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Privacy Policy

BDS Online Privacy Policy

How we treat your information

BDS is committed to protecting the privacy and security of BDS members and visitors to the BDS website.

Your right to privacy is of the utmost importance to us. We appreciate the personal nature of information you provide us and we acknowledge that it is our responsibility to protect that information. If you have any questions regarding our Online Privacy Policy, we encourage you to contact us.


Collection and use of your information
1. What information do we collect?

We collect information from you when you register on our site or place an order. You are required to provide us with certain personal information such as your name and email address to help us provide a safe and effective service. Information provided during your visit to the BDS website is collected for internal purposes only and is not shared with other organisations for commercial purposes.

2. ​What do we use this information for?

Any of the information we collect from you may be used in the following ways:

3. ​Join a group / find a book club

You are required to give your contact details when you register on the 'join a group' part of the website. BDS collects and stores your name, email address, general location and phone number (if given) and anything you choose to enter about yourself. Of this information, only your name, message and general location will be displayed on the site. Your phone number is optional and so will be displayed only if given.

You are able to send private messages via the website to other people with the aim of finding or joining a book group. Your email address will not be publicly available, nor will it be given to the person contacting you.

While we monitor exchanges sent through the 'join a group' part of the website, BDS does not have control over what the recipient does with the information provided to them so please proceed with caution.

Unsolicited messages not directly related to the joining or forming of book groups are strictly monitored and will be removed. If you receive an inquiry that looks suspicious or contains advertising, please notify BDS immediately. Organisations wishing to connect with or advertise BDS members should contact BDS directly.

Email

Where you provide an email address for membership, or opt-in via one of our sign-up forms, this may be used to send you information and updates pertaining to your membership, in addition to receiving newsletters, updates, special offers, and relevant news of a literary and cultural nature. If you do not wish to receive any promotional emails or special offers, please contact us and ask to be put on the 'official mail only' list. The BDS does, however, reserve the right to send emails to coordinators concerning BDS-related news and updates and this includes the quarterly BDS newsletter, FOOTNOTE.

If you are no longer a coordinator, you can unsubscribe from our mailing list entirely by using the link provided in our email communications, or by getting in contact with us directly.

Control of your password

Coordinators are responsible for all actions taken with their login details (email address and password) so please keep these confidential.

Security of your information

We offer services and products that require the provision of financial information such as a credit card number. We implement a variety of security measures to maintain the safety of your personal information when you place an order or you enter, submit or access your personal information.

We offer the use of a secure server. All supplied sensitive/credit card information is transmitted via Secure Socket Layer (SSL) technology and then encrypted into our Payment gateway providers’ database, only to be accessible by those authorised with special access rights to such systems. They are required to keep the information confidential.

After a transaction, your private information (credit cards, financials, etc) will not be stored on our servers.

Use of Cookies

We do use cookies. Cookies are small files that a site or its service provider transfers to your computer’s hard drive through your web browser (if you allow) that enables the sites or service provider’s systems to recognise your browser and capture and remember certain information.

We use cookies to help us remember and process the items in your shopping cart and compile aggregate data about site-traffic and site interaction so that we can offer better site experiences and tools in the future. We may contract with third-party service providers to assist us in better understanding our site visitors. These service providers are not permitted to use the information collected on our behalf except to help us conduct and improve our business.

If you prefer, you can choose to have your computer warn your each time a cookie is being sent, or you can choose to turn off all cookies via your browser settings. Like most websites, if you turn your cookies off, some of our services may not function properly. However, you can still place orders over the telephone or by contacting us directly.

Do We Disclose any Information to Outside Parties?

We do not sell, trade or otherwise transfer to outside parties your personally identifiable information. This does not include trusted third parties who assist us in operating our website or conducting our business, so long as those parties agree to keep this information confidential. We may also release your information when we believe release is appropriate to comply with the law, enforce our site policies, or protect ours or others’ rights, property, or safety. However, non-personally identifiable information may be provided to other parties for marketing, advertising, or other uses.

Third-party links

Occasionally, at our discretion, we may include or offer third-party products or services on our website. These third party sites have separate and independent privacy policies. We therefore have no responsibility or liability for the content and activities of these linked sites. Nonetheless, we seek to protect the integrity of our site and welcome any feedback about these sites.

Online Privacy Policy Only

This Online Privacy Policy applies only to information collected through our website and not to any information collected offline.

BDS Terms and Conditions

You can read our Terms and Conditions here.

Your Consent

By using our website, you consent to our Online Privacy Policy.

Changes to Our Online Privacy Policy

If we decide to change our Online Privacy Policy, we will post those changes on this page, and/or update the Online Privacy Policy modification date below.

This policy was last modified on 6 July 2022.