Privacy Policy

The Southampton University Wireless Society (SUWS) is committed to protecting the privacy and security of your personal information. This privacy policy describes how we collect and use personal information about you during and after your working relationship with us, in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). It applies to all members of the organisation.

The Southampton University Wireless Society (SUWS) is a "data controller". This means that we are responsible for deciding how we hold and use personal information about you. We are required under data protection legislation to notify you of the information contained in this privacy notice. The person responsible for data protection within our organisation is the Secretary who can be contacted via our Contact Us page.

This notice applies to current and former members. This notice does not form part of any contract to provide services. We may update this notice at any time. When changes are made to this document we will inform you electronically of the update.

It is important that you read this notice, together with any other privacy notice we may provide on specific occasions when we are collecting or processing personal information about you, so that you are aware of how and why we are using such information.

Data protection principles

We will comply with data protection law. This says that the personal information we hold about you must be:

1. Used lawfully, fairly and in a transparent way.

2. Collected only for valid purposes that we have clearly explained to you and not used in any way that is incompatible with those purposes.

Do we need your consent?

We do not need your consent if we use special categories of your personal information in accordance with our written policy to carry out our legal obligations or exercise specific rights in the field of law. In limited circumstances, we may approach you for your written consent to allow us to process certain particularly sensitive data. If we do so, we will provide you with full details of the information that we would like and the reason we need it, so that you can carefully consider whether you wish to consent.

Information about criminal convictions

We may only use information relating to criminal convictions where the law allows us to do so. This will usually be where such processing is necessary to carry out our obligations and provided we do so in line with our privacy standard.

Less commonly, we may use information relating to criminal convictions where it is necessary in relation to legal claims, where it is necessary to protect your interests (or someone else's interests) and you are not capable of giving your consent, or where you have already made the information public. We may also process such information about members or former members in the course of legitimate membership activities with the appropriate safeguards.

3. Relevant to the purposes we have told you about and limited only to those purposes.

4. Accurate and kept up-to-date.

5. Kept only as long as necessary for the purposes we have told you about.

6. Kept securely.

The kind of information we hold about you

Personal data, or personal information, means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified. It does not include data where the identity has been removed (anonymous data).

There are "special categories" of more sensitive personal data which require a higher level of protection.

We may collect, store, and use the following categories of personal information about you:

Personal contact details such as name, nicknames, title, addresses, telephone numbers, and email addresses.
Student ID number.
Information about your use of our information and communications systems.
Photographs.
Biometric data (such as T-shirt size).
Amateur Radio licence status and callsigns.
Amateur Radio exam results.
Amateur Radio examiner accreditation.
Bank account details.
Mailing list email communications.
Version control commit histories.
Public web posts.

We may also collect, store and use the following "special categories" of more sensitive personal information:

Information about your health, including any medical condition, health and sickness records.

How is your personal information collected?

We typically collect personal information about members through the membership joining process directly from members. We may sometimes collect additional information from third parties including the University of Southampton and the University of Southampton Students' Union.

We may collect additional personal information in the course of member-related activities throughout the period of your membership with us.

How we will use information about you

We will only use your personal information when the law allows us to. Most commonly, we will use your personal information in the following circumstances:

1. Where we need to perform the contract we have entered into with you.

2. Where we need to comply with a legal obligation.

3. Where it is necessary for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests.

4. Where you are a significant member of the organisation that we need to introduce to a customer or other third party.

We may also use your personal information in the following situations, which are likely to be rare:

1. Where we need to protect your interests (or someone else's interests).

2. Where it is needed in the public interest or for official purposes.

Situations in which we will use your personal information

We need all the categories of information in the list above, primarily to allow us to perform our contract with you and to enable us to comply with legal obligations. In some cases, we may use your personal information to pursue legitimate interests of our own or those of third parties, provided your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests. The situations in which we will process your personal information are listed below.

Administering the contract that we have entered into with you.
Maintaining your personal details including ensuring effective communications with you.
Keeping financial records.
Assessing qualifications for a particular task.
Maintaining a formal record of your activities with us.
Training and development requirements.
Dealing with other third parties to whom your identity and background information is important.
Dealing with legal disputes involving you, or other members, including accidents.
Complying with health and safety obligations.
To prevent fraud.
To ensure network and information security, including preventing unauthorised access to our computer and electronic communications systems and preventing malicious software distribution.
Equal opportunities monitoring.
Managing society alumni relations and fundraising.
Managing complaints made to us.
Some of the above grounds for processing will overlap and there may be several grounds which justify our use of your personal information.

If you fail to provide personal information

If you fail to provide certain information when requested, we may not be able to perform the contract we have entered into with you (such as providing access to our activities), or we may be prevented from complying with our legal obligations (such as to ensure the health and safety of our members).

Change of purpose

We will only use your personal information for the purposes for which we collected it, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose. If we need to use your personal information for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and we will explain the legal basis which allows us to do so.

Please note that we may process your personal information without your knowledge or consent, in compliance with the above rules, where this is required or permitted by law.

How we use particularly sensitive personal information

"Special categories" of particularly sensitive personal information require higher levels of protection. We need to have further justification for collecting, storing and using this type of personal information. We may process special categories of personal information in the following circumstances:

1. In limited circumstances, with your explicit written consent.

2. Where we need to carry out our legal obligations and in line with our privacy standard.

3. Where it is needed in the public interest, such as for equal opportunities monitoring or in relation to our occupational pension scheme, and in line with our privacy standard.

4. Where it is needed to assess your working capacity on health grounds, subject to appropriate confidentiality safeguards.

Less commonly, we may process this type of information where it is needed in relation to legal claims or where it is needed to protect your interests (or someone else's interests) and you are not capable of giving your consent, or where you have already made the information public. We may also process such information about members or former members in the course of legitimate business activities with the appropriate safeguards.