Privacy policy

What this covers

This notice explains what we do with your personal information. It covers who we are and how to contact us, what we collect and why, who we share it with, how long we keep it, and your rights.

What we collect and why

If you become a member

What we collect: your name, email address, job title, organisation, sector, and the membership tier you chose. If you join as a student, we also collect your institution, course and expected graduation date.

Why: to create and administer your membership, verify that you control the email address you gave us, and provide the benefits of the tier you joined.

Lawful basis: contract. We need this information to provide the membership you signed up for.

If you subscribe to The UK AI Briefing

What we collect: in addition to the above, we record that you opted in, when you did so, the exact wording of the statement you agreed to, the version of that statement, the page you were on, your IP address and your browser’s user agent string.

Why: to send you the newsletter, and to be able to demonstrate that you consented to receive it, as UK data protection law requires.

Lawful basis: consent. You can withdraw it at any time using the unsubscribe link in any newsletter, or from your account. Withdrawing consent stops the newsletter and does not cancel your membership.

If you buy a certification examination

What we collect: your name, email address, and a customer reference issued by our payment processor. We do not receive or store your card details.

Why: to sell you the examination, issue access to it, and keep a record of the purchase.

Lawful basis: contract.

If you register for an event

What we collect: your name, email address, organisation and job title. If you tick the box, we also record consent to receive updates about our events, recorded the same way as newsletter consent above.

Why: to manage attendance and, where places are limited, to select and confirm attendees.

Lawful basis: contract for the registration itself; consent for event updates.

If you contact us or register interest

What we collect: your name, email address, organisation, and whatever you write in the message. Depending on the form, we may also record which certification, workstream or sponsorship tier you were asking about, and an approximate budget range.

Why: to respond to you.

Lawful basis: legitimate interests. It is in both our interests that we can reply to an enquiry you chose to send us.

When you use the website

What we collect: we log the IP address of requests to our signup, verification and enquiry forms, and we count how often each address submits them.

Why: to detect and prevent automated abuse of forms that are open to the public. Without this, they would be filled with spam within days.

Lawful basis: legitimate interests, in keeping our own systems secure and usable.

If you follow a link to a form

What we collect: if a link you followed to a membership, event or enquiry form carried campaign parameters, for example utm_source or utm_campaign, we record those against your submission, along with the page that referred you and the page you landed on.

Why: to understand which channels bring people to us, the same reason any organisation looks at where its enquiries and signups come from.

Lawful basis: legitimate interests. This does not track you around the web or build a profile of you; it only records how you reached a form you chose to submit, and only if you submit one. It does not use a cookie and is not affected by the cookie choice described later in this policy.

What we do not collect

We do not collect your gender, date of birth, home address, photographs, financial circumstances, or any special category data as defined in UK GDPR. We do not obtain information about you from schools, previous employers or data brokers. Everything we hold, you gave us directly.

Who we share it with

We use a number of processors to run the website and deliver our services. Each handles data on our instructions and for no other purpose. The table below lists who they are, what they do, and where they process data.

International transfers

Some of our processors store or process data outside the United Kingdom, including in the United States. Where that happens, the transfer is protected by a recognised legal mechanism, either the UK’s extension to the EU-US Data Privacy Framework or Standard Contractual Clauses, rather than left unprotected. We use the safeguard each processor itself relies on rather than a separate arrangement of our own.

We do not sell your information. We do not share it with sponsors, partners or advertisers. We will disclose information where we are legally required to.

How long we keep it

We keep information for no longer than we need it for the purpose it was collected for. As a general rule: while you are a member, for the duration of your membership; after you cancel or an application does not proceed, for a limited period to handle any follow-up enquiries and to honour opt-outs; and for as long as we rely on your consent, for newsletter and event-update records.

If you unsubscribe from the newsletter, we keep a minimal record of that specifically so we do not re-add you. Not re-adding someone who opted out is itself something we are required to get right.

We are finalising a detailed retention schedule that sets an exact period for each category of information, with the reasoning for each. Until it is settled, we do not state specific periods here rather than publish a number that has not been signed off.

Your rights

You have the right to:

• Ask for a copy of the information we hold about you
• Ask us to correct anything inaccurate or incomplete
• Ask us to delete it
• Ask us to restrict how we use it
• Object to our using it
• Ask us to transfer it to you or another organisation
• Withdraw consent, where consent is our basis

Which of these apply depends on our lawful basis for the processing in question. The Information Commissioner’s Office’s website explains this in more detail.

To make a request, email us using the data protection address above. We will respond within one month.

Cookies

The site sets three kinds of cookie.

Strictly necessary: a session cookie when a member signs in, a short-lived signed cookie during email verification, and a cookie that remembers the choice you make below. These do not require consent and cannot be turned off, since the site could not work correctly without them.

Analytics: Google Analytics, which sets cookies to recognise repeat visits and measure how the site is used. This only runs if you accept it in the cookie banner. If you do not accept it, or you change your mind afterwards, it does not run and any cookies it already set are removed.

You can change your choice at any time from the cookie preferences link in the footer of every page.

Separately, submitting a form on this site may record where you came from, as described earlier under "If you follow a link to a form". That does not use a cookie and is not part of the choice above.

Complaints

If you are unhappy with how we have used your information, contact us first using the address above.

If you remain unhappy, you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office:

Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9 5AF. 0303 123 1113. ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint