Privacy Policy

About

The Intensive Care Society (“Society”, “we”, “our” and “us”) is a registered charity in England and Wales (1039236) and in Scotland (SCO40052).

This Privacy Notice relates to our website (www.ics.ac.uk) (the “Website”).

The Society may collect personal information about users of the Website (“you”). When we mention “personal information” in this Notice, we mean any information that relates to an identifiable natural person (also known as “personal data”). Your name, address, date of birth and contact details are all examples of your personal information, if they identify you.  Where we talk about where we “process” your personal information (and “processing” and “processed”) we mean any activity relating to personal information, including, by way of example, collection, storage, use, consultation and transmission.

The Society takes the lawful and correct treatment of personal information very seriously. The Society is fully committed to treating your personal information in accordance with the principles of data protection, as set out in the General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (the “GDPR”).

This Privacy Notice describes why and how we collect and use personal information and provides information about your rights. It applies to all the personal information you provide to us.  We may use personal information provided to us for any of the purposes described in this Privacy Notice or as otherwise stated at the point of collection.

You should read this Notice, so that you know what we are doing with your personal information. Please also read any other privacy notices that we give you, that might apply to our use of your personal information in specific circumstances in the future.

Please note that this Privacy Notice covers our website only. Other websites linked to or from this Website are not covered by this Notice. Such other sites may also make use of their own cookies and will have their own privacy policies. You should carefully review the privacy policies and practices of other sites, as we cannot control or be responsible for their privacy practices. We do not accept any liability for the privacy practices of third-party websites and your use of such websites is at your own risk.

What information do we collect about you?

We collect many different types of personal information about you for lots of reasons. We cannot administer your membership without your personal information. Where we don’t need your personal information, we will make this clear, for instance we will explain if any data fields in our application forms or member surveys are optional and can be left blank.

We may collect the following personal information from you, for example, when you visit our website, apply for membership, create an account or book an event.

 

 

If any of the personal information you have given to us changes, such as your contact details, please update this information by logging into your account and updating these or to change your membership category by completing the change of details contact form. If you have any problems updating your records, please email membership@ics.ac.uk.

Where we collect information that you voluntarily provide when you complete membership surveys and feedback forms, the personal information you provide is anonymised, unless you choose to provide your contact information.

How do we use your data?

Your data will only be used for the purposes indicated when you submit the data or as detailed under this privacy policy.

We use personal information held in the following ways:
 

• Administration of membership - management and administration of membership records (including checking of professional registration), promotion of the Society products and services, sharing information about the Society’s activities
• Newsletters – Guidance, Weekly Digest, President Newsletter, Events and Education Newsletter
• To issue you with quarterly issues of the Journal of the Intensive Care Society (digital)
• To update and enhance our records
• To carry out our obligations arising from any contracts entered into between you and us to provide you with the information, products and services that you request from us
• To provide you, or permit selected third parties to provide you, with information about the Society’s goods and services which may interest you. You can opt-in/out of such notifications by following the instructions on the relevant forms set out on this website (or elsewhere as applicable) or at any time after providing your information
• Inviting you to participate in research studies and activities
• To communicate with you in accordance with the requirements of our Articles of Association and Regulations, where applicable

We may also convert your personal information into statistical or aggregated form to better protect your privacy, or so that you are not identified or identifiable from it. Anonymised data cannot be linked back to you. We may use it to conduct research and analysis, including to produce statistical research and reports. For example, to help us understand the numbers within different categories of memberships at any given time. 

Communication

Administrative communication is anything that is integral to your Membership.

This includes renewal and direct debit collection notices, changes to the membership categories or prices, changes to your subscription and contact about outdated details.

We will always default to sending these notices by email, but we will also communicate this information to you by post if we do not have an up-to-date email address for you. As administrative communication is necessary to fulfil our contractual obligations to you as a Member, it is not possible to opt out of this communication.

Elective communication is anything that does not fall into the two categories above.  This includes the monthly member updates, messages from our Council/Committees and Working Groups, Guidelines notifications and news about events, grants and awards.

All elective communication is sent by email or by mail if you have a opted out of digital communications through your email address. You can update your desired email address or amend your communication preferences at any point by “logging in to your account”

If you need assistance, you can contact membership@ics.ac.uk.

Who do we share your information with?

On receipt of a membership application, your data will be shared with our Honorary Secretary to review your application. They will receive the following information: your full name, your country of residence, the category of membership applied for, your current job title, grade, NHS trust (if relevant) and date of appointment, and professional registration number. Only upon their approval will your membership be active.

From time to time, we may ask third parties to carry out certain functions for us, such as payment processing or delivering elections. This policy outlines how we keep your data safe and protect your privacy whilst sharing with certain third parties.

Examples of the kind of third parties we work with are:

• IT companies who support our website, customer relationship system and other business systems ie third party payment processors
• Suppliers and subcontractors for the performance of any contract we enter into ie learning management system
• Where we outsource any of our business functions. For example, a professional conference organiser to manage our annual Congress
• CIVICA to deliver our elections

In certain circumstances, we will also disclose your personal information to third parties who will receive it as controllers of your personal information. This will be in relation to the Society transferring, purchasing, reorganising any part of the business that will rely on the third party to process the data/be involved in the business transfer agreement.

We may also share your personal information with:

• The Society’s Council, Committee and Working Group members, where there is a legitimate business reason to do so
• Members of a panel recruited by the Society to help assess and score applications such as awards, research or analysis of a survey. Individuals will be bound under the Society’s policies
• Business consultants and professional advisors including legal advisors and auditors
• Insurers
• Government departments, statutory and regulatory bodies including the General Medical Council, Department for Work & Pensions, Information Commissioner’s Office, the police and Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs.

Keeping your data safe:

• We will enter into a written contract imposing appropriate security standards on them
• Before we disclose your personal information to other people, we will make sure that they have appropriate security standards in place to make sure your personal information is protected
• We use suitable means of transferring data securely and in line with data protection standards
• We only provide the information needed to perform their specific functions on behalf of the Society.
• They may only use your data for the exact purposes we specify in our contract with them.
• We work closely with them to ensure that your privacy is respected and protected at all times
• If we terminate their services, your data held by them will either be deleted or rendered anonymous. 

We take all reasonable steps to protect any personal information you submit via the website. However, as our website is grouped to the internet, which is inherently insecure, we cannot guarantee the information you supply will not be intercepted while being transmitted over the internet.  Accordingly, we have no responsibility or liability for the security of personal information transmitted via our website.

We will not transfer any of your data to any third parties without your permission or unless indicated in this privacy policy. Our Data Protection Policy outlines how we comply with the UK Data Protection legislation.

How long we keep your data for

If you become a member, or purchase services from the Society, your information will be kept for the length of your membership and then the subsequent 6 financial reporting periods in line with HMRC’s requirement to retain financial information for seven years. At this stage we do not have the technical capacity to automatically separate financial vs other information. Once we do, we will set up a process whereby non-essential data is deleted at an earlier stage.

Your rights

You have a number of rights in relation to the information that we hold about you. These rights include:

• the right to access information we hold about you and to obtain information about how we process it
• in some circumstances, the right to withdraw your consent to our processing of your information, which you can do at any time. We may continue to process your information if we have another legitimate reason for doing so
• in some circumstances, the right to receive certain information you have provided to us in an electronic format and/or request that we transmit it to a third party
• the right to request that we rectify your information if it’s inaccurate or incomplete
• in some circumstances, the right to request that we erase your information. We may continue to retain your information if we’re entitled or required to retain it
• the right to object to, and to request that we restrict, our processing of your information in some circumstances. Again, there may be situations where you object to, or ask us to restrict, our processing of your information but we’re entitled to continue processing your information and/or to refuse that request

Where our processing of your personal information is based on your consent, you have the right to withdraw your consent at any time. If you do decide to withdraw your consent we will stop processing your personal information for that purpose, unless there is another lawful basis we can rely on – in which case, we will let you know. Your withdrawal of your consent won’t impact any of our processing up to that point.

Where our processing of your personal information is necessary for our legitimate interests, you can object to this processing at any time. If you do this, we will need to show either a compelling reason why our processing should continue, which overrides your interests, rights and freedoms or that the processing is necessary for us to establish, exercise or defend a legal claim.

Who to contact about this policy

Questions, comments and the exercise of your rights regarding this Privacy Policy and your personal information are welcomed.  Contacted Head of Finance and Internal Operations on

• Email address: info@ics.ac.uk  
• Telephone number: +44 (0)20 7280 4350
• Address: 7-9 Breams Buildings, London, EC4A 1DT

Complaints

If you would like to make a complaint about how we have handled your data, you can contact our Head of Finance and Internal Operations (info@ics.ac.uk).

If you are not satisfied by the response or believe we have processed your data that is not in accordance with the law, you have the right to submit your complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office (the “ICO”) via their website – https://ico.org.uk/concerns/ or by calling their helpline on 0303 123 1113.