Privacy

This privacy policy sets out how Scottish Local History Forum uses and protects any information that you give Scottish Local History Forum when you use this website.

Scottish Local History Forum is committed to ensuring that your privacy is protected. Should we ask you to provide certain information by which you can be identified when using this website, then you can be assured that it will only be used in accordance with this privacy statement.

Scottish Local History Forum may change this policy by updating this page. You should check this page from time to time to ensure that you are happy with any changes.

This policy is effective from April 2018.

General Data Protection Regulation

On 25th May 2018 the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) - EU Regulation 2016/679 - comes into force. The Regulation confers upon charities the obligation to be explicit about their retention of personal information, and, under normal circumstances, prohibits charities from holding and using individuals’ personal information without their explicit and freely-given consent.

The Regulation confirms the following rights for individuals:

  • The right to be informed
  • The right of access
  • The right to rectification
  • The right to erasure
  • The right not to be subject to automated decision-making, including profiling.

What We Collect

The Scottish Local History Forum (SLHF) is a charity registered in Scotland. It collects and stores the personal information of its members and of other individuals submitting details of events, news items, projects, resources and profiles of their organisations to our website and also individuals purchasing items (including membership) online via our website.

For this purpose “Members” as a category includes:

  • those individuals who have a current paid up membership, whether individual or nominated as the representative of an organisation which is a member and are entitled to receive a copy of the SLHF Journal
  • individuals who have previously been a member of SLHF in the last 10 years but are not current members
  • individuals who have previously been a member of SLHF and signed a Gift Aid Form on the Forum’s behalf
  • those members who have previously held office within SLHF (eg Trustee, Advisory Committee member, etc)

Member’s “Personal Information” means the:

  • member’s name, title and role (if the membership is an organisational membership)
  • addresses provided by the member
  • telephone numbers provided by members
  • email addresses provided by the member
  • the type of membership held
  • the name of the member society (if the membership is an organisational membership)
  • date membership started
  • date membership finished
  • whether a Gift Aid form has been signed

Note additional information (such as financial information on debit/credit cards) may be provided by the member via the SLHF website to PayPal in order for them to process online payments. This information is not accessed or stored by SLHF.

Personal information of individuals purchasing items or submitting details of events, news items, projects, resources and profiles of their organisations provided by the individual to our website include:

  • name (including title)
  • role
  • organisation
  • addresses
  • telephone numbers
  • email addresses

How We Collect The Information

This information is collected through completed membership forms (hard copy or online), through any additional correspondence between individuals and SLHF, and through online forms purchasing items or submitting details of events, news items, projects, resources and organisation profiles to our website.

What We Do With The Information We Gather

We require this information simply to be able to maintain our membership records, reply to your enquiries, process orders, or publish information on our website about your organisation, news, projects, events and resources.

The personal information of members will be used to:

  • maintain the integrity of the membership list
  • inform members of upcoming SLHF events
  • distribute the SLHF e-newsletter (unless specifically requested not to via the contact form on the SLHF website)
  • distribute the SLHF Journal
  • process orders
  • make other announcements of direct relevance to SLHF activities
  • make other notifications to members where the Trustees of SLHF deem it necessary either in the interests of individual members or to the wellbeing of the Forum
  • maintain accurate records relating to the financial or other activities of SLHF

Some of the personal information of individuals submitting details of events, news items, projects, resources and profiles of their organisations to our website will be publicly displayed on the website (as indicated in the online data entry form) to enable members of the public to get in touch. Other information (as indicated on the online data entry form) will only be available to website administrators and will be used to contact the originator of the information to request updates to their entry.

Protection of Information from Third Parties

SLHF not share personal data with third parties except:

  • the independent examiner of the charity’s accounts/ reports makes a request for information that is directly relevant to the prudent exercise of that role
  • a list of delegates attending an event is requested by the staff of the venue hosting that event is made on security or safety grounds
  • Paypal for the purposes of secure online ordering of products (note: SLHF does not retain any financial information such as credit/debit card details – this is handled securely by Paypal)
  • the website administration/management company (currently Ealanta Ltd) for information provided via the website
  • the publishers of the Journal (currently MD Print and Design) for the purposes of distribution of the Journal
  • in the event of SLHF being in receipt of a court order or warrant to cooperate with an official investigation by the Police or like body


We will not sell, distribute or lease your personal information to third parties.

Statement of Consent

Members are asked to provide SLHF with an unambiguous statement of consent to the use and storage of their personal information as here described. Consent thus granted will be considered to have expired after ten years, although consent may be withdrawn at any time by a member who wishes to do so by communicating their intention to the Honorary Secretary of SLHF via the SLHF website Contact Form (selecting 'Data Privacy' as the category of enquiry). Please note that granting of consent is a condition of membership of SLHF and that failure to do so or subsequent withdrawal of that consent constitutes resignation of SLHF membership.

Individuals purchasing items from or submitting details of events, news items, projects, resources and profiles of their organisations to our website are asked to provide SLHF with an unambiguous statement of consent to the use and storage of their personal information as here described. Consent may be withdrawn at any time by an individual who wishes to do so by communicating their intention to the Honorary Secretary of SLHF. Please note that granting of consent is a condition of purchasing items from or submitting information to be displayed on the SLHF website and that failure to do so or subsequent withdrawal of that consent will result in the relevant entry being deleted from the website.

Completing a Statement of Consent

Members should complete the relevant section of the membership form and return it to the Membership Secretary of SLHF or tick the relevant box in the online membership form. Failure to tick the relevant box will result in the online membership form being rejected.

Individuals purchasing items from or submitting details of events, news items, projects, resources and profiles of their organisations to our website are asked to tick the relevant box in the online data entry form. Failure to tick the relevant box will result in the online data entry or purchase form being rejected.

Communication

Communication with members and individuals purchasing items from or submitting details of events, news items, projects, resources and profiles of their organisations to our website will normally be by email where an email address has been provided. Requests for communication by channels other than email will be honoured wherever reasonably practicable. Some communications (eg notice of AGM etc) will be through inserts in or copy within the SLHF Journal which is posted to members.

Control of Personal Information

Members and individuals purchasing items from or submitting information to the website have the right to ask at any time for a copy to be provided them of the personal information that SLHF holds for them, and they have the right to correct this information. The Hon Secretary will comply with any member request for rectification or deletion of personal information of this kind as soon as is reasonably practicable (eg subject to extended absence on holiday).

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 contact information we collect online.

All published email addresses are obfuscated to prevent collection by spam agents.

All website pages are secured using GeoTrust SSL Certificate (Secure Sockets Layer), and online purchases are via PayPal's secure payment system.

Members’ personal information is held and stored by the Membership Secretary and the Honorary Secretary of SLHF. The information may be shared with other Trustees. The name and address of current members is also shared with the publisher of our Journal (currently MD Print and Design) for the purposes of its distribution by post.

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 statement. You should exercise caution and look at the privacy statement applicable to the website in question.

Cookies

In order for our website to operate we need to place small amounts of information on your computer or mobile phone. These pieces of information are known as cookies.

Cookies are used, for example, to remember whether you have javascript enabled or to know if you are logged in.

We also use Google to help us record anonymous statistics about our website traffic. Google's software will use cookies to measure web traffic.

Google publishes information on how they manage the data they collect, on their Google Safeguarding Data page. You can also manage the cookies Google can place on your machine, or use the Google browser plugin to block all Google Analytics cookies.

Name Purpose Lifespan
_ga Calculates visitor, session and campaign data and also keeps track of site usage for the site's analytics report. The cookie stores information anonymously and assigns a randomly generated number to recognize unique visitors. 2 years
_gid Stores information on how visitors use a website, while also creating an analytics report of the website's performance. Some of the data that are collected include the number of visitors, their source, and the pages they visit anonymously. 1 day
_gat Restrains request rate and thus limits the collection of data on high traffic sites. 1 minute

Privacy and Security

There is no personally identifiable information in our cookies.

Cookies are not viruses and they cannot harm your computer or mobile phone.

Declining Cookies

If you do not want to accept cookies from our website you can configure your web browser to not accept them. Please refer to your web browser's operating instructions for how to do this.

Further Information

You can find general information about cookies and the EU Cookie Law here:

http://www.allaboutcookies.org

Questions and Complaints

Complaints or queries about data handling or privacy should be directed in the first instance to the Hon Secretary of SLHF via the Contact Form on the SLHF website, selecting 'Data Privacy' as the category of enquiry.