British Birds and British Birds Rarities Committee (BBRC)

Privacy & Security Policy

1. About us

BB 2000 Ltd, the company that owns and publishes British Birds, is run by a board of directors, all of whom are volunteers. 

The company is wholly owned by The British Birds Charitable Trust (BBCT, registered charity no. 1089422). Neither the company directors nor the trustees are paid for their services, providing their time and enthusiasm because they passionately believe in the value of BB. The company is managed with a view to making a small profit which can be donated to the Trust to help fund its charitable work.

The British Birds Rarities Committee (BBRC) is a committee of BB 2000 Ltd that adjudicates on records of rare birds in Britain and publishes an annual report in British Birds.

2. Protection

We are committed to protecting your personal information and will keep the information you entrust to us safely and securely. British Birds is registered under the Data Protection Act 1998 and will comply with the provisions of that Act, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR), and other laws that apply.

Whenever you provide personal information, we will treat that information in accordance with this policy, current UK Data Protection legislation and Internet best practice.

We may from time to time decide or be legally obliged to update this Privacy & Security Policy. Any changes will be posted at this site. 

Except as required by law, modifications to this Privacy & Security Policy shall not affect our treatment of data collected prior to the effective date of the Policy change.

3. Information

We may collect personal information from you through enquiry and registration forms and every time you e-mail us your details. We may use this information to personalise aspects of our services, to carry out market research surveys, and to provide you with updates about developments on the site and information about the products we offer.

We collect information from you for the following reasons: 

  • To process an order you make, we collect your name, e-mail address, postal address, phone number and either credit card or bank details.
  • To make your visit more rewarding and useful, we may monitor customer patterns and your use of our website via cookies. Please see the information below on cookies.
  • Should you consent, we may use personal information to contact you with details of our products or to undertake research by e-mail, mail and telephone. If you do not wish to receive information about our products or services, please e-mail us at the address set out below.
  • If you apply for a position with us (for example, as director, adviser, staff member, committee member or consultant), we may collect personal information in connection with that application. We may use that information for the purpose of assessing and processing your application.
  • BBRC collects contact details from observers to assist with the recording of rare birds.

By submitting your personal information, you consent to such processing and transfers in connection with such orders, offers, applications or services and for any other purposes to which you consent at the time you provide the information. 

We will only process your personal data where we have a lawful basis for doing so. In the case of information used to fulfill your subscription to British Birds, the basis will be that the processing is necessary for a contract that British Birds has with you.  In other cases, the lawful basis is that processing such data is necessary for the legitimate interests of British Birds. These interests are:

  • To manage relationships with subscribers, staff, donors to and recipients of grants from BBCT and partners, and to deal with commercial interactions
  • To manage the publication of British Birds and to maintain its position as a journal of record
  • To enable us periodically to send information about British Birds which we think you may find relevant, subject to compliance with applicable rules on direct marketing
  • To select and engage staff, directors, advisers and service providers for British Birds, BBRC and our other committees and boards
  • In the case of BBRC, to maintain a record of rare birds

We balance these legitimate interests with your rights as data subjects under GDPR and PERC.

We will only store your personal information for as long as it is required for the purpose for which it was collected. This will depend on the nature of the information and the use that is made of it. We will carry out regular reviews and delete personal information that is no longer needed.

4. Cookies

We may use ‘cookies’ to identify you when you visit our websites. A cookie is a small file that can be stored by your browser on your computer’s hard disk or on a website server. Our cookies do not in themselves recognise the individual user but will recognise the computer you are using so that we know when you are returning to the British Birds website and provide demographic data and browsing patterns. This information is only used for statistical purposes to help improve our sites and provide accurate statistics to advertisers (if any) in the form of aggregated data. Such cookies do not retrieve information about you stored on your hard drive and do not corrupt or damage your computer or computer files. You are not obliged to accept a cookie that we send you, and you can in fact modify your browser’s setup so that it will not accept cookies.

If you disable the use of cookies in your browser, we cannot guarantee that all parts of our website will work.

5. Disclosing information to others

We will not disclose any information we hold about you to any third party without your permission. However, please note that in order to process your data we may on occasion be required to share your information with other companies or any suppliers we engage to provide services which involve processing data on our behalf.

We employ other companies to perform functions on our behalf, including fulfilling orders, sending e-mails and postal mail, and analysing data. We will ensure that these companies only use such information under our direction to perform these functions, and that they have adequate procedures in place to deal with your data securely. Some of these companies may be based outside the EU. If we transfer your data to these companies, we will ensure that they process your data in accordance with this Privacy & Security Policy and the Data Protection Act.

Please be aware that we cannot guarantee that third party services accessible through this website operate the same Privacy & Security Policy. 

6. Young people

British Birds welcomes engagement with young people and is keen to encourage their involvement with birds. Subscription requests received directly from a person aged under 16 will require parental permission.

7. Your rights

You have the right to confirmation as to whether we have your personal information. If we do, you can check that the information which we are holding is accurate by e-mailing us at the address below. You have the right to request that we remove some or all of your personal information; to do so, please contact as described above.

You have the right to have any inaccurate personal information corrected, and/or to specify some of the purposes for which we may contact you and/or the channels that we may use to make contact; to do so, please contact as described above.

Even if you have consented to receive marketing information from us, you can request that we do not contact you with further information by e-mailing us as above.

If you believe that we have infringed any of your data protection or privacy rights, you can complain to the UK Information Commissioner’s Office. Details of how to do this can be found at www.ico.org.uk.

8. Security

We use up-to-date storage and security techniques to protect your personal information from unauthorised access, improper use or disclosure, unauthorised modification or unlawful destruction or accidental loss. All our employees and any suppliers we engage to process your data are obliged to respect the confidentiality of your information.

If you have any questions concerning this Privacy & Security Policy or would like us to amend or destroy your details, please contact us using the details below.

9. Financial security

All British Birds forms which request credit card or bank details use the SSL (secure sockets layer) protocol for encryption. Most browsers (including current versions of Microsoft Explorer and Netscape Navigator) support SSL. The link between your browser and the server is secure if your browser displays a small padlock or key symbol somewhere in the frame, or the address bar shows a web address beginning https:// (rather than http://).

10. Links to third-party websites

The British Birds website contains hyperlinks to many other websites. This information is supplied in good faith, in case it is of interest, or use, to our website users. We are not responsible for the content or functionality of any of these external websites – but please let us know if a link is not working by using Feedback on the main menu.

Visitors to our websites should be aware of the following:

If an external website requests personal information from you (e.g., in connection with an order for goods or services), this information is supplied to, stored and used by the company concerned – it is not covered by our Privacy & Security Policy. It is good practice to read the privacy policy of any website at which you are considering registering any personal information.

In purchasing goods or services from any of the companies to which our website links, you are forming a contract with the company(s) concerned (agreeing to their Terms & Conditions), not British Birds.

11. Contact

If you have any queries, you can contact us at:

British Birds Production & Circulation 
4 Harlequin Gardens, St Leonards on Sea, East Sussex TN37 7PF

E-mail: [email protected]   Tel: 01424 755155

You can contact the BBRC Secretary at: [email protected]

Updated: 25th March 2021

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