Privacy & GDPR Stuff – The British Fantasy Society

Privacy and GDPR

Who We are

“The British Fantasy Society” and “BFS” are trading names of Brit Fantasy Soc Ltd.

We are a limited company, but also, at heart, a membership society.

We have 4 elected directors; The President, Chair, Secretary and Treasurer. We have a committee of people appointed to specific roles who form our committee.

Our current directors and full committee can be found here.

Our full constitution can be found here.

Images

We take attribution very seriously, and all the images on our website are licensed from independent artists, photos taken by our team that have been donated or art commissioned for our use. The rights of the images remain with the artists/photographers who have licensed/donated them and they should not be copied, downloaded, or used by anyone else.

Embedded Content from other Websites

Blogs, articles and papers on this site may include embedded content (e.g music videos, artwork, external links, pdfs, etc.). Embedded content from these other websites behaves in the exact same way as when you visit them directly. Which means that those sites might collect data about you, use cookies, embed additional third-party tracking, and monitor your interaction with that embedded content, especially if you have an account and are logged into it.
Examples of sites that do this are: YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, BandCamp, Google etc. But let’s be honest pretty much every website you have an account with tracks this information these days.

Website data, Affiliate links, Cookies & Analytics

Comments on the blog and all the metadata associated are retained indefinitely. One of the benefits of registered users and commenters is that WordPress can recognise and approve follow-up comments automatically instead of holding them in the moderation queue.

We do use services such as Google Analytics to understand our website traffic and what you are all interested in. This does not usually allow access to personal information, just statistics.

If you have left comments or interacted with this website, you can request to receive an exported file of the personal data WordPress holds about you, including any data you provided .

You can also request that we erase any personal data held. Although this does not include any membership records, emails or payments made, nor anything that relate to complaints about you.

We may use affiliate links on this website to link books and products that are relevant. We do not necessarily recommend or endorse the book or product. These do not increase the price you pay for an item, but raise a small payment to be made to us. Money raised in this way supports the work of the BFS.

Electronic cookies are small, simple files that accompany the pages of our website from the web to your browser on your computer or device. There’s information stored in them that can be transferred back to our site if you visit again.
You won’t be asked in advance if you’re ok with them, they just happen as part of the user experience. Just to allay any fears, we don’t use any advertising cookies on this website, those are the ones that most people are aware of as problematic or annoying.

The only cookie that WordPress informed us that it uses, is when commenting on the blog. If you really enjoy a post and wish to make a comment, there will be an option to input your details so that the site will remember you, but it’s something you can choose to do or not. This sort of cookie will last a year.

Remember that you have the option to clear your web history and cookies from your own browser at any time.

Contact Form

Messages via the Contact form on this site go to the Membership Secretary. They will use your information to email you and answer your query.

As our team use their own computers, software etc. we can’t guarantee when your data will be deleted, but we can say that it won’t be used for any other purposes or shared outside the BFS Committee.

BFS Membership Information

Your membership information and payment details go initially to the Treasurer and Secretary to process your membership. Other members of the committee can access the membership database, which does not include your payment details.

Information will be accessed via their own computers, software etc. so we cannot guarantee when this will be deleted, but it will not be used for any other purpose.

We take payments via PayPal, their privacy details can be found on their website.

We use Airtable to store your membership information, their privacy details can be found on their website.

We use MailChimp to write our newsletter and input members names and email address, to do so. Their privacy details can be found on their website. If you unsubscribe from the MailChimp newsletter, we are unable to add you to the mailing list and you will need to contact us to find out how to be re-added.

We may keep a back up of membership information and financial records on a dropbox folder, which can be accessed by the Executive Committee (President, Chair, Treasurer and Secretary). Their privacy policy can be found on their website.

You are considered a member of the BFS from the day you pay your membership fees until 2 months after your renewal date if no further payment is made. We will usually aim to remove your details from our database 2 years after you leave the society, but may keep them up to 3 years.

In exceptional cases e.g. where you have been banned from the Society or Fantasycon we will keep some of your details on file indefinitely. This will include your name and details of the complaint. This will not include your contact details.
If you have been banned from, or have complaints against your behaviour relating to, BFS events we reserve the right to inform the Fantasycon organising team and other teams organising events on our behalf. This will not include your contact details.

If you re-join after 2 years break from the society your membership records may have been deleted, if so, you will have a new membership number allocated. If you renew or re-join using a different name or email address, it is likely a new membership record will be created with a new membership number. You can request your earlier membership number if you know what this is, but it is at the Secretary’s discretion whether they amend the records or not.

We aim to send you an e-newsletter once a month and other mailing when we have news to share. We will only contact you about BFS relevant subjects.

You can unsubscribe from our newsletter at any time. We will not be able to re-add you without specific consent.

Emails to Committee Members

Emails to specific people will go to them, but in a mailbox linked to their position, so it could be accessed by another BFS committee member in the future. These are, in some cases a redirect to a personal email address.
Committee members are using their own equipment, software and, in some cases, their own email address/system. We cannot guarantee how quickly this correspondence will be deleted.

Award Voting

Awards voting submissions will go to the Awards Administrator, but may be shared with other committee members or the Awards team for verification/checking.
Individual voting choices and personal data are not shared with Award Juries or the wider BFS Committee (unless an individual is verifying).

Short Story Competition Entries.

Entries to the Short Story competition will go to the administrator initially, but may be shared with other team members.
Entries for the Short Story Competition, and associated data, will be retained until one month after the winners of that competition are announced.
Winning entries will have data transferred to the membership database and their details will be retained indefinitely

Publications.

Submissions to publications will go to the editor initially, but may be shared with other team members.
Submissions for publications, and associated data, will be kept for a minimum of 2 years and a maximum of 3 years if they are not published.
Successful submissions and associated data will be kept indefinitely.

Data Sharing

We can reassure you that none of our team would give your information to someone outside of the committee without your agreement, apart from the exceptions detailed above.
We will not use your information for non BFS related purposes.

It’s a sad thing today, that we must be vigilant against hackers, but reasonable precautions are taken to ensure your contact details are safe and secure. If a breach were to ever happen, we will contact you straight away to inform you and work with law enforcement agencies to seek justice and renumeration as appropriate.

Complaints, Concerns or Issues.

If you have any concerns about how we, or any of these operators, might be using your data, please get in touch and we will investigate further. It is important to us that your information be respected and kept safe, and we will endeavour to do so to the best of our knowledge and ability.