Privacy Policy

This website is brought to you by Membership Services Ltd. We take the privacy of our website users very seriously. We ask that you read this Privacy Policy (‘the Policy’) carefully as it contains important information about how we will use your personal data.

For the purposes of the Data Protection Act 1998, Membership Services (‘we‘ or ‘us‘) is the ‘data controller‘ (ie the company who is responsible for, and controls the processing of, your personal data).

Membership Services wishes to ensure maximum privacy for all its users, both those directly browsing its website and those receiving the newsletter which provides summaries of, and links to, the latest website topics.

INFORMATION COLLECTED ON WEBSITE USERS & NEWSLETTER SUBSCRIBERS

To constantly improve our service, we use a variety of computerised techniques to check how useful our website articles are to our readers. No readily identifiable personal information is collected in doing this. We do log your Internet address and the kind of browser you are using, as is normal for website providers. (Internet addresses can be traced back to individual users but this requires a Court Order or something similar.)

For the subscribers to the newsletter, which is free-of-charge, we also collect the information requested when signing-up: First Name, Last Name, Job Title and Email Address.

PURPOSE & LEGAL BASIS FOR PROCESSING – WEBSITE USERS & NEWSLETTER SUBSCRIBERS

The information collected is processed on the basis that doing so is in the legitimate interests of Membership Services Ltd. We have carried out a Legitimate Interests Assessment to ensure that the interests of our users are not out of balance with our own. We keep no personal information on people simply reading our website. We do keep personal information on our newsletter subscribers but qualify these to ensure that they wish to receive the newsletter for business purposes. They have specifically requested the newsletter to be sent to them and are aware that we may also send limited amounts of relevant content from our partners.

The processing of newsletter subscriber data, which is chiefly automated, is carried out in order to:

1. Send the electronic newsletter to those who have requested it and who meet our qualification criteria;
2. Send, from time to time, relevant content from 3rd parties.

HOW LONG WE KEEP INFORMATION

Information about newsletter subscribers is kept for as long as the subscriber wishes to receive the newsletter or until we receive an electronic notification that the email address no longer exists. Every newsletter and partner message contains links to unsubscribe.

REQUESTS FOR THE INFORMATION WE HOLD

Newsletter subscribers may request that the information we hold about them be sent to them free-of-charge. Please send such requests to info@directcommerce.biz from the email address used when subscribing. (For security reasons, the information will normally only be sent to that email account.)

DATA CONTROLLER

The data controller is:
Membership Services Ltd
32 Enterprise Avenue
Tiverton
Devon
EX16 4FP

Company No: 11459135
Registered Office: 32 Enterprise Avenue, Tiverton, Devon, EX16 4FP

DATA PROTECTION OFFICER

Victoria Revell-Higgins
info@directcommerce.biz

COMPLAINTS ABOUT PRIVACY

Complaints concerning the privacy of your personal information processed by Membership Services should initially be addressed to the Data Protection Officer (info@directcommerce.biz). If a satisfactory resolution of the problem cannot be achieved, please contact the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (www.ico.org.uk).

ABOUT THE INFORMATION YOU GIVE US

Giving information to Membership Services is not necessary for any for any statutory or contractual reason. It serves to establish that you are qualified to receive the newsletter free-of-charge and to provide the email address for receiving the newsletter and partner messages. Without providing the requested information, we are not in a able to determine whether or not you qualify and therefore cannot send you the newsletter.

AUTOMATIC DECISION-TAKING AND PROFILING

Membership Services does not carry out any automatic decision-taking or profiling.

LINKS TO EXTERNAL SERVICES

On our website there are optional links to external service providers such as those listed in our Expert Roster, LinkedIn and Twitter, amongst others. These service providers have different privacy policies from ours. We have no control over such external providers and we recommend that you check their privacy policies to be sure that you want to use their services. Some external sites track topics in which individual users are interested and feed this information to tailor advertising to those interests. Membership Services does not do this and our advertising is not tailored to individual users in any way.

COOKIES

Cookies are small pieces of information that can be stored on your computer by your ‘browser’ software, such as Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, Firefox or Safari. (You can control cookies through your browser). For more information please view our Cookies Policy.

INFORMATION COLLECTED ON SUPPLIERS AND CUSTOMERS

We collect and process normal business contact details from individuals representing our Suppliers and Customers. This data is processed solely for the day-to-day operations of Membership Services and is not transferred to third parties. The information is held for as long as the individual continues to represent the Supplier or Customer.