The Scottish Home Education Forum is committed to protecting the privacy of its members and guests
Under the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), given effect in the UK by the Data Protection Act 2019, ‘data subjects’ have additional rights in relation to the processing of their personal data by any organisation. Brexit will not directly affect these rights.
We aim to explain in this privacy statement how we process any personal data we collect about our visitors and enquirers.
What is personal data?
Personal data relates to a living individual who can be identified from that data
Who are we?
We are a not-for-profit information, support and networking website which is managed by volunteers. The Scottish Home Education Forum is the ‘data controller’ and we can be contacted via this website (see details below).
What legal bases do we rely on to process personal data?
As a not-for-profit entity, we process personal data of members (i.e. registered users) and former members who have opted to create user accounts and subsequently confirmed their consent to the sign-up for these accounts by email. In addition, we have a legitimate interest in processing data relating to individuals who may be identified in forum posts or articles where that information is already available in the public domain and is considered relevant to current and/or historical discussions. Any such person may request that their data be deleted if they believe it is inaccurate or no longer relevant.
For what purpose(s) do we process personal data?
The Scottish Home Education Forum complies with legal obligations by collecting only what is necessary to create a forum user account, i.e. a user name (which may be an anonymous nickname from which a living individual cannot be identified) and a contact email address. We process personal data in the form of IP addresses which are used to publish forum posts, which represents a legitimate interest for the purpose of preventing spam, trolling and/or abuse/harm to others, e.g. the posting of defamatory material.
We also use personal data when responding to email enquiries from website visitors and where comments are posted in response to articles and blogs on our website or social media channels. Additionally, our website uses cookies which allow registered users to stay logged in, but these do not contain any personal details and only record session information in aggregate form. We use Google Analytics to monitor website statistics from which no individual users are identifiable.
How do we safeguard data?
We hold minimal personal data from which individuals can be identified, and store it securely, taking all necessary steps to protect it from loss, misuse, unauthorised access and disclosure. The members’ forum uses Coudflare to enhance site security.
Sharing your personal data
Any personal data you disclose to us via the creation of a user account or otherwise will be treated in strict confidence and will not be shared with third parties unless required by law, or else with your explicit consent.
How long do we retain personal data?
We keep data while user accounts remain active and will delete an account on request. Previous forum posts which have been made in the user names of former account holders will revert to ‘Guest’ posts from which the original author cannot be identified. Since the content of our forum threads and posts, along with blog and article comments, comprises a useful and relevant archive of information for members and website visitors alike, such retention represents a legitimate interest for processing.
Your rights
You can request a copy of the personal data we hold about you by contacting us (subject to verifying your identity). You can ask us to amend, update or correct any of your personal data if you believe it is inaccurate or out of date. You can also ask us to delete your user account or change your user name to a nickname at any time by contacting our administrator (details below).
Our contact details
For all queries, subject access requests and any other purpose, please contact our administrator via our contact form.
