Overview
BN takes its responsibility for protecting your personal data very seriously. BN is compliant with the DPA (Data Protection Act) and with GDPR (General Data Protection Regulations).
It is important to understand the difference between the BN membership system and the rest of the BN website. The membership system might appear to be part of the main website but is actually a more secure system within a system.
Membership system
Some of the steps that we take to ensure that your data is correctly stored and used are:
- We only store data which you submit to us and only use it to help manage your membership with us.
- The data is stored on a dedicated server with standard Internet security mechanisms in place. Data is backed up within the secure data centre for disaster recovery purposes.
- Access to your information is restricted to the minimum number of people possible. (Obviously, that means that the Head Office staff can access your data, but as an example, not even the Executive Committee members have direct access.)
- We never share your data with any external organisations except where this is necessary to administer your membership (for example to process membership subscriptions through our credit/debit card processing agent or Direct Debit processing agent).
- Email addresses are not shared or sold on to other parties. If you sign up for newsletters then your email address is passed on to Mailchimp but they will only use your email address on behalf of BN and not for their own purposes. At all times you have control over this and may cancel your newsletter subscriptions at any time via the membership system.
- We do not hold any of your bank or card details in our system. Bank account details and credit/debit card details are only retained and processed by our 3rd party specialist secure payment processors. Credit/debit card details do not even transit via our systems but go directly from your device to the 3rd party processor over a secure (encrypted) connection.
- Information in the membership system is not passed on to the rest of the website and is not available to other members.
Members' Area of main website
The members' area of the main website is on our dedicated server.
- We DO NOT "collect" information from you for the main website. If you choose to add a profile picture or any other personal information to the main website then you have chosen to do that - we have not collected the data.
- What you post in the members' area of the website is visible to other members but cannot be accessed or viewed by non-members. It is important to note that lapsed/expired members and those who registered with BN as "shoppers" (i.e. only to access the shop) have no more access than any other non-member.
- Although the BN website itself is secure, it is important to note that the privacy of anything that you post in the members' area is dependent upon the good password management and account practices of other BN members.
What is shared from the membership system
Some information is shared from the membership system to the main website. The details are here:
- Your username, password and email address are passed from the membership system to the main website. This is the minimum information necessary to integrate the two systems so that you have the same login credentials on both systems.
- Out of username, password and email address, ONLY the username is visible to other members. If you would prefer to keep your full name private from other members then you should choose a username that is not the same as your full name. You may change your username via the membership system at any time.
- For your convenience a brief summary of other membership information is copied to your website profile but this is to a private area that is only visible to you. At no time is your membership photo transferred to the main website.
Your responsibilities
DO NOT SHARE your BN account with anyone else at any time - it is against the terms and conditions. The key points are:
- Your membership account with BN gives you access to the members' area of the website. If you were to share your account with others then they would be able to access the main website even though they would not be authorised to do so.
- Your membership account with BN allows you to manage and update your membership records. If you were to share your account with others then they would be able to update your account details.
- Note: That your membership account does not have access to the membership accounts of other members so even if someone else were to use your account they would be unable to access or update the membership details of anyone else.
- It is your responsibility at all times to keep your password secret and secure.