Privacy policy
1. What is this policy?
The Microbiology Society is committed to protecting and respecting your privacy.
This policy explains when and why we collect personal information about you, how this information is used, the conditions under which it may be disclosed to others and how it is kept secure.
This is our main privacy policy. We may provide additional, specific privacy information to you as you interact with us in different ways for example where we are using certain information for specific purposes. To the extent that any of that information differs from what we say below, those specific statements will apply in those circumstances.
This policy may change from time to time so please check this page occasionally to ensure that you are happy with any changes.
This policy was last updated on 24/02/2025.
2. Who we are
The Microbiology Society is the data controller in relation to the processing activities described below. This means that we decide how your personal information is processed and for what purposes.
The Microbiology Society is a registered charity in England and Wales (no. 264017), a charity registered in Scotland (no. SC039250) and a company limited by guarantee, registered in England (no. 1039582). We are registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office (no. Z5802841) in the UK.
3. Contacting us
Questions, comments and requests regarding this privacy policy are welcome.
Please direct any queries about this policy or about the way we process your personal information to our Data Protection Lead.
You can email us at [email protected].
If you wish to write to us, please write to us at:
Data Protection Lead
Microbiology Society
14–16 Meredith Street
London EC1R 0AB
If you wish to update your preferences by email rather than via our websites, you can do so by emailing [email protected].
If you would prefer to speak to us by phone, please call +44 (0)20 3034 4870.
4. How we get your personal information
Most of the personal information we process is provided to us directly by you for one of the following reasons.
• You visit our microbiologysociety.org or microbiologyresearch.org websites and consent to our use of cookies.
• You interact with our social media accounts, for example on Facebook, LinkedIn, X or BlueSky.
• You have corresponded with us by phone, email or otherwise.
• You wish to attend, or have attended, an event as an attendee or speaker.
• You submit, or have submitted, an article for publication as the corresponding author.
• You act, or have acted, as a reviewer of a submitted article(s).
• You subscribe to our electronic newsletter.
• You have applied for a job with us.
• To participate in diversity, equality and inclusion surveys.
We also receive personal information indirectly for the following reasons.
• An employee of ours gives your contact details as an emergency contact or a referee.
• A corresponding author submits an article that you are also an author of.
• Your information has been provided as a reference supporting an application for membership or a Microbiology Society grant.
• Where you have made your contact information available on your organisation's website, or social media accounts, and we use this to contact you to seek consent for further communication.
This includes information provided at the time of registering to use our websites; subscribing to the services we provide through our sites; participating in Microbiology Society initiatives; purchasing or requesting products or services; creating, using and managing an online account with us including updating your online Society account or user profile and engaging in correspondence with us by phone, email or otherwise. We may also ask you for information when you report a problem with our site. If you complete any surveys that we ask you to complete for research purposes, we will collect information in such circumstances as well.
5. What personal information we may collect
The basic personal information we may ask for, or you may choose to give us, includes:
• your name,
• date of birth,
• postal address,
• email address, and
• phone number(s).
We may also ask for, or you may choose to give us, additional information:
• relating to your employment,
• about your areas of interest and/or expertise, and/or
• sensitive personal information (special category data).
We will automatically collect the following information from you when you interact with our websites.
• Details of transactions you carry out through the site, and your visits to our site, including, but not limited to, traffic data, location data, weblogs and other communication data, and the resources you access.
• Anonymous data collected by the hosting server for statistical purposes.
• The Internet protocol (IP) address used to connect your computer or device to the Internet.
• Browser type and version, time zone setting, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform. Please see section 12 on our cookie policy for further information.
We will always seek to minimise the information we ask for to that which is needed to provide relevant services to you.
6. How we use your personal information
The purposes for which we use your information and the legal basis under the Data Protection Act 2018 and UK GDPR upon which we rely are listed below.
6.1 Legitimate interest
We may use and process your personal information where it is necessary for us to pursue our legitimate interests as a business, or those of a third party, for the following purposes:
6.1.1 As a membership organisation
• to inform the work of the Microbiology Society as a membership organisation and to provide services to our members and guests;
• to ensure proper governance of the Microbiology Society, to validate and maintain our membership register and to ensure eligibility for, for example, the right to stand and vote in elections and annual general meetings;
• to verify the accuracy of data that we hold about you;
• to create a better understanding of you as a member of the Microbiology Society, a member of the public or as a customer of our products and services so we can customise the services we provide;
• to correspond or communicate with you as a member of the Microbiology Society, to let you know about our activities and to enhance and personalise your membership (including to send you newsletters or other content based on the interests you indicate to us, you location, and to improve the services we offer you on our websites;
• to conduct research and to compile management information; or
• for the management of queries, complaints, or claims.
6.1.2 To carry out marketing
• for marketing and advertising activities (other than where we rely on your consent to contact you by email, text or post); or
• for analysis to inform our marketing activities, and to enhance and personalise your experience when you buy products and services from us.
6.1.3 To fulfil online delivery and security
• to ensure that our online content is presented in the most effective manner for you and your computer or mobile device;
• to allow you to participate in interactive features of our services, when you choose to do so;
• for network and information security in order for us to take steps to protect your information against loss or damage, theft or unauthorised access; or
• for prevention of fraud and other criminal activities.
6.1.4 Other
• operating and managing contracts with our suppliers and service recipients;
• for the establishment and defence of our legal rights;
• to process entries into a competition;
• to carry out limited profiling and research to help us understand our donors and potential donors, including gathering information from publicly available resources to provide insights into philanthropic interests and ability to support the Microbiology Society (see section 8 for more details); or
• to assess and process applications from job applicants and to monitor our recruitment.
6.2 Legal requirement
We will use your personal information to comply with our legal obligations:
• to assist any public authority or criminal investigation body as required;
• to identify you when you contact us;
• to verify the accuracy of data we hold about you;
• to help us comply with equalities legislation in our recruitment practices; or
• to comply with a request from you in connection with the exercise of your rights.
6.3 In the performance of a contract
We may use and process your personal information where:
• we have supplied you, or continue to supply you, with any products or services;
• where you (contracting as an individual) are supplying us with products and services;
• in connection with your employment, if you accept a role with us;
• where we have arranged for the supply of another company’s products or services to you; or
• where you are in discussions with us about any new product or service.
We will use this information in connection with the contract for the supply of products or services when it is needed to carry out that contract with you or for you to enter into it.
6.4 Consent
We may use and process your personal information where you have consented for us to do so for the following purposes:
• to use your special category data (formerly known as sensitive personal data) for any purpose we state expressly, for example to collect data to help us monitor and deliver equal opportunity measures in our employment and recruitment. We will always request your explicit consent before using any special category personal information about you;
• if you:
o register for an account with us;
o sign up to one of our newsletters via our websites or other medium where available; or
o refresh your marketing preferences when responding to a request from us to do so;
• for marketing activities, in order to contact you by email or text with marketing information about our products and services, including member benefits provided by others (except where we may rely on Legitimate Interests as described above); or to share your details with our recommended third-party partners for them to do the same.
Please see the section 13 on marketing section below.
You may withdraw your consent for us to use your information in any of these ways at any time. Please see section 15 on withdrawing your consent for further details.
7. Data anonymisation and use of aggregated information
Your information may be converted into statistical or aggregated data in such a way as to ensure that you are not identified or identifiable from it. Aggregated data cannot be linked back to you as a natural person. We may use this data for analytical and research purposes.
8. Who we may share your personal information with
8.1 Our suppliers and service providers
We may disclose your information to our third-party service providers, agents, subcontractors and other organisations for the purposes of providing services to us or directly to you on our behalf.
This may include:
• cloud service providers;
• hosting, email and content providers;
• marketing agencies and administrative services providers;
• payment processing companies who will process your debit/credit card securely if you purchase goods or services from us; or
• research companies who may contact you to gather information relating to your experience of us and our products and services or on topical, policy and strategic issues facing the profession.
When we use third party service providers, we only disclose to them any personal information that is necessary for them to provide their service and we have a contract in place that requires them to keep your information secure and not to use it other than in accordance with our specific instructions.
8.2 Third parties who provide products and services to members
We work closely with various third parties to bring you a range of products and services that are complementary to those that we provide. In particular, we may offer membership discounts and benefits offered by others in addition to our own products and services.
When you enquire about or purchase one or more of these products or services through us, we may pass your contact details to the relevant third party, who will use your details to provide you with information and carry out their obligations arising from any contracts you have entered into with them.
These third-party product providers may share your information with us, which we will use in accordance with this policy. In some cases, they will be acting as a controller of your information and therefore we advise you to read their privacy policy.
If you sign up to attend one of our events, we may share your name and employer or organisation with fellow attendees and sponsors of that event for their information only, but will not share your contact details for marketing purposes without your consent.
8.3 Other third parties
We may also share your contact details with third parties for marketing purposes if you have given consent for this via your online Society account or another method; and we may share your details with third parties if this is necessary to fulfil a contract with you.
We may use third-party wealth screening companies to provide us with general information about you, for example demographic information, measures of affluence, listed directorships. You can opt of your data being used for wealth screening techniques by contacting us using the details in section 3.
8.4 Other ways we may share your personal information
We may transfer your personal information to a third party if we are under a duty to disclose or share it in order to comply with any legal obligation, to detect or report a crime, to enforce or apply the terms of our contracts or our legal rights or to protect the rights, property or safety of our visitors and customers. We will always take steps with the aim of ensuring that your privacy rights continue to be protected.
9. Where we store your personal information
On occasion, the information you provide to us may be transferred to countries outside the European Economic Area (EEA). By way of example, this may happen where any of our servers or those of our third-party service providers are from time to time located in a country outside of the EEA. These countries may not have similar data protection laws to the UK. Where possible, we will seek to work with service providers whose servers are located within the EEA.
If we transfer your information outside of the EEA in this way, we will take steps to ensure that appropriate security measures are taken with the aim of ensuring that your privacy rights continue to be protected as outlined in this policy. These steps include imposing contractual obligations on the recipient of your personal information or ensuring that the recipients are subscribed to ‘international frameworks’ that aim to ensure adequate protection. Please contact us using the details in section 3 for more information about the protections that we put in place.
10. How long do we keep your personal information
We will keep personal information only for as long as necessary to fulfil the purpose for which it was collected or to comply with statutory and/or regulatory requirements.
We maintain a policy setting out our standard retention period(s) and we will periodically review the data we hold in line with that policy and erase or anonymise it when it is no longer needed.
11. Security and links to other sites
Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. Although we will do our best to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee the security of your information transmitted to our website and any transmission is at your own risk. Once we have received your personal information, we put in place reasonable and appropriate controls to ensure that it remains secure against accidental or unlawful destruction, loss, alteration, or unauthorised access.
Where we collect any sensitive personal information about your ethnic background, sexual orientation, political opinions, religion, trade union membership or criminal record, we will apply additional security controls to protect that data.
Where we have given (or where you have chosen) a password which enables you to access an account, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential. We ask you not to share your password with anyone.
Our website may contain links to other websites run by other organisations. This policy does not apply to those other websites so we encourage you to read their privacy statements. We cannot be responsible for the privacy policies and practices of other websites even if you access them using links that we provide. In addition, if you linked to our website from a third-party website, we cannot be responsible for the privacy policies and practices of the owners and operators of that third party website and recommend that you check the policy of that third party website.
12. Cookies
Like many other websites, our website uses cookies (including Google Analytics cookies) to obtain an overall view of visitor habits and visitor volumes to our website. 'Cookies' are small pieces of information sent to your computer or device and stored on its hard drive to allow our websites to recognise you when you visit.
Please see our cookies notice for more information.
13. Marketing
We may collect and process your preferences to receive marketing information directly from us by email and text in the following ways:
• If you are a Microbiology Society member we may contact you with marketing information about our member products and services, except where you indicate you would prefer otherwise;
• If you place an order with us for a product or service, we may contact you with marketing information in the ways mentioned in the notices presented to you as part of that transaction, except where you indicate you would prefer otherwise; or
• If you register an account with us online, we will ask you if you would like to provide your consent to receive marketing information directly from us, by asking you to confirm your preferences on the Contact Preferences page;
If you do not complete a purchase and have not indicated that you would prefer otherwise, we may remind you by phone or email about your incomplete purchase.
From time to time, we may ask you to refresh your marketing preferences by asking you to confirm that you want to continue receiving marketing information from us.
We may contact you with marketing information by post and telephone by using your personal information or with targeted advertising delivered online through social media and platforms operated by other companies using their profiling tools, or use your personal information to tailor marketing to improve its relevance to you, unless you object.
You can amend your marketing preferences at any time by logging into your online Society account and going to 'Contact Preferences' or by contacting us using the details in section 3.
14. Third-party marketing
We will only share your information with our third-party partners for them to contact you directly with marketing information about their products and services where you have indicated via your online Society account that you would like us to do so. Please see the 'Contact Preferences' page for information about these third-party partners.
Once shared, the relevant third party's privacy policy will apply to their processing of your personal information, not ours. If you would like to opt out of receiving marketing from a third party after providing your consent, you can do so at any time by contacting the relevant third party directly.
You have the right to opt out of our use of your personal information to provide marketing to you in any of the ways mentioned in this privacy notice. Please also see section 15 on withdrawing your consent and on objecting to our use of your personal information and automated decisions made about you below for further details on how you can do this.
15. Your rights
You have a number of rights in relation to your personal information under data protection law. In relation to certain rights, we may ask you for information to confirm your identity and, where applicable, to help us to search for your personal information.
Except in rare cases where additional time may be required, we will respond to you within one calendar month from either (i) the date that we have confirmed your identity, or (ii) where we do not need to do this because we already have this information, from the date we received your request.
15.1 Accessing your personal information
Under data protection laws you have a legal right to ask to see a copy of the personal information that we hold about you. Such requests are called subject access requests.
If you would like to make a subject access request, you can contact us using the details in section 3.
You will also need to provide one form of identification and proof of your address, for example, driving licence, utility bill, and if appropriate, any particulars about the source or location of the information you are requesting.
Please return the completed form by post or email to our Data Protection Lead as listed in section 3.
Further information about subject access requests can be found on the Information Commissioner's website https://ico.org.uk
We may not provide you with a copy of your personal information if this concerns other individuals or if we have another lawful reason to withhold that information.
15.2 Correcting and updating your personal information
The accuracy of your information is important to us and we are working on ways to make it easier for you to review and correct the information that we hold about you.
In the meantime, if you change your name or address/email address, or you discover that any of the other information we hold is inaccurate or out of date, please let us know by contacting us in any of the ways described in section 3.
15.3 Withdrawing your consent
Where we rely on your consent as the legal basis for processing your personal information, as set out under section 6 on how we use your personal information, you may withdraw your consent at any time in any of the ways described in section 3.
If you would like to withdraw your consent or object to receiving any direct marketing to which you previously opted-in, you can do so using the unsubscribe tool in that communication (if it is an email), or by writing to us or calling us using the contact details at the end of this policy. If you withdraw your consent, our use of your personal information before you withdraw is still lawful.
If you have provided consent for your details to be shared with a third party, and wish to withdraw this consent, please also contact the relevant third party in order to amend your preferences.
15.4 Objecting to our use of your personal information and automated decisions made about you
Where we rely on our legitimate business interests as the legal basis for processing your personal information for any purpose(s), as outlined under section 6 on how we use your personal information, you may object to us using your personal information for these purposes by emailing or writing to us at the address in section 3. Except for the purposes for which we are sure we can continue to process your personal information, we will temporarily stop processing your personal information in line with your objection until we have investigated the matter. If we agree that your objection is justified in accordance with your rights under data protection laws, we will permanently stop using your data for those purposes. Otherwise we will provide you with our justification as to why we need to continue using your data.
You may object to us using your personal information for direct marketing purposes and we will automatically comply with your request. If you would like to do so, please email or write to us at the address at the end of this policy.
15.5 Erasing your personal information or restricting its processing
In certain circumstances, you may ask for your personal information to be removed from our systems by emailing or writing to us at the address in section 3 of this policy. Unless there is a reason that the law allows us to use your personal information for longer, we will make reasonable efforts to comply with your request.
You may also ask us to restrict processing your personal information where you believe it is unlawful for us to do so, you have objected to its use and our investigation is pending or you require us to keep it in connection with legal proceedings. In these situations we may only process your personal information whilst its processing is restricted if we have your consent or are legally permitted to do so, for example for storage purposes, to protect the rights of another individual or company or in connection with legal proceedings.
15.6 Transferring your personal information in a structured data file ('data portability')
Where we rely on your consent as the legal basis for processing your personal information or need to process it in connection with a contract we have entered into with you, as set out under section 6 on how we use your personal information, you may ask us to provide you with a copy of that information in a structured data file. We will provide this to you electronically in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable form, such as a CSV file.
You can ask us to send your personal information directly to another service provider, and we will do so if this is technically possible. We may not provide you with a copy of your personal information if this concerns other individuals or we have another lawful reason to withhold that information.
15.7 Complaining to the UK data protection regulator
We would like to be able to resolve all your concerns, and we hope that we can do so. Where we have not been able to do this, you have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) if you are concerned about the way we have processed your personal information. Please visit the ICO's website for further details: https://ico.org.uk.
16. Changes to this policy
We may review this policy from time to time and any changes will be notified to you by posting an updated version on our website. We recommend you regularly check for changes and review this policy whenever you visit our website. If you do not agree with any aspect of the updated policy you must immediately notify us and cease using our services.
This policy was last updated on 24/02/2025.