1. What personal data does the London Forum collect and what is it used for?
The London Forum’s membership comprises full members, associate members and individual members. Full members are societies, each of which nominates a main contact to the Forum, and, in most cases, a small number of additional contacts. Associate members are also organisations with named contacts, though no main contact. These nominees of full and associate members together with individual members and other individuals who have expressed an interest in the work of the forum are referred to collectively as the Forum’s contacts. The expression member societies in this document refers to full members only.
For each contact, the Forum collects, stores and processes personal data comprising the contact’s name and email address, and frequently also a postal address and telephone number, together with their communications preferences. We use contacts’ data for membership administration, distributing information to members, and event organisation.
2. Where does this data come from?
Contacts’ personal data mostly comes from the contacts themselves, or from other contacts in their societies. Some data comes from the websites of full and associate members.
3. How is personal data stored?
Contacts’ personal data are stored in an online MySql database held on a secure webserver that is monitored for unusual activity. Access direct to data is via a server password.
4. Who has access to personal data?
Specified London Forum officers have access to the contact database to carry out their legitimate tasks for the Forum. Sub-contractors of the Forum may at times have access to personal data for specific tasks, such as sending out mailings or improving our IT systems but they are not free to use it for other purposes.
5. Who is responsible for ensuring compliance with the relevant laws and regulations?
Under the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) London Forum does not have a statutory requirement to have a Data Protection Officer. The person who is responsible for ensuring the Forum discharges its GDPR obligations is the Forum’s Membership Secretary for the time being, who can be contacted at membership@londonforum.org.uk
6. What is the legal basis for collecting this data?
The GDPR specifies a number of different reasons why organisations might hold and process personal data. The London Forum bases its Privacy Policy on a mix of legitimate interests and consent.
The Forum must be able to contact its members for the purposes of inviting them (a) to renew their membership, and (b) to attend General Meetings of the Forum. For this to be effective, we need to store and process contact data for personal members, and contact data for one or more contacts in organisations that are full members or associate members. We do not require the consent of the individuals concerned for this activity.
The Forum also informs contacts about its activities (and occasionally those of other organisations that might be of interest to members) and invites them to events and alerts them to matters of interest via E-bulletins and the newsletter, Insights. We conduct this processing activity on the basis of consent and if that consent is withdrawn will revise our records as necessary.
7. How you can check what data we have about you?
Contacts have a right to know what information we hold about them. Contact the Forum’s Membership Secretary (see para 5 above) and we will provide this within one month.
8. Does the Forum collect any “special” data?
The GDPR refers to sensitive personal data as “special categories of personal data”. We do not collect any “special” data.
9. How can you ask for data to be removed, limited or corrected?
There are various ways in which you can limit how your data is used. The GDPR confers a “right to be forgotten”. Any Forum contact may ask for all their personal data to be deleted. We aim to comply with all such requests within one month. Forum contacts may choose not to provide us with an email address and/or postal address, though this will limit the services that the Forum is then able to provide. Contacts may specify that they do not wish to receive Forum emails. Any contact that has reason to believe that the information we hold about them is incorrect may ask for it to be corrected.
All requests in relation to this paragraph should be directed to the Forum’s Membership Secretary (see para 5 above).
10. How long do we retain contact data?
Member societies should be proactive in advising the Forum’s Membership Secretary (see para 5 above) as soon as possible of changes to their nominated contacts and/or a contact’s responsibilities and communication preferences.
11. What happens if a contact dies?
If we become aware that a contact has died, their personal data is deleted.
If you have any queries regarding this policy or the use of your personal information please address them to:
The Secretary
London Forum of Amenity and Civic Societies
70 Cowcross Street
London EC1M 6EJ
or use the Contact Form
Last Update: 19 October 2023
