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Privacy Notice

All materials contained within The British Horse Society website (www.bhs.org.uk) are covered by a disclaimer and protected by copyright laws.

DATA PROTECTION

The British Horse Society (BHS) is a data controller registered with the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (Registration Number: Z695351X).

Keeping your personal information safe is very important to us.  We are committed to complying with privacy and data protection laws and being transparent about how we process personal data.

We have policies, procedures and training in place to help our employees and volunteers understand their data protection responsibilities and follow the data protection principles. 

We have a nominated member of staff who serves as our Data Protection Lead. If you have any questions regarding our Privacy Policy, please email dataprotection@bhs.org.uk.

This privacy policy relates to our use of any personal information we process about you.

HOW WE COLLECT PERSONAL DATA

We may collect your personal data in different ways, for example:

  • When you, your parent or guardian, your tutor or coach communicate with us by post, telephone, SMS, email or via our website
  • From our riding clubs, who forward us your information when you join them so that you are also enrolled as a member of British Riding Clubs
  • From the information you provide to us when you make an application to work for us, or from third parties such as your previous or current employers so we can verify details about you
  • As you interact with us in other ways; as a contractor, or in any other capacity  

HOW WE USE PERSONAL INFORMATION

We may collect your personal data in different ways, for example:

  • Membership applications, administration and renewals
  • Informing non-members about BHS events and services
  • Provision of training courses to individuals (who are or will become a BHS member to join the course)
  • Provision of exams to individuals (who are or will become a BHS member to take the exam)
  • Running events and camps
  • Accredited Professional Coach applications and ongoing management/administration/assessment
  • Applications and provision of scholarships and bursaries
  • Registration and affiliation of riding clubs, schools, and livery yards (to proprietors who are or will become members to fulfil the accreditation requirements)
  • Managing and responding to horse welfare issues
  • Fulfilling purchases from our online shop
  • Legacies management
  • Processing donations
  • Dealing with complaints and appeals
  • Undertaking Ride Safe Award assessments
  • Providing our Buddy Scheme
  • Providing horse passports
  • Undertaking governance - trustee and committee members, elections
  • Undertaking safeguarding activities including DBS checks and casework
  • Recording safety incidents and accidents
  • Carrying out surveys
  • Processing expenses
  • Employee administration
  • Employee and volunteer recruitment
  • Managing Public Rights of Way & Access Issues
  • Providing ‘Henry The Mechanical Horse’ activities
  • Running competitions

We only collect personal information that we genuinely need. This may include:

  • Contact details such as name address, email address and phone numbers
  • Credit card details and any purchases you have made
  • Date of birth and gender
  • Any Special Educational Needs (SEN) requirements for exams including relevant medical records
  • Dietary requirements where this is required for catering
  • Qualifications
  • Name of your parent or guardian (if you are under 18)
  • Name and contact details of any next of kin where you are attending an event and are riding/carriage driving
  • Nationality

In respect of job applicants, we may also collect:

  • Your bank account details, tax and residency status
  • References from previous employers or educational institutions
  • Contact details for your family members and next of kin
  • Information concerning your health and medical conditions
  • Information about your race, ethnicity and sexual orientation
  • Details of criminal convictions

Membership applications, administration and renewals

We will use the information that you provide to us to process your membership application and renew your application if appropriate. We will email and post you information about events, courses, our services and other items of interest, as part of your membership. You can opt out or unsubscribe from receiving this information if you wish. Our legal basis for using your personal information in this way is for the performance of a contract.

Informing non-members about BHS events and services

If you opt in to our mailing list we will use the information that you provide to email and post you information about our events, courses, our services and other items of interest. You can opt out or unsubscribe from receiving this information at any time if you wish. Our legal basis for using your personal information in this way is consent.

Provision of training courses to individuals (who are or will become a BHS member to join the course)

If you sign up to one of our training courses, we will use the information that you provide to us to process your registration and provide the course to you. Our legal basis for using your personal information in this way is for the performance of a contract.

Provision of assessments to individuals (who are or will become a BHS member to take the exam)

If you apply to undertake one of our exams, we will use your information provided to us to process your application and enable you to undertake the exam. This will include sharing some of your information with the examiner. It may also include sharing your results with your trainer / coach, and collecting and sharing medical information with your examiner if you choose to provide that to us and if it is necessary. Our legal basis for using your personal information in this way is for the performance of a contract.

Running events and camps

If you register for one of our events or camps, we will use your information provided to us to process your registration and enable you to attend the event or camp. This will include sharing some of your information with our volunteers that run the event or camps. It may also include collecting and sharing medical information with them if you choose to provide that to us. Our legal basis for using your personal information in this way is for the performance of a contract.

If you choose to provide us with your dietary requirements we may share them with third parties that we use to provide catering at our events.

Applications for, and ongoing administration, management and assessments of Accredited Professional Coaches

If you apply to be an Accredited Professional Coach, we will use your information to process your application. This will include sharing relevant information with our Assessors. We will continue to use your personal information to administer and manage your accreditation and carry out ongoing assessments. Our legal basis for using your personal information in this way is for the performance of a contract.

Applications and provision of scholarships and bursaries

If you apply to for one of our scholarships or bursaries, we will use your information provided to us to process your application, and if appropriate, administer and manage the award. Our legal basis for using your personal information for this purpose is to fulfil our legitimate interest as an award giving organisation. This will include sharing some of your information with the respective coach/centre – as appropriate to the scholarship or bursary. 

Registration and affiliation of riding clubs, schools, and livery yards (to proprietors who are or will become members to fulfil the accreditation requirements)

If you register for affiliation with us, we will use the information you provide to us to process your registration and manage your affiliation. Our legal basis for using your personal information for this purpose is for the performance of a contract.

Managing and responding to horse welfare issues

We will record and use relevant personal information provided to us relating to potential horse welfare issues and concerns. Where necessary, we will share relevant personal information with other organisations such as the RSPCA and the police. Our legal basis for using information for this purpose is that processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in the controller (Animal Welfare Act 2006 Section 12 - Regulations To Promote Welfare).

Fulfilling purchases from our online shop

If you choose to make a purchase from our online shop, we will use your information you provide to fulfil your purchase. Our legal basis for using your personal information for this purpose is for the performance of a contract.

We use Sagepay to process payments.

We will share relevant information with our order fulfilment house to deliver your purchase. We may occasionally also use your contact information to email you information about similar products that you might be interested in. You can choose to unsubscribe from receiving these communications at any time.

Legacies management

If you kindly make a legacy pledge to us, we will use your personal information to manage your legacy. Our legal basis for using your personal information for this purpose is to fulfil our legitimate interest and fundraising objective. 

Processing donations

If you kindly donate to us, we will use your personal information to collect your donation and maintain a record of our supporters. Our legal basis for using your personal information for this purpose is to fulfil our legitimate interest and fundraising objective. 

Dealing with complaints and appeals

If a complaint or an appeal is raised with us, we will process the personal information that is provided to us to manage and resolve the complaint or appeal. This may include sharing relevant information with an affiliated organisation, such as The BEF or a riding club, a coach, welfare officer or other organisation, depending upon the nature of the complaint and the area it relates to. Our legal basis for using personal information for this purpose is to fulfil our legitimate interest and fulfil our objective of resolving complaints in a careful and appropriate manner.

Undertaking Ride Safe Award assessments

If you choose to apply to undergo a Ride Safe Assessments, we use the personal information that you provide to process your application and enable you to undertake the assessment. Our legal basis for using this information is for the performance of a contract. 

Providing horse passports

We collect and use personal information to issue, replace and amend horse passports. Our legal basis for using personal information for this purpose is for the performance of a contract. We will share some personal information with DEFRA under the lawful basis of legal obligation.

Undertaking governance

We process relevant personal information about existing and potential trustee and committee members for governance purposes, including elections. This might include undertaking DBS and other checks to identify any criminal and other activity we need to be aware of to ensure that we select appropriate trustees and committee members. Our legal basis for this processing is to meet our legal obligations with the Charity Commission and Companies House.  

Undertaking safeguarding activities including DBS checks and casework

When necessary, we process relevant personal information about members, volunteers, coaches, employees or other individuals for safeguarding purposes. This might include undertaking DBS and other checks to identify any relevant criminal activity. The lawful basis for processing data for DBS checks is:

  • DBS checks carried out on behalf of other organisations: 6(1)(b) – Contract
  • DBS checks carried out on British Horse Society staff or volunteers: 6(1)(c) – Legal Obligation

We may also process personal data as part of safeguarding casework activities. This data may relate to the reporter of an allegation, the victim of an allegation or the alleged perpetrator. It may be necessary to share some personal information with relevant authorities such as the Police, The Safeguarding Advisory Board and an appropriate member of the respective Member Body – such as The BEF, The Pony Club or a BRC Riding Club (as appropriate to the specific safeguarding activity). Data sharing will only be carried out where there is a reasonable belief that the transfer of any data could prevent further criminal activity.

The lawful basis for processing data for these safeguarding activities, in order to protect young people and vulnerable adults, is

  • 6(1)(e) – Processing is necessary for the performance of a task carried out in the public interest or in the exercise of official authority vested in the controller

Special Category data is processed under article 9 (2) (g) of the GDPR – Processing is necessary for reasons of substantial public interest - and Parts 1-3 of Schedule 1 of the Data Protection Act 2018.

Recording safety incidents and accidents

We record and retain relevant personal information about accidents, incidents and near misses that are reported to us. Our legal basis for this processing is to fulfil our legitimate interest and organisational objective to ensure every horse and rider is as safe as possible.   We analyse the information provided to us and use the statistics to lobby those in power to make the changes that are required to ensure riding is safer for all.

Carrying out surveys

If you choose to take part in one of our surveys, we will use the personal information that you provide to process the results of the survey and undertake analysis. We will not share the personal information that you provide in a survey with any other organisations. Survey results will be anonymised before being shared or published. Our legal basis for using personal information for this purpose is to fulfil our legitimate interest.

Processing expenses

We will use your personal information including your bank account details to process expense claims. Our legal basis for using your information for this is for the performance of a contract. 

Employee administration and professional development of staff

We will process personal information of our employees to fulfil our contract with them. This includes payroll processing and the provision of training. We are required by law to share some financial information with the HMRC. We may also need to share some personal information with other organisations, for example solicitors, pension providers. Our legal basis for using your information for this is for the performance of a contract.

Employee and volunteer recruitment

If you provide us with information about yourself, such as a resume or curriculum vitae, in connection with a job or volunteer application or enquiry, we may use this information to process your enquiry. We will not store this information for any purpose other than that relating to your application. Our legal basis for using your information in this way is for our legitimate interest.

Managing Public Rights of Way & Access Issues

We are a statutory consultee for public path orders, and we respond to planning issues. As a volunteer, your personal information may be used in order to assist in the response to these applications. Volunteers’ personal data may also be used in the administration of affiliated ‘Access’ groups. Our legal basis for this processing is to fulfil our legitimate interest and organisational objective to ensure every horse and rider are as safe as possible. We analyse the information provided to us and use the statistics to lobby those in power to make the changes that are required to ensure riding is safer for all.

Providing Henry The Mechanical Horse activities

If you choose to take part in an activity with Henry The Mechanical Horse, we will use the personal information that you provide to process the results of the survey and undertake analysis. We will not share the personal information that you provide in a survey with any other organisations. Survey results will be anonymised before being shared or published. Our legal basis for using personal information for this purpose is consent.

Running competitions

If you choose to take part in a competition run by The British Horse Society, we will use the personal information that you provide to administer the competition, inform the winners and carry out some publicity involving the winners. This may be on our website, in our magazine or on Social Media platforms. We will not share the personal information that you provide in a survey with any other organisations unless we have your explicit consent to do so. Our legal basis for using personal information for this purpose is for our legitimate interest.

General Statement About Using Agencies To Update Contact Information

The British Horse Society may make use of profiling and screening methods to produce relevant communications and provide a better experience for our members. Profiling can help us target our resources more effectively by gaining an insight into the background of our members and helping us to build relationships that are appropriate to your interests and capacity to give.

To do this we may use external data sources, such as telephone look up, via carefully selected agencies. This helps us meet one of the requirements of GDPR - Article 5.1.(d):  Personal data should be accurate and, where necessary, kept up to date. 

This may include obtaining details of changes of address, date of birth, telephone numbers and other contact details, information related to your wealth, and consumption and demographic data generated through the MOSAIC geodemographic tool. It may also include information from public registers and other publicly available sources such as Companies House, newspapers and magazines.

For mailing and telephone based direct marketing campaigns, we may contact you by telephone and mailing campaigns under legitimate interest. We will not contact you if you are registered with the Telephone Preference Service (TPS) or Mail Preference Service (MPS) unless you have given us opt in consent that you are happy to receive calls or mailings from us.

You may still receive other types of telephone calls or mailings from us if you are on the Telephone Preference Service (TPS) or Mail Preference Service (MPS) as long as they are not for marketing purposes and are admin based, such as checking your direct debit mandate or Gift Aid status, welcome calls and thank you calls or mailings.

We do outsource some of the telephone calling we carry out as well as mailing programs, but we will only ever use carefully selected organisations which operate in a sympathetic manner to The British Horse Society. All Third Parties are subject to suitable Data Processing agreements and comply with DPA 2018 and the GDPR requirements relating to processing personal data.

 

 

COOKIES AND AGGREGATE INFORMATION COLLECTED FROM BHS.ORG.UK

We use cookies and log files on our website to store information about how you use our website. A cookie is a piece of data stored on the user’s computer tied to information about the user.  This enables us to create a profile which details your viewing preferences. We use your profile to tailor your visit to our website, to make navigation easier and direct you to information that best corresponds to your interests and country.  

Aggregate information is collected from users using our own web tracker. This information includes users' Internet Protocol (IP) addresses, browser type, internet service provider (ISP), referring/exit pages, platform type, date/time of visit, number of clicks, error pages and number of unique visits. 

This information is not linked to personal profiles or to personally identifiable information provided by users.  We use it to analyse visitor trends and use of our website, administer the website and to gather broad demographic information of our website users. Our legal basis for using your information in this way is for our legitimate interest.

 

OUR LEGAL BASIS FOR PROCESSING PERSONAL INFORMATION

We use a number of different lawful basis in order to collect, hold and use personal data. These are outlined in the relevant sections above.

We may process personal information because it is necessary for the performance of a contract to which you are a party (or to take steps at your request prior to entering a contract). For example, we may process your personal data:

  • To issue or administer a membership
  • To administer a training course and award a qualification
  • To supply merchandise you have ordered from our online shop

We may collect and use your personal data if it is necessary for our legitimate interest and so long as its use is fair, balanced and does not unduly impact your rights.

We will ask for your consent to send you marketing emails and text messages. You can withdraw consent for this at any time.

Usually we will only process sensitive personal data if we have your explicit consent. However, we may process special category data in order to carry out safeguarding activities to protect young people and vulnerable adults. The lawful basis for this is article 9 (2) (g) of the GDPR and Schedule 1, Parts 1-3 of the Data Protection Act 2018.

 

SHARING PERSONAL INFORMATION

We will only share your personal information where we are required to fulfil our contract with you, or legitimate interest, where we have your consent, there is substantial public interest or we are required to do so by law.

We may share your personal information with third party organisations who will process it on our behalf, for example a mailing house, our website administrator or printers.

If necessary, we may also share your information with caterers, course providers, referees, and coaches.

We may also share your information with our bank to process a payment; our professional advisers (such as our legal advisers) where it is necessary to obtain their advice; and our IT support and data storage providers.

We process employee personal information to fulfil our contracts with our employees and meet our legal obligations as an employer.

Where required, we will process personal information to comply with our legal obligations. In this respect we may use your personal data to comply with subject access requests; tax legislation; for the prevention and detection of crime; and to assist the police and other competent authorities with investigations including criminal and safeguarding investigations.

In extreme situations, we may share your personal details with the emergency services if we believe it is in your ‘vital interests’ to do so. For example, if someone is hurt or taken ill during one of our events.

Very occasionally we may share personal data with the relevant authorities, such as the Police, The Safeguarding Advisory Board and an appropriate member of the respective Member Body – such as The BEF, The Pony Club or a BRC Riding Club (as appropriate to the specific safeguarding activity). Data sharing will only be carried out where there is a reasonable belief that the transfer of any data could prevent further criminal activity.

 

TRANSFERRING PERSONAL DATA OUTSIDE OF THE EEA

We may need to collect or send some personal information outside of the EEA, for example for horse passports. If we transfer personal information to countries or jurisdictions which do not have a similar standard of data protection law in place, we will only do so to fulfil our contract with you and we inform you in advance of the need to transfer the information. For information about international transfers of personal data, you can contact the Data Protection Lead at dataprotection@bhs.org.uk

BHS INTERNATIONAL

Information belonging to non-EU citizens - who are physically within the borders of the EU at the time of processing of their personal data - is covered by GDPR, and by this Privacy Policy.

Information belonging to both EU and non-EU citizens - who are physically outside of the borders of the EU at the time of processing – is covered by GDPR, and by this Privacy Policy. These individuals are Data Subjects under GDPR because The British Horse Society is an organisation “established” in the EU.

 

YOUR RIGHTS

If you no longer wish to receive communications about products and services from us, please contact contactpreferences@bhs.org.uk. You can also unsubscribe at any time to emails that we may send to you about the products and services that we think will be of interest to you.

You also have the right to:

  • Request a copy of the information we hold about you. Requests should be addressed to dataprotection@bhs.org.uk. We will respond within one calendar month of receiving your written request.
  • Tell us to change or correct your personal information if it is incomplete or inaccurate. Please contact us at contactpreferences@bhs.org.uk
  • Ask us to restrict our processing of your personal data or to delete your personal data if there is no compelling reason for us to continue using or holding this information. Please contact us at dataprotection@bhs.org.uk
  • Receive from us the personal information we hold about you which you have provided to us, in a reasonable format specified by you, so that you can send it to another organisation. Please contact us at dataprotection@bhs.org.uk
  • Object, on grounds relating to your specific situation, to any of our processing activities where you feel this has a disproportionate impact on you. Please contact us at dataprotection@bhs.org.uk

Please note that we may be entitled to refuse requests where exceptions apply: for example, if we have reason to believe that the personal data we hold is accurate or we can show our processing is necessary for a lawful purpose set out in this Privacy Policy.

CHANGES TO THIS POLICY

This Privacy Policy may change from time to time. Where practical we will provide you with an updated Privacy Policy from time to time. However, we also recommend that you please visit this webpage periodically to keep up-to-date with the changes in our Privacy Policy..

 

MAKING A COMPLAINT TO THE INFORMATION COMMISSIONER’S OFFICE

If you are not satisfied with our response to any query you raise with us, or you believe we are processing your personal data in a way which is inconsistent with the law, you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office whose helpline number is: 0303 123 1113.

Social Community Guidelines

We encourage conversation and debate on this page but we ask that you keep the discussion respectful.

We reserve the right to take down photos, comments and other material deemed to break our guidelines. This includes, but is not limited to:

  • Any harassment and discrimination, or abusive and vulgar language.
  • Defamatory or misleading information.
  • Graphic, disturbing or explicit media.
  • Encouraging or promoting illegal activity.
  • Third party advertisements or endorsements.
  • Personal information or anything in violation of any intellectual property right of another.

Individuals who repeatedly violate any of these rules may be blocked from further participation.

The content posted and shared by individuals on this page does not represent the official views of The British Horse Society.

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