awbs privacy policy & UK GDPR COMPLIANCe

This privacy policy sets out how AWBS International Women’s Club (AWBS) uses and protects any personal data that you give as a member of AWBS. The UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) requires AWBS to obtain your consent to hold and process all personal data including images by which you may be identified. It also provides for your right to withdraw your consent at any time.

AWBS is committed to ensuring that your privacy is protected. In order to be an active member of AWBS with full access to the website and the activities we offer, we ask you to provide certain information by which you can be identified. You can be assured that it will only be used in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

AWBS uses member-only private spaces on the internet, including but not limited to the AWBS website and a closed group Facebook page (“member-only internet sites”) and public internet spaces including but not limited to Instagram, YouTube and a public Facebook page (“public internet sites”). 

AWBS may change this Privacy Policy by updating this page. You should check this page from time to time to ensure that you are happy with any changes.

What we collect

We collect contact details and other personal data including photographs. Personal information is held within your profile on the website to which you have full access. There is no hidden information about you held in the membership database. We also retain details of purchases made through the website. You are able to see this information by looking in your personal profile. We do not store credit or debit card details.

Photographs and video may be taken of you during activities and virtual events that you attend. 

What we do with the information we gather

We require personal data to run AWBS effectively for the benefit of our members, in particular, but not limited to, the following:

Consent: Controlling your personal information

You have the right to limit how we use your personal data.

Upon Joining AWBS

You are automatically opted out and have to positively consent to allow us to use your personal data. We offer the following choices which are activated when you join AWBS and are thereafter controlled from your Member Profile:

General Consent

Consent for AWBS to use your personal data, including images by which you may be identified, for internal administration and publicity purposes on the AWBS website and within member-only internet sites. We cannot run the club without this and therefore if you choose not to consent, please get in touch with Membership as it will not be possible for you to be a member of AWBS.

Printed Material

Consent for AWBS to use your personal data, including images by which you may be identified, on printed publicity material.

Use of Images

Consent for AWBS to use your image, including photographs and video taken at any AWBS related meeting, activity or any other event organised by AWBS, whether in person or virtual, for external marketing purposes on public internet sites.  You may withdraw your consent at any time by changing this setting in your member profile.  If you have consented at one time and then subsequently withdraw consent, you must let the Data Controller know there has been a change.

Although AWBS is not able to waive the responsibility of respecting your wishes under the GDPR, we do expect that you will take suitable precautions to ensure you are absent when a photograph or video is being taken for the purposes of publication or promotion of an event or activity in which you participated. 

Control of your personal information as a Member

You are automatically opted in to allow us to use your personal data.  You may control how your personal data is used in the following ways:

Newsletters, notices and invitations by email

Consent to receiving communications from AWBS by email is the default setting.  You may withdraw consent by changing the settings within your member profile.

You will not be able to withdraw consent to receiving financial information by email relating to any purchases you make using the tools provided on the website.  This includes registration for paying events and membership.

Financial

Historical financial data stored by third parties for any purchases made while a member of the club will not be removed as this information is needed to report on and comply with the club’s financial obligations under the laws of the UK.  Purchase information stored within the AWBS membership database will be deleted when you resign from the club.

Data used to run AWBS

From time to time, Board Members, Activity Leaders and other members of the club will need information from our membership database in order to be effective in their roles.  These may include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Lists of members whose renewals are overdue;
• Contact details of members attending an event;
• Members who have expressed an interest in volunteering;
• Citizenship of members in order to organise a cultural event;
• Members whose children attend TASIS;
• Lists of members who have outstanding invoices.

Most of these lists will be in the form of an Excel spreadsheet downloaded to the individual member's computer.  Once stored on an individual member's computer, AWBS has no control over the security of the data.

Withdrawing consent

You may withdraw your consent at any time.

To withdraw consent for AWBS to use your personal data as outlined in the previous section, change the settings from within your member profile.

If you wish to withdraw consent for AWBS to use your personal data under General Consent, this implies that you no longer wish to be a member of the club as we cannot run the club without this consent. Please get in touch with Membership in order for us to action your resignation from the club and remove of all your personal information from the membership database as required by the GDPR.

Resigning from AWBS

If you wish to resign from membership of AWBS before the expiration of your membership term, please get in touch with Membership.

When you pay your annual subscription or half year subscription from January, you are a member until 30th June. If you have not renewed by 1st October, all the data associated with your name will be deleted from the AWBS membership database shortly thereafter.  Your access to any member-only internet sites will be removed if you have previously subscribed.  

Your name and bank account details will remain on AWBS bank accounts if you have ever been paid this way until automatically removed according to the bank's rules but not any financial transactions recorded by the bank or within any other financial systems that are used by AWBS.   Your financial transactions must remain part of AWBS records to comply with our financial obligations under UK law for a maximum of 7 years.

AWBS will not remove images or video by which you may be identified from AWBS member-only internet sites unless you specifically request this as this forms part of our archives.

Third parties

We use other companies to process and manage payments and receipts for the financial operation of AWBS on behalf of our members. We ensure that all third parties that process and manage our financial transactions are GDPR compliant. Please refer to these third parties directly for details of their GDPR compliance.  

We also use Social Media.  We are unable to guarantee to members that member-only private accounts on Social Media providers is shielded from access by non-members.

Company	Information shared with them	Why we do this
Stripe (previously Paypal)	Name, email address and reference	Enables AWBS to offer members the ability to pay for membership or activity by credit or debit card from the website.
Barclays Bank	Name, sort code and account number	Enables AWBS to refund or pay a member by bank transfer. Barclays also holds identifying information when a member pays AWBS by bank transfer.  Barclays Bank automatically removes member details where there have been no transactions for that member for a year.
Sage	Name	Bank transactions are recorded in AWBS’s accounting software. Names are often used in the description of the transaction in order to identify the payment or receipt for reporting purposes.
Wild Apricot website software/Amazon	All personal information held on the website.	Required in order to offer a website for our membership. The database is encrypted and rolling backups kept on a 30 day cycle. The database is stored on Amazon servers.  The website has a security certificate.
IONOS	Club email addresses	Used for role email addresses all with @awbs.org.uk extensions.  Many are forwarded to personal email addresses and emails received by members and sent to members are stored within IONOS email services.
Facebook	Email addresses, names and images.	There is a closed Facebook group, managed by Membership. Members must ask to join and can ask to be removed. The open Facebook page is not managed by AWBS and we have no control over personal information held there.
Instagram	Images	This is public and members may consent or withdraw consent to having their images used.
YouTube	Video	AWBS have a non-searchable YouTube channel.  AWBS cannot guarantee the video will not be shared publicly.  Members will be told if they are being recorded for upload to YouTube.  If they do not wish to appear by voice or image, they should take care not to permit their voices or images to be recorded during the session. Please note that we have not used this channel for some time.

Sponsors

AWBS has relationships with Sponsors who pay for publicity on the website and for exposure in emails to members.  Part of the benefits offered to our sponsors includes one or more free memberships for staff.  Refer to our Partner Tier Pricing document for details as these will change from time to time.

Staff who hold the free memberships register as full members on our website and will have access to all members' personal information.  They are required to agree to abide by AWBS Terms and Conditions which state that they are prohibited from any commercial activity which makes use of their access to the members either directly or by using the Membership Directory.

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.

Those adding pages to the website or editing material ensure that no names or contact details are visible on the website public pages.  No names or contact details of members are included on any public internet sites within the control of AWBS without their consent.  Images by which members can be identified are on public internet sites if the member has given consent.

It is also the responsibility of all members to ensure the security of their own and fellow members’ data. Members should use a suitably long password, ideally a minimum of 12 characters comprising a jumble of letters, and to not share their passwords with anyone else. This simple step is all that is required to make our website secure against unauthorized access by non-members. Unlike most other websites, for example, banks or Amazon, once logged in, a member has access to the contact details of all other members plus dates and times of activity outings and lists of members attending the activity or event.

How we use cookies

A cookie is a small file which asks permission to be placed on your computer's hard drive. Cookies allow web applications to respond to you as an individual. They help us provide you with a better website by enabling us to monitor which pages you find useful and which you do not. A cookie in no way gives us access to your computer or any information about you, other than the data you choose to share with us. You can choose to accept or decline cookies by modifying your browser settings.

Links to other websites

Our website may contain links to other websites of interest. However, once you have used these links to leave our site, you should note that we do not have any control over that other website. Therefore, we cannot be responsible for the protection and privacy of any information which you provide whilst visiting such sites and such sites are not governed by this Privacy Policy. You should exercise caution and look at the privacy policy applicable to the website in question.

Contact

If you wish to comment on or discuss any aspect of this Privacy Policy, please get in touch with our Data Controller at DataController@awbs.org.uk.