Privacy notice for the public

The College is the data controller for the information you provide when you make contact with us.

If you have any queries about the process or how we handle your information, please contact us at dataprotection@rcpsych.ac.uk

What will we do with the information you provide to us?

All of the information you provide will only be used for the purpose for which you provided it or to fulfil business, legal or regulatory requirements if necessary. We may disclose information to regulatory bodies if requested.

We will not share any of the information you provide with any third parties for marketing purposes or store any of your information outside of the European Economic Area.

The information you provide will be held securely by us and/or our data processors whether the information is in electronic or physical format.

We will use the contact details you provide to us to contact you and in connection with any ongoing relationship with the College.

What information do we ask for, and why?

We do not collect more information than we need to fulfil our stated purposes and will not retain it for longer than is necessary.

The information we ask for is used to maintain a record of you and to contact you.

We will process:

  • Contact details
  • You may also be asked to provide equal opportunities information, so we can promote equality and diversity. This is not mandatory information – if you don’t provide it, it will not affect your status with the College. This information will not be made available to any staff outside of the College in a way which can identify you. Any information you do provide will be used only to produce and monitor anonymous equal opportunities statistics and to promote diversity and equality
  • Banking details for payment received from the College or payment which you make to the College.
  • Committee status
  • Photographs taken at events
  • Attendance at events
  • Attendance at Mental Health service events.

Use of data processors 

Data processors are third parties who process data for us. We have contracts in place with our data processors.

This means that they cannot do anything with your personal information unless we have instructed them to do it.

They will not share your personal information with any organisation apart from us. They will hold it securely and retain it for the period we instruct. 

The data processors we use are:

  • External events providers e.g. conference locations
  • Organisations which manage financial transactions
  • Software providers/hosts for databases which hold your personal data.

How long is the information retained for?

There are varying retention periods for the information held by the College, these are reflected in the College Records retention schedules.

Some information is kept indefinitely; for example, patient consent forms used by the Publications and eLearning department.

Legal basis for processing

As a membership organisation, the processing of personal data is necessary in order for us to pursue our legitimate interests.

Your rights

Under the Data Protection Act 2018, and General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), you have rights as an individual which you can exercise in relation to the information we hold about you.

Access to personal information

Members can find out what personal information we hold by making a ‘subject access request’ under the Data Protection legislation. If we do hold information about you, we will:

  • give you a description of it
  • tell you why we are holding it
  • tell you who it could be disclosed to
  • let you have a copy of the information in an intelligible form.

To make a request for any personal information we may hold you need to put the request in writing addressing it to our Data Protection Officer, at the address provided below.

If you agree, we will try to deal with your request informally, for example by providing you with the specific information you need over the telephone.

Other Rights

If we do hold personal data about you, you can:

  • Ask for incorrect data to be amended
  • Ask for data to be erased where there is no longer an ongoing need for processing
  • Ask for access to your data to be restricted
  • Ask for a copy of your personal data in a format that allows you to easily transfer it into another organisation
  • Object to the processing of your personal data and your objection will be considered.

If you wish to exercise any of these rights, please contact us using the details below.

Complaints or queries

The College takes any complaints we receive about the way in which we use personal data very seriously.

We encourage people to bring it to our attention if they think that our collection or use of information is unfair, misleading or inappropriate.

If you want to make a complaint about the way we have processed your personal information you can contact us using the details at the bottom of this notice.

You can also complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office directly:

ico.org.uk

0303 123 1113

Wycliffe House

Waterlane

Wilmslow

Cheshire

SK9 5AF

Changes to this privacy notice

 

We keep our privacy notice under regular review. This Privacy Notice was last updated in August 2020.

How to contact us

If you wish to request information about our privacy policy you can email us at dataprotection@rcpsych.ac.uk or write to us at the below address:

Data Protection Officer

Royal College of Psychiatrists

21 Prescot Street

London

E1 8BB

 

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