The Society for the Study of Addiction aims to comply with current data protection legislation in the processing of all personal data. It is committed to safeguarding and preserving the privacy of our visitors. Any personal information, such as your name or email address, that you supply, is stored securely and will not be disclosed unlawfully to any other person or organisation.
What information do we collect?
When you use services on our website it will require information about you to fulfil your request. This information may include, but is not limited to, details such as your name, your address and your credit card details. In order to process financial transactions such as membership fees we may ask to enter your bank or card details. This is done through a secure area of our site, and your card details are not stored on our systems.
User data that we may collect and process from our website includes Information about your use of our site including details of your visits such as pages viewed and the resources that you access. Such information includes traffic data, location data and other communication data. This is information that is provided voluntarily by you.
The SSA uses social media (Twitter) to keep our members, those working in addictions, healthcare and interested general public informed about our work, new resources, research, conferences, training and other events. If you engage with SSA via social media your personal data may be stored on that social media site’s servers, which are outside our control.
What are cookies and how do we use them?
Cookies are small amounts of information that are sent from a web server to your browser, stored on your computer’s hard drive and contain basic information relating to an internet site you have visited. We may use cookies to store information about you in order to personalise your contact with us and may gather information about your use of our website through the cookie. Such information will not identify you personally; it is statistical data that does not identify any personal information. Your computer settings can be set to decline any cookies and this can be done through the ‘settings section of your computer. Further advice on this can be found at AboutCookies.org.
Google Analytics is used to allow us to track site visits and to record usage trends over time. Google Analytics uses a cookie to help track which pages are accessed. The cookie contains no personal identifiable information, but it does use your computer’s IP address to determine where in the world you are accessing the site from, and to track your page visits within the site.
Security of personal data
All the data we collect from you on our site is protected against unauthorised access. In addition the information you give us is held on a database in an encrypted system. Appropriate security measures are in place in our physical facilities to protect against the loss, misuse or alteration of information that we have collected from you at our site. Unfortunately, the sending of information via the internet is not totally secure and on occasion such information can be intercepted. We cannot guarantee the security of data that you choose to send us electronically, sending such information is entirely at your own risk.
How do we use your information?
We will use the information you give us within the Society for the Study of Addiction only and to notify you occasionally about important changes to our site, and new services that may be of interest to you. If you would rather not receive this information, please contact us.
We use return email addresses to answer the email we receive. Such addresses are not used for any other purpose and are not shared with outside parties.
Where there are links on our site to other sites, the content of those linked sites is not covered by this privacy policy. These other sites will have separate privacy and data collection practices. We do not have responsibility or liability for these independent policies.
We may disclose information in special cases when we have reason to believe that disclosing this information is reasonably necessary to comply with the law, enforce or apply our terms of business, or protect our rights and those of our users.
As part of the registration process for the SSA newsletter and emails sent to members, we collect personal information. We use that information to keep you informed about SSA activities. We do not rent or trade SSA email lists with other organisations and businesses.
We use a third-party provider, MailChimp, to deliver our newsletter. We gather statistics around email opening and clicks to help us monitor and improve our newsletter. For more information, please see MailChimp’s privacy notice.
You can unsubscribe to general mailings at any time by clicking the unsubscribe link at the bottom of any of our emails or by emailing us.
Access to your Information
In accordance with the Data Protection Act 2018, the UK’s implementation of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), you have the right to obtain confirmation that the SSA has information about you, access to this information and any other supplementary information that we hold relating to you. We aim to keep member information up-to-date.
Should you wish to access any personal information that the SSA holds about you or to correct any inaccuracies, please contact us in one of the following ways:
- Fill in our contact form
- Email our Website Editor, Natalie Davies
- Write to us at: Society for the Study of Addiction, Room 5, Rothersthorpe House, 4 Billing Road, Northampton, NN1 5AN
Requests for such information will be dealt with within one month.
If you would like to make a complaint about how we handle your data, please see our concerns and complaints policy for information on who to contact and what to expect next.
If this does not resolve your complaint to your satisfaction, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioners Office on 03031231113, or via email https://ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/email/, or at the Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire, SK9 5AF, UK.
You also have the right to have your personal data erased in some circumstances. This includes where it is no longer necessary for the purpose it was collected, if consent is withdrawn, there’s no legitimate interest, and if it was unlawfully processed.
We will only hold your information for as long as necessary and will not pass it to any other parties.
Policy last updated May 2018. Contact information updated in July 2023.