details on file in order to deal with any expense requests.
The responsibilities of joining a group, and the intended use of your information, will be made clear at the outset. For example, working group members who contribute to a policy report will be required to complete a conflict of interest form, which will be held by the Society and made available to journalists and other interested parties on request. The names of working group, advisory group and committee members will also be included in reports and other written outputs and may be published on the Royal Society’s website.
Your responsibilities may involve working in partnership with similar organisations, such as other national academies, academy networks and government departments, in order to oversee particular pieces of work. Your details may need to be shared with those bodies in these instances.
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Event invitees and attendees
When you attend one of our events you will sometimes be asked to register via our website or event booking system currently operated by third party provider, Eventbrite. In order to run events successfully we may hold your details to send you information about the event you are attending, or to provide services at the event. We may also contact you to fill in a post-event survey. This information will be held for up to two years. For more information on how Eventbrite processes your data, please see Eventbrite’s privacy policy.
Occasionally we may invite you to an event on behalf of a speaker or organiser where they have requested we do so. We will ask the speaker or organiser to confirm you have given your permission before contacting you about the event, and we will hold your details only for the purpose of the specific event that they were provided for.
Partnership events
Occasionally we will run events in partnership with similar organisations. Your details may need to be shared in these instances and we will be clear about the partners we are working with when you register for the event. If your data is held in the EEA, or you are a citizen of the EEA, we will use appropriate mechanisms or take steps to make sure that those partners handle your data in compliance with EU data protection laws or standards.
Photography at events
Occasionally we will have photography at our events and some of our events are live-streamed. We will inform and/or notify attendees at these events when there is a photographer and you have the right to inform us if you do not want your photo to be taken. These photographs may be used in our promotional material, for example on our website, in social media feeds, and in print, as well as for reports on the events that you attended. For children and young people under 18 years, we will seek consent from a parent or guardian before taking a picture where the child or young person is the main subject of the picture.
Speakers
We may contact some individuals to speak at our events if you are a specialist in a chosen topic area. We may hold your details (such as contact and bank details you provide to us) in order to make arrangements for the event, to pay any agreed expenses, to record that you spoke at the event and to record if you tell us that you are interested in speaking at future events.
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Donors and prospective donors
As we identify and develop relationships with our donors and prospective donors, we collect the following types of information:
- Name, title/s and postal address;
- Contact details such as email addresses, social media links and telephone numbers;
- What kind of connection you have with us;
- Why you have decided to donate to us;
- Your feedback from your dealings with us;
- Contact notes relating to your communications with us or if you are considering a relationship with us.
If you decide to make a donation we use a third party processor, RSM 2000 Ltd., to securely process your bank, credit or debit card details. For more information on how RSM 2000 processes your data, please see their privacy policy.
How much of this information we collect depends on the type of relationship we have with you and the information we build in the course of your relationship with us. We do not store information that is classed as 'sensitive' or 'special category' personal data (meaning data relating to health (physical or mental); ethnicity; political, religious or philosophical beliefs; trade union membership, sex life; or genetic/biometric identifiers) or any data regarding criminal offences that you share with us, unless there is a clear and valid reason for us having to process this particular data that complies with applicable law, primarily that we have your explicit consent, and/or that you have made that information public and/or we have to process that data in connection with a legal claim.
We will use your information to:
- Provide you with the information you asked for, such as reports on projects that you have helped to fund;
- Invite you to meetings and events that we consider will be of interest to you;
- Administer your contact details and give you the opportunity to change your preferences as well as amend errors and update your data;
- Manage donations including processing Gift Aid;
- Keep a record of your relationship with us, including your feedback;
- Ensure we know how you prefer to be contacted;
- Flag your data record, for example if you opt out of any specific data processing, or if you have special requirements.
Tailored communications
We use research and screening techniques in order to tailor our communications effectively to our donors and ensure we are approaching individuals for gifts that are appropriate to them. This helps us to understand donors’ motivations for supporting the Society’s work, and means that we can speak to donors and potential donors about projects and sizes of gifts that they might be willing to support and make.
When conducting this research, we may analyse geographic, demographic, academic, or professional information relating to you in order to better understand your preferences and possible interests in or affiliations with the Society’s work. In doing this, we may use additional information from third party sources when it is available. Such information is compiled using publicly available data about you from reputable sources such as listed directorships or company shareholder information on the UK Companies House website or information that you have chosen to put into the public domain such as on corporate/institutional websites of organisations where you work or you have a publicised association with or where you have made comments in the press.
We may also use publically available information from these and other sources (such as mainstream news and media) to gather information regarding prospective donors in order to detect and reduce fraud/credit risk as well as for 'due diligence' purposes to safeguard our reputation.
We need to keep the details of financial transactions for seven years after the financial year of a donor’s last gift, in the event of a tax or banking enquiry. All other information about you will be kept while we have an ongoing relationship with you.
Information we hold about you is stored on our third party fundraising database, DonorStrategy, which is hosted by Advanced Computer Software Group Ltd. Advanced acts as a data processor for us. To find out more about how Advanced handles your data, please see their privacy policy.
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Visitors to our website and blog users
When someone visits our websites we use a third party service, Google Analytics, to collect standard internet log information and details of visitor behaviour patterns. We do this to find out things such as the number of visitors to the various parts of the RS website. This information is only processed in a way which does not personally identify anyone. We do not make, and do not allow Google to make, any attempt to find out the identities of those visiting our website. If we do want to collect personal data through our website, we will be transparent about this. We will make it clear when we collect personal data and will explain what we intend to do with it.
We also use a number of other third party analytics services to assess how people use our websites so that we can make improvements to the sites. Again, those do not identify visitors personally. These include Hotjar and Mixpanel. On our blogs we sometimes use a third party data processor acting on our behalf and under our instructions to display and process comments that you make using your chosen username.
You have a right to object to this tracking at any time or can protect your privacy by installing a tracking-blocker or by clearing your cookies at the end of every browsing session. For more information on how analysed data is collected and used by these companies, please follow the links to the privacy policies of Google, Hotjar and Mixpanel. We hold such data for the periods of: up to 26 months for Google Analytics from the date of your last visit, which resets on new visits to our website; up to 12 months for Hotjar; and a maximum of 60 days for Mixpanel.
To protect user submissions to forms on royalsociety.org, we have implemented invisible reCAPTCHA on forms. Please note use of the invisible reCAPTCHA is subject to the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
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Social media contacts
We use Hootsuite, a third party provider acting as a data processor, to manage our Twitter interactions, and we manage our own Facebook and LinkedIn interactions. If you send us a private or direct message via social media the message will be stored by ourselves and by Hootsuite on our behalf if it is via Twitter. It will not be shared with any other organisations.
Please see Hootsuite’s privacy policy for further information on how they process your data.
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Surveys and competitions
We use an online service called SmartSurvey to process feedback, contests, event subscriptions, and survey information that you submit to us. Participation is voluntary and you have a choice whether or not to disclose any information requested.
Information requested may include contact information (such as name and delivery address) and demographic information. If you are a contest winner, we will use your contact information to notify you and award prizes. We collect feedback and diversity monitoring anonymously. We do not store any personal identifiers except for your IP address to monitor our system integrity and do not use your IP address in reporting. Information from our surveys will also be used for the purposes of monitoring or improving the functionality of our website(s) or any of our other products or services. Your data will be retained for up to two years and will be deleted at the earliest possible opportunity.
SmartSurvey acts as a data processor on our behalf and will not share any information that you submit to us. For more information on how SmartSurvey processes your data, please see SmartSurvey’s privacy policy.
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Email subscribers
We use Adestra MessageFocus as our data processor to send email marketing campaigns. You may consent by opting in to our newsletters via our website or at one of our events. We may also send campaigns to your professional email address if we believe you will find them of interest and if this is within the legitimate interests of the Society and doesn’t unduly interfere with your privacy. You can let us know at any time if you wish to unsubscribe from these by clicking the unsubscribe link on the email, or change your preferences by clicking ‘update your details’ at the bottom of the email.
We use Adestra technology to track when and where emails are opened, as well as when links are clicked. We do this to record how well our campaigns are performing and to ensure we are sending relevant content.
For more information about how Adestra processes your data, please see Adestra’s privacy notice.
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Authors and journal contacts
Depending on your relationship with us, we may process your personal data in the following ways:
- To provide our products, content and services to you or to your employer, university or institution;
- To respond to your requests and enquiries;
- To invite you to peer review and to manage the peer review process;
- To publish your name, institution, country, and in some cases your email address and ORCID iD alongside your work;
- To arrange a press release with your consent;
- To administer and manage our relationships with individuals who sit on our journal Editorial Boards;
- To process payments from you, such as article processing charges, page charges, subscriptions or payments for any products or services that you choose to purchase from us;
- To process payments to you, including, but not limited to, refunds or reimbursements, or payments to you for services provided to us;
- To request your participation in surveys or other initiatives which help to inform the development of our products and services;
- To keep you updated about our products and services, latest content, and industry news, where you have opted-in to such communications or are an existing customer/client. Where you have told us about your research interests, we may use this information to tailor the updates to your interests;
- To provide access to restricted parts of our websites.
Marketing activities for publishing
Where we have obtained your consent, we will occasionally send you email updates about our activities including, but not limited to, online content, industry news and developments, events, competitions and surveys. If you have provided information about your disciplinary interests, or have purchased or used our products and/or services, we may use this information to tailor the content of our emails to you. Where you are an existing customer/client who has purchased or enquired about content or services before, we will occasionally send you emails about the same or similar content and services on the basis of legitimate interest. You are free to withdraw consent or opt-out of marketing emails at any time. Any marketing emails we send you will include an unsubscribe link at the end of the email. We will not send you marketing emails if you have withdrawn consent or opted out of receiving them.
If you would like to stop receiving marketing emails from us, you can let us know by:
- Clicking the ‘unsubscribe’ link in any marketing emails you receive from us; or
- Emailing us at publishing@royalsociety.org (please ensure you tell us if you would like to opt-out from all email marketing communications or just a particular update).
Occasionally we may send you marketing information by post where we have decided that it is beneficial to you as a customer. We will make sure that such marketing is non-intrusive and is done where needed in accordance with our legitimate interests.
Third-party services
We will never sell, trade or rent your personal data to others. However, we may share your personal data with third-parties who provide services to us and process data on our behalf under our instructions (called 'data processors'). Those data processors may only use your personal data as necessary to provide the relevant services, and are bound by contracts with us that limit their use of your personal data. Depending on your relationship with us and your use of our websites, it is likely that your personal data will be disclosed to third party data processors who provide the following types of services to us:
- Article indexing services;
- Creation, management and preservation of archived articles;
- Allowing researchers to track, verify and showcase their peer review and editorial contributions;
- The manuscript submission process, the management of author and reviewer databases and improving the accuracy of name-based article repository searches;
- Online hosting partners providing the secure storage and transmission of your personal data;
- Database software providers for the management and tracking of your personal data;
- Providers of unique identifiers for authentication purposes, such as ORCID IDs;
- Marketing services that send communications on our behalf regarding our products and services;
- Payment solution providers for the secure processing of payments you make to us;
- Technology partners who assist in the development and management of our websites;
- Subscription agents, fulfilment and postal vendors for the fulfilment of our products and services;
- Marketing consultants who act as data processors, carrying out certain mailing campaigns under our direction;
- Survey and research providers who perform studies on our behalf;
- Members of our journal Editorial Boards who perform various functions on our behalf.
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Job applicants, current and former employees
Where you apply for a job with us, the Royal Society is the controller of the personal data you provide during the application process unless otherwise stated. If you have any queries about the process or how we handle your information please contact us at humanresources@royalsociety.org.
What we do with the information you provide to us
All of the information you provide during the recruitment process will only be used for the purpose of progressing your application, or to fulfil legal or regulatory requirements if necessary.
We will not share any of the information you provide during the recruitment process with any third parties for marketing purposes. The information you provide will be held securely by us and/or our data processors, whether the information is in electronic or physical format.
We will use the contact details you provide to us to contact you to progress your application. We will use the other information you provide to assess your suitability for the role you have applied for. Occasionally we may use the details you have provided to suggest your suitability for another role within the Society.
We do not collect more information than we need to fulfil our stated purposes and will not retain it for longer than is necessary. The information we ask for is used to assess your suitability for employment. You don’t have to provide what we ask for but it might affect your application if you choose not to.
Application stage
When applying for a position to work with us, we ask you for your personal details including name and contact details. We will also ask you about your previous experience, education, referees and for answers to questions relevant to the role you have applied for. Our recruitment team will have access to all of this information.
You will also be asked to provide equal opportunities information. This is not mandatory information – if you don’t provide it, it will not affect your application. This information will not be made available to any staff outside of our recruitment team, including hiring managers, in a way which can identify you. Any information you do provide will be used only to produce and monitor equal opportunities statistics.
Our hiring managers shortlist applications for interview. They will not be provided with your equal opportunities information if you have provided it.
Assessments
We might ask you to participate in assessment days, complete tests, and/or to attend an interview – or a combination of these. Information will be generated by you and by us. For example, you might complete a written test or we might take interview notes. This information is held securely by us.
Conditional offer
If we make a conditional offer of employment we will ask you for information so that we can carry out pre-employment checks. You must successfully complete pre-employment checks to progress to a final offer. We are legally required to confirm your identity, your right to work in the United Kingdom, and it is in our legitimate interests to seek assurance as to your trustworthiness, integrity and reliability.
You will therefore be required to provide:
- Proof of your identity - you will be asked to provide original documents and we will take copies of these.
- Proof of your qualifications - you may be asked to attend our office with original documents.
- We will contact your referees directly to obtain references, using the details you provide in your application.
If we make a final offer, we will also ask you for the following:
- Bank details - to process salary payments.
- Emergency contact details - so we know whom to contact in case you have an emergency at work.
- Your personal mobile number and email address - for business continuity reasons when you are not in the office.
Use of data processors
We use third party data processors who provide elements of our recruitment service for us. We have contracts in place with our data processors. This means that they cannot do anything with your personal data unless we have instructed them to do it. They will not share your personal data with any organisation apart from us. They will hold it securely and retain it for the period we instruct.
If you use our online application system, you will provide the requested information to iCIMS who provide this online service for us. You can access iCIMS’ privacy policy to find out more about how they handle your personal data.
If you accept a final offer from us, some of your personnel records will be held on ADP which is an internally used HR records system. You can find out more about how ADP handles your data in their privacy policy.
We work with a number of companies to provide benefits to our employees, where you have signed up to these. You will be informed of the company providing those benefits and will be able to access their privacy policy when you sign up.
To fulfil our employment contract with you and/or to comply with legal obligations we also need to share your personal data with HMRC (for tax law compliance purposes), Scottish Widows and/or Barnett Waddingham (our pension providers), Cardinus Risk Management (our health and safety providers), and Maitland Medical (our occupational health service providers).
How long we retain candidate information for
If you are successful, the information you provide during the application process will be retained by us as part of your employee file for the duration of your employment plus six years following the end of your employment. This includes your criminal records declaration, fitness to work, records of any security checks and references.
If you are unsuccessful at any stage of the application process, the information you have provided until that point and information generated throughout the assessment process, for example interview notes, is retained by us for up to six months after the process closes. This is in order to deal with any follow up queries or issues from candidates.
Equal opportunities information is retained for six months following the closure of the application process whether you are successful or not.
Recruitment decisions
Final recruitment decisions are made by hiring managers and members of our recruitment team. All of the information gathered during the application process is taken into account.
You are able to ask about decisions made about your application by speaking to your contact within our recruitment team or by emailing humanresources@royalsociety.org.
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Data retention
We may retain certain records for legitimate reasons (including after your relationship with us has ended), for example to maintain records of articles published in our journals, to resolve any potential disputes and to comply with regulatory reporting obligations.
We have a data retention policy that sets out the different periods we retain personal data for in respect of relevant purposes, in accordance with our duties under applicable data protection law.
The criteria we use for determining these retention periods are based on:
- Various legislative requirements (for example, duties to hold transaction details or employee data to comply with certain requirements of tax or employment legislation);
- The purpose for which we collected that personal data and where we have identified a continued need to hold that personal data to serve a compelling legitimate purpose; and
- Relevant codes or guidance on data retention issued by regulatory authorities including the UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO).
Personal data we no longer need to hold is securely disposed of and/or anonymised so you can no longer be identified from it.
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The legal basis of processing
We will process your personal data for the purposes identified in this document on the following legal bases:
- Our legitimate interests, which relate to processing of your personal data for the purposes of administering the Royal Society and its Fellowship as well as the provision of our products, services and information;
- Where we have a contract with you and processing is necessary to our obligations to you under that contract, or in preparation for entering into a contract with you;
- As necessary to comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes and/or to enforce our contractual agreements;
- Where processing your details may be in the public interest, such as listing Fellows on our website or medal and award winners; and
- Where you have freely consented to our use of your personal data for a specified purpose on an informed and unambiguous basis. Where this is the case, you have the right to withdraw your consent at any time by contacting us at the address below.
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Your rights
Data protection law gives you the following rights:
(a) Your right to make a 'subject access request' relating to the personal data that we hold and process about you (see section below headed 'Access to personal data');
(b) That we correct personal data that we hold about you which is inaccurate or incomplete;
(c) That we erase your personal data without undue delay if we no longer need to hold or process it;
(d) Your right to object to any automated processing (if applicable) that we carry out in relation to your personal data, for example if we conduct any automated credit scoring;
(e) To object to our use of your personal data for direct marketing;
(f) To object and/or to restrict the use of your personal data by us for a purpose which is not based on your consent unless we have a compelling legitimate reason for continuing to process that data; or
(g) That we transfer personal data to another party where the personal data has been collected with your consent or is being used to perform contract with you and is being processed by means.
If you wish to exercise any of the rights please contact us at the email address dataprotection@royalsociety.org or by post at The Royal Society, 6-9 Carlton House Terrace, London SW1Y 5AG. Please note that we may have to ask for further information or evidence to verify your identity before we can proceed with your request.
If you believe that any data we hold about you is incomplete or inaccurate, as well as informing us using the above contact details, you may be able to complete or correct such data using personalisation options that are available on our website.
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Access to personal data
The Royal Society tries to be as open as it can be in terms of giving people access to their personal data. You can find out if we hold any personal data about you by making what's known as a 'subject access request'. If we do hold data about you we will:
- Give you a description of it;
- Tell you why we are holding it;
- Tell you whom it could be disclosed to; and
- Let you have a copy of the information in an intelligible form, subject to any legal exemptions or limitations that may apply.
To make a request for any personal data we may hold please write to our Data Protection Team, either at dataprotection@royalsociety.org or at The Royal Society, 6-9 Carlton House Terrace, London SW1Y 5AG. As above, we may have to ask for further information or evidence to verify your identity before we can proceed with your request and may ask for further information to help us locate any specific information you seek.
If you agree, we will try to deal with your request informally, for example by providing you with the specific information you need over the telephone.
Usually we will have one month to respond to a subject access request. However, in case of complex requests, we may require a further two months to respond. We may also charge for administrative time in dealing with any manifestly unreasonable or excessive requests.
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Complaints or queries
The Royal Society aims to meet the highest standards when collecting and using personal data. For this reason, we take any complaints we receive about this very seriously. We encourage people to bring it to our attention if they think that our collection or use of information is unfair, misleading or inappropriate. We would also welcome any suggestions for improving our procedures.
This privacy notice was drafted with brevity and clarity in mind. It does not provide exhaustive detail of all aspects of our collection and use of personal data. However, we are happy to provide any additional information or explanation needed regarding our data processing practices. Any requests for this should be sent to our Data Protection Team at The Royal Society, 6-9 Carlton House Terrace, London SW1Y 5AG.
If you want to make a complaint about the way we have processed your personal data, you can also contact us at dataprotection@royalsociety.org.
If you are not happy with the way we have handled your data, or deal with any request above and are unable to resolve the issue with us personally, you can lodge a complaint with the UK data protection regulator who is the Information Commissioner's Office.
Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire, SK9 5AF
Helpline: 0303 123 1113 (local rate) or ++44 1625 545 745
See: https://ico.org.uk/concerns/
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