The British Dietetic Association (the BDA) is committed to collecting information about people only when we need to, and to being honest and open about what information we collect, how we use it and who we might share it with. If you have any questions or worries about what information we are collecting or storing, please get in touch with us. You have the right to ask us to review and tell you about what personal information we have recorded about you, and you can make a request for it to be deleted at any time. In certain circumstances we might not be able to fully delete personal information about you, but if this is the case we will always tell you why (for more information about your right to erasure, or any other details about your rights to control the use of your personal data, please refer to the Information Commissioner’s Office (https://ico.org.uk/).
Information about who uses our website
We collect a certain amount of data about the people visiting our website. This is anonymous, and is used only to make sure that we are providing content that people are using and finding useful.
Our webserver and analytics platforms such as Google Analytics and Hotjar may collect certain information such as:
- IP addresses;
- host names;
- domain name;
- the time and date information is requested;
- the browser version and platform when information is requested;
- country;
- browsing behaviour
We use this information to produce aggregate visitor statistics in relation to which pages are being accessed. We may also use it to monitor usage patterns on this website in order to improve navigation and design features to help you get information more easily. This information is collated and provided to us as daily log files. These statistics will not include information that can be used to identify any individual.
Cookies
A cookie is a piece of data stored on a user's hard drive while they are visiting a particular website and it contains simple information about the user's identity but no personal information. We may use cookies on our website to store passwords, so that it is not necessary to provide a password for every visit to our website. We may also use cookies to track the interests of our users so that we can subsequently enhance their experience on our website.
IP Addresses
We use IP addresses to analyse trends, administer the website, track users' movements, and gather broad demographic information for aggregate use. IP addresses are not linked to personally identifiable information.
Information about people who contact us
The BDA has a legitimate interest in monitoring our contact with members of the public, professionals and potential leads in related businesses and other potential contacts. We may use these contacts to inform interested parties about our campaigns, events, research or other work where we believe that the person or organisation being contacted has a clear and valid connection or interest to what we are doing.
If you contact the BDA by telephone, email or post, we may keep a record. This will tell us your name, what you contacted us about, what action we took (if needed) and your contact details in case we need to get in touch with you in future. Extra information might be recorded if it is relevant – for example, if you are someone who might be interested in working with us on future projects, or if you have asked to be kept informed about our work.
If we have made contact with you at an event or in another professional capacity, or have been passed your contact details by another organisation or person, we will only store your information if we believe that you would be interested in working with us in future. If you have any questions about where we gathered your contact details, we will happily answer them.
Social media
We are a user of Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube and TikTok and interact with other users by:
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creating a public profile which includes information on our current activities;
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sharing photos, videos and written content;
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sharing links to content on the BDA website such as events, member benefits, articles and news;
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sharing links to content you are interested in which has been produced by third parties (such as sharing a news article);
Messages posted on our social media pages are publicly available. If you post on our social media pages or send us a private or direct message via social media, we will assume you give permission for us to respond. We may receive further data from you through your comments, shared images, messages, and reactions, which we then process to answer or communicate with you.
We will respond to publicly available social media posts relevant to our services/functions and/or associated issues where appropriate and within the permissions of the social media providers.
We do not interact with third-party applications. We do not micro-target ie: track your browsing habits, likes and social interactions across our social media pages in order to build up a profile about you. We are not responsible for micro-targeting by social media providers and third parties operating on social media.
You must take your own precautions to protect your personal data whilst using social media. We have no control and/or responsibility over the processing of your personal data by social media providers and/or any promotional advertisements you may see when browsing the BDA's profiles on these channels. When signing up for and using social media, you should carefully consider the personal data you share on social media and with social media providers as well as reviewing the privacy policy, the terms of use of that social media service and information provided about cookies. In particular, the privacy policy and cookies information available on the service should inform you how that social media service is using your personal data and for what purpose(s).
Data processing – The BDA uses Buffer Inc. (“Buffer”) which provides a single platform for our social media publishing, analytics, and engagement. Buffer may collect information about you from your social media interactions with us, such as your social media handle, username, profile, postings, and messages you exchange with us. Buffer stores User Content (including messages, reviews, photos, video, images, data, text, and other types of works) for up to 24 months and will actively delete User Content that is older than 24 months. This includes User Content used in publishing social media posts, generating analytics, and conversations with customers.
Buffer Inc. (“Buffer”) complies with the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework and the Swiss-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework (the “Frameworks”) as set forth by the U.S. Department of Commerce regarding the collection, use, and retention of Personal Information (as defined below) that is transferred from the European Economic Area (“EEA”), the United Kingdom and/or Switzerland, to the United States in reliance on Privacy Shield. Buffer has certified to the Department of Commerce that it adheres to the Privacy Shield Principles (the “Principles”) with respect to such information.
Information about our members
The legal bit: The BDA has a legitimate interest in gathering, processing and storing personal information about our members. We do this so that we can: understand and predict the needs and wants of the people who have chosen to join our association; keep members informed about the products, services, support, events and campaigns available to them via regular email and postal communications; carry out our core function of promoting the dietetic profession; carry out our core function of representing the interests of our members.
What this means: when you join the BDA we will ask you to complete a member profile. There are some mandatory fields, which is the bare minimum we need to support you and provide you with the membership benefits you have signed up for. The other bits of information we ask about are not essential, but we really appreciate it if our members do fill them in. They help us understand and support you even more, and mean that we are able to develop and promote the profession with far more accuracy. It is your responsibility to regularly check that your information is up to date so that you don’t miss out on important information and membership benefits. The BDA cannot be held responsible for anything that you do miss if you haven’t updated your details, or for any inaccuracies in the information that you have provided to us.
We use the information we hold about our members to design our services and communications to best suit you. Core member communications (e.g. digital e-communications such as Members Monthly and hard copy/digital communications such as Dietetics Today magazine etc) will be sent to all relevant members. You can opt out of these digital communications when you first sign up, or at any time by going to your My BDA account or following the unsubscribe link which is in the footer of all our emails.
You can also change the medium in which you receive some of our content by going to your My BDA Account at any time. Some of our communications, e.g. third party emails, will only be sent to you if you have given clear explicit consent and you can change this at any time through the same methods.
If you choose to join one or more Specialist Group/s you will also receive regular updates from that group, and some information about you will be shared with the Specialist Group Committee to make sure that you can access all the benefits that they offer you.
Who has access to the information we store about you?
All personal data held by the BDA is stored in secure systems that are only accessible by BDA staff members and our contracted business service providers, such as accountancy, IT support and so on. We make every effort to ensure that your information is safe and private, and third party providers will only have access to data where it is vital to the service they provide to us.
The BDA will only share personal information about our members in rare cases where there is a clear need or value in doing so. In most cases, any information about our members is anonymous – for example, we might report on the number of members in a particular town, but we would not identify the individual members to an outside organisation or individual. The BDA does not sell the names or contact information of members to anyone.
The BDA may contact its members on behalf of third parties, such as partners or sister organisations, to inform them about training/newsletters and other events, as well as for research purposes. These will always be optional, and it will be made clear where the information from surveys or other responses will be going. All partnerships like this are assessed on a case-by-case basis against our commitment to and legitimate interest in the development and support of dietetics and healthcare in the United Kingdom.