This policy applies to information we collect about:

• visitors to our website.

• people who support us in any one or more of the following capacities:

  • as actual or potential donors

  • as a party interested in our activities which include (BMA members, medical academics, royal colleges; universities, scientific and other stakeholder organisations)

  • as a party interested in attending our events

  • as a recipient or potential recipient of grants.

• people who, through their invaluable support to our activities, accept a membership to the "1839 Fellowship".

• people who have agreed to adopt an ambassadorial role for the BMA Foundation for Medical Research.

• people who are our prospective supporters.

• all applicants - those applying for a BMA Foundation research grant or prize.

The extent of the information that we collect about you depends on how and why you are providing it. Notwithstanding this fact we will generally collect the following personal information from you:

• name

• postal address

• email address

• telephone number (home, work and mobile)

• academic and business achievements

• occupation

• age

• your consent to receiving ongoing communications

• your contact preferences

• previous charitable donations

• academic and professional achievements

• trade Union membership number (BMA) and

• GMC number.

We collect information in a variety of different ways

• When you use our website

  As with most websites we use cookies (being small text files placed on your computer, phone or tablet) to collect both standard internet log information and visitor behaviour information. Our use of cookies means that we will collate and track information about your use of our website and compile statistical reports on website activity. For further information about cookies visit www.aboutcookies.org or www.allaboutcookies.org. You can set your browser not to accept cookies and the above website tells you how to remove cookies from your browser.

• When you make a donation to the BMA foundation, or provide support to the charity by other means.

• When you have otherwise provided it to us directly.

  Where positive steps are taken to communicate with us you are likely to provide us with information about yourself. These steps may include:

  • Where you attend an event

  • Where you register an interest to keep you abreast of our activities

  • Where you have made a donation

  • Where you have registered an interest to receive a grant

  • Where you accept an invitation to become a member of the “1839 Club” (as referred to above)

  • Where you have agreed to adopt an ambassadorial role for the BMA Foundation for Medical Research

  • Where you have otherwise communicated with us

• When you have given consent to third parties to share your information.

  We may collect information on you from external sources in circumstances where you have consented (whether through your privacy settings on social media or the responses you have provided) to sharing your data.

  The sources from which we may collect information on you are:

  • From those individuals and/or organisations involved with the BMA Foundation for Medical Research(whether as a member of the “1839 Club” or otherwise) to whom you have indicated that you may be interested in supporting the BMA Foundation for Medical Research

  • From third party organisations where you have provided explicit consent for your information to be shared whether directly with us or more generally with organisations such as ours (e.g. charities). Where relevant this may include consent that is given when you became a member of the British Medical Association (being the trade union and professional association for doctors in the UK which is a separate legal entity to the BMA Foundation for Medical Research registered in England & Wales under company registration number 8848).

  • From publically available sources including the Land Registry, Companies House and published articles/ newspapers (whether in print or electronic form).

  • From social media (such as Facebook or Twitter) where your settings have been set in such a way as it gives permission for us to access information from those accounts or services.

• General use.

  We gather information for a variety of reasons related to our activities and overall aims. These predominantly include the use of your information in order to:

  • Ascertain whether you would be interested in supporting the BMA Foundation for Medical Research whether through its fundraising activities or otherwise

  • Invite you to events

  • Provide you with information and updates on the activities or the BMA Foundation for Medical Research

  • Provide you with details on how you can become a member of the “1839 Fellowship” or an ambassador of the [charity] and what that would entail

  • Administer any donations you may make

  • Understand you and when you prefer to be contacted

  • Record any feedback or suggestions that you provide in respect of our activities and/or events

  • Identify you as a supporter (and where appropriate a member of the "1839 Club" and/or an ambassador) of the BMA Foundation for Medical Research in marketing material and/or on our website

  • To process and administrate your research grant application

  We may also use aggregate information and statistics for the purposes of monitoring and analysing the demographic and geographic make up of our actual or potential supporters as well as to monitor website usage in order to help us to develop our website and the way in which we carry out our activities. These statistics will not include information that can be used to identify you.

• Where we have received your information from external sources.

  In situations where we have received and/or gathered your information from external sources (as referred to in para 3.4 above) then we will:

  • make you aware of the fact that we are processing your information, and

  • give you the opportunity to “opt in” to continued and further communication.

  • Stage 1 - Your preferences

    We will take the initial step of checking your preferences in relation to receiving communication from third parties or us.

    This will be done by checking the information we hold on you against the registers held by the following services

    • the Fundraising Preference Service;

    • the Telephone Preference Service; and

    • the Mailing Preference Service.

    If, after checking these registers, we ascertain that you have objected to receiving communication from third parties such as ourselves we will permanently delete your information from our “potential supporters” database.

  • Stage 2 - Introductory communication.

    To the extent that you are not recorded as having objected to communications from third parties on the aforesaid mentioned registers, we will within one month of us gathering or being provided with your information, send an introductory communication within which we will:

    • identify that we have obtained your information from external sources;

    • identify what information we have obtained about you;

    • identify that we believe you may be interested in supporting the BMA Foundation for Medical Research and/ or attending one of the events;

    • identify the aims, events and activities of the BMA Foundation for Medical Research;

    • identify the details of this privacy policy and where it can be viewed;

    • give you the explicit opportunity to “opt out” of any continued communication.

  • Stage 3 - Follow up communication.

    If, after one month of sending you the introductory communication, we have not received a response we will issue you a follow up communication to ensure that the initial correspondence did not go astray.

  • Stage 4 - If you do not "opt in"

    In either of the following circumstances we will permanently delete your information from our “potential supporters” database. The circumstances are:

    • Where you have failed to respond within one month of our follow up communication to identify your decision to "opt in" to further communications.

    • Where you have responded to indicate that you do not want to “opt in” to receiving further communication.

  • Stage 5 - If you "opt in"

    If, whether after the introductory communication the follow up communication or otherwise, you “opt in” to receiving further communication then your information will be moved onto a separate and more permanent database known as our “supporters” database where it will be used for the purposes referred to in paragraph 4.1 above.

• Protection

  We have put in place the following security procedures and technical and organisational measures to safeguard your personal information. This includes password protecting the database and giving access to specified individuals only within the fundraising team.

  We will use all reasonable efforts to safeguard your personal information. However, you should be aware that the use of the internet and/or emails is not entirely secure and for this reason we cannot guarantee the security or integrity of any personal information which is transferred from you or to you via the internet and/or email.

• Storage

  As alluded to in paragraphs 4.2 and 5.1, your data will be stored on one of two databases (depending on whether you are a potential or actual supporter of the BMA Foundation for Medical Research).

  • Where you have “opted in” to receiving communication from the BMA Foundation for Medical Research then your data will be stored on our "supporters" database.

  • Where you are yet to “opt in” to receiving communication (and we refer to you paragraph 3.2 for details of the process we go through in order to ascertain whether you are happy to "opt in") then your information will be stored on our "potential supporters" database.

  • Research grant applicants data is stored on a separate cloud-based database. 

Your information will primarily be accessed and processed by staff members of either the BMA Foundation for Medical Research itself or (given the support they offer in administering the BMA Foundation for Medical Research) staff members of the British Medical Association. Our reference to staff members in this instance covers trustees, employees, officers, committee members, contractors, agents and volunteers.

We may, from time to time, provide your information to third party organisations where their involvement is reasonably necessary for us to fulfil our aims. Examples where this may be necessary are in circumstances where we are engaging a third party to design and/or print invites or where we are booking a venue for events.

We may also need to disclose your details if required to the police, regulatory bodies or legal advisors.

In all cases we will

• ensure that information that is shared will be limited to that which is absolutely necessary for the relevant third party to fulfil the functions we are asking them to fulfil on our behalf (or in the case of information by police or regulatory bodies in fulfilment of their lawful functions).

• undertake regular reviews of who has access to information that we hold to ensure that your information is only accessible by those who are appropriately trained as to the handling of personal data.

The information you provide will not be transferred to countries outside the European Economic Area (EEA) unless we are confident that they similar protections in place regarding your data and restrictions on its use as set out in this policy. Where we transfer your information outside of the EEA we will take steps to ensure adequate protections are in place to ensure the security of your information. The EEA comprises the EU member states plus Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein. By opting in to support us (and as part of that to be contacted for purposes referred to in General use section) you consent to these transfers for the purposes specified above.

• Access

  You have the right to request a copy of the information that we hold about you. If you would like a copy of some or all of your personal information, please send an email to researchgrants@bma.org.uk or send a letter to BMA Foundation for Medical Research, Corporate Development, 2nd floor South West Wing, BMA House, Tavistock Square, London WC1H 9JP. We may make a small charge for this service.

• Accuracy of information.

  We want to ensure that your personal information is accurate and up to date. If any of the information that you have provided to the BMA Foundation for Medical Research changes, for example if you change your email address, name or telephone number please let us know the correct details by sending an email to researchgrants@bma.org.uk or by sending a letter to BMA Foundation for Medical Research, Corporate Development, 2nd floor South West Wing, BMA House, Tavistock Square, London WC1H 9JP.

  You may ask us, or we may ask you, to correct information you or we think is inaccurate, and you may also ask us to remove information which is inaccurate.

• Withdrawing your consent.

  Supporting the BMA Foundation for Medical Research is wholly voluntary. If you no longer wish to support the BMA Foundation for Medical Research, an ambassador of the BMA Foundation for Medical Research and/or be a member of our “1839 Club” (as the case may be) then please let us know by sending an email to researchgrants@bma.org.uk or by sending a letter to BMA Foundation for Medical Research, Corporate Development, 2nd floor South West Wing, BMA House, Tavistock Square, London WC1H 9JP.

It is important to us that we periodically check to make sure that you remain happy for us to hold and process your information.

With this being the case we will contact you at periodical intervals (not to exceed 24 months) in order to obtain your continued consent (via an "opt in" functionality) to acknowledge your consent to us holding your information and processing it in a manner from time to time provided for in our privacy policy.

As is the case when we first seek to obtain the consent from individuals whose information is gathered from external sources, we will follow a staged process to obtain that continued consent.

These stages are:

• Stage 1 – we will issue an initial communication within which we will expressly ask you for your continued consent via an "opt in" functionality.

• Stage 2 – to the extent that you have not opted in within one month of the initial communication we will send a secondary communication once again asking you for your continued consent via an "opt in" functionality.

If you fail to opt in within one month of the secondary communication being issued (or if you otherwise notify us that you withdraw your consent) we will remove your information from our “supporters” database and cease communications.

For research grant applicants 

For successful applicants

In the event of winning a BMA research grant, we will hold your data to enable us to process your award. At the end of the award period, in order to stay in touch with you, we will ask for your consent to hold contact details for 5 years after your award has been distributed. We will stay in touch to help us monitor the impact of your research.

For unsuccessful applicants

Unsuccessful applicants’ personal data will be deleted from our system.

We keep our privacy policy under regular review. If we change our privacy policy we will post the changes on this page, that you may be aware of the information we collect and how we use it at all times. This privacy policy was last updated on 15 Nov 2017.

We welcome your views about our website and our privacy policy. If you would like to contact us with any queries or comments please send an email to researchgrants@bma.org.uk or send a letter to BMA Foundation, Corporate Development, 2nd floor South West Wing, BMA House, Tavistock Square, London WC1H 9JP.

Our website contains links to other websites. This privacy policy only applies to this website so when you link to other websites you should read their own privacy policies. This includes, for the avoidance of doubt, the website of the British Medical Association.