Privacy Policy of Surrey Bird Club

This privacy policy sets out how the Surrey Bird Club (‘SBC’) complies with its data protection obligations as a Data Controller. You can always access this statement from our website or by requesting it directly.

If you have any queries, then you can contact us via:

Email:   
Phone: 01276 85773
Address: Bournbrook House  Sandpit Hall Road  Chobham  Surrey GU24 8HA

SBC is committed to respecting the privacy of all visitors to its website. We have structured our website so that you can visit SBC on the web without identifying yourself or disclosing any personal information. Once you choose to provide us with any information by which you can be identified, then you can be assured that it will only be used in accordance with this privacy policy.

Who we are

SBC  is a registered charity, No 248285 whose objects are;

a. To advance public education in the birds of the County and the Vice County of Surrey referred to in this document as “the County”)

b. To promote and, with others, participate in ornithological studies in the County

c. To support and encourage the preservation and conservation of birds and places of ornithological interest in the County

d. To publish an annual report about the birds of the Vice-County (the Surrey Bird Report).

e. To publish, from time to time, a book on the birds of the County

SBC is registered under the Data Protection Act 1998 (Registration No Z1947744) and has given all appropriate notifications to the Information Commissioner.

All Personal Data held by SBC will only be accessed in order to further the Club’s activities.

In order to run the club and support our charitable activities in the most effective manner and to ensure that we communicate with you in the way that you prefer, we may collect and hold personal information about you in the following ways:

Personal information that you may provide to us:

Your name, address, e-mail address and other relevant information when you join SBC, enquire about SBC membership, become or express an interest in becoming a volunteer, report a sighting or ring-recovery, make a donation, purchase goods or services, attend a field trip, enter a competition, request data or make general enquiries.

Financial information to support the processing of payment information, such as whether donations qualify for Gift Aid, or if discounts or concessions are claimed.

Information regarding your personal or professional interests and demographics (such as age).

Personal information created through your engagement with SBC:

Your reporting of bird sightings creates data which may be classed as personal information (as an observation can identify where you were on a particular date).  Likewise the submission of a photograph

Members of the committee and other volunteers helping SBC may collect information relating to their interactions with you whilst carrying out their role supporting SBC.

If you subscribe to receive an email newsletter, your response to emails you receive may be logged, allowing us to determine, for example, if the email is opened and if links within the email have been visited. This information is used to help assess the effectiveness of such emails so that we can improve them and may occasionally be used to send relevant further communications in response to your actions (e.g. clicking a particular link) or inactions (e.g. not opening an email), in accordance with your contact preferences. You can unsubscribe from recurring email communications at any time using the unsubscribe link contained in each message, or by updating your contact preferences (by contacting us directly).

Personal information received from third parties:

Regularly SBC obtains information from other organisations, blogs, and tweets about bird observations recorded by you.  Such information will lead to the transfer to us of personal data.

What we may do with the information we collect

SBC will never sell your personal data, and will only ever share it with other individuals or organisations where necessary and where guarantees as to its privacy and security have been provided.

SBC will only process your personal data where it has a lawful basis for doing so (as specified under Article 6 of the EU General Data Protection Regulation – GDPR). In most cases, the lawful basis is that processing such data is necessary for the legitimate interests of SBC. We reinforce your rights by offering you the option not to receive information linked to this purpose.  If you feel your personal rights override our legitimate interests, you will have the opportunity to ask us not to use your information in such a way.

In other cases, the legal basis for processing your personal data may be:

  • where you have given clear consent for us to do so for a specific purpose (and for the avoidance of doubt this includes publishing your name when we publish a photo you have provided and publishing your name against a bird sighting published either in a bird report or in a Rarities Committee decision.;
  • where the processing is necessary for a contract SBC has with you, or because you have asked us to take specific steps before entering into a contract;
  • where the processing is necessary for SBC to perform a task in the public interest or for its official functions, and the task or function has a clear basis in law;
  • where the processing is necessary for SBC to otherwise comply with the law.

Where we process personal data on the basis of our legitimate interests, we do so for the following purposes:

  • to manage members and volunteers.
  • to ensure the effectiveness and rigour associated with our publications, including contacting you to validate and/or verify your data;

If you are under 18 years of age and wish to engage SBC then we will require permission from a parent or guardian to store and, in some cases, to use your personal data. If we obtain personal data from you whilst you are under 18, this information may remain associated with your profile when you reach the age of 18. After this point you will be able to manage your personal data preferences alone.

Justification of the Legal Basis for Processing Personal Information

  • Trading: SBC processes personal information in connection with the sale of products and services provided by SBC to SBC members, supporters, customers and others, entered into by way of a contract for goods or services. We reinforce data subjects’ rights by offering data subjects the opportunity not to receive information linked to this purpose.
  • Membership: SBC processes personal information in connection with the provision of membership services and products provided by way of a contract entered into with SBC members and/or those individuals purchasing for themselves or for other parties. We reinforce data subjects’ rights by offering data subjects the opportunity not to receive information linked to this purpose.
  • General Information: SBC may acquire and retain personal information in order to provide general information, education and knowledge about the projects, services and resourcing of the charity. SBC balances this legitimate interest with the rights of data subjects under the GDPR. We reinforce data subjects’ rights by offering data subjects the opportunity not to receive information linked to these general purposes.

How we store your information

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 procedures to safeguard and secure the information we collect.

We will only store your personal information for as long as it is required for the purposes it was collected for. How long information will be stored for depends on the nature of the information collected and what it is being used for. We will undertake regular reviews of the personal information that we hold and will delete personal information that is no longer required to be held.

Your rights

Whilst we collect and process personal information in order to undertake our work, SBC very much wishes to protect your rights and here we set out a brief description of them.

You have the right to confirmation as to whether or not we have your personal information and, if we do, the right to obtain a copy of the personal information we hold (this is known as a Subject Access Request). Should you wish to make such a request, please contact us as detailed above.

You have the right to request that we remove some or all of your personal information (though this may not apply where it is necessary for us to continue to use the data for a lawful reason). If you wish to make such a request, please contact us as detailed at the start of this policy.

You have the right to have any inaccurate personal information corrected; and/or to specify some of the purposes for which we may contact you; and/or to specify some of the channels by which we may contact you. You can do this at any time by contacting us directly as detailed at the start of this policy.

If you believe that any aspects of your data protection or privacy rights have been infringed by SBC, you can complain to the UK Information Commissioner’s Office which regulates and enforces data protection law in the UK. Details of how to do this can be found at www.ico.org.uk.

Links to external sites

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