Who we are
Who We Are and What This Policy Covers
We (The Automated Synthesis Forum, formerly operating as the UKASF) are a not-for profit organisation concerned with the promotion of enabling technologies in the Organic Synthesis sector.
Throughout this Privacy Policy we’ll refer to our website, the staging of our annual conference, and related communications collectively as “Services.”
This Privacy Policy applies to information that we collect about you when you use:
- Our websites (www.ukasf.net; www.ukasf.wordpress.com; www.automatedsynthesisforum.co.uk; automatesynthesisforum.com)
- email communication with our committee
Information We Collect
We only collect information about you if we have a reason to do so–for example, to provide our Services, to communicate with you, or to make our Services better.
We collect information in three ways: if and when you provide information to us, automatically through operating our Services, and from outside sources. Let’s go over the information that we collect.
Information You Provide to Us
It’s probably no surprise that we collect information that you provide to us. The amount and type of information depends on the context and how we use the information. Here are some examples:
- Basic Account Information: We ask for basic information from you (name, email address, organisation) in order to communicate via our website Contact Form, or to register your interest in our services.
- Communications With Us: You may also provide us information when you respond to surveys, or communicate via email
Information We Collect Automatically
We also collect some information automatically:
- Log Information: when using the Contact Form on our website, we collect information that web browsers, mobile devices, and servers typically make available, such as the browser type, IP address, unique device identifiers, language preference, referring site, the date and time of access, operating system, and mobile network information.
How And Why We Use Information
Purposes for Using Information
We use information about you as mentioned above and for the purposes listed below:
- To provide our Services–for example, to send information regarding conference agenda and timings;
- To communicate with you, for example through an email, about services offered by us or others which you may be interested in.
Legal Bases for Collecting and Using Information
A note here for those in the European Union about our legal grounds for processing information about you under EU data protection laws, which is that our use of your information is based on the grounds that:
(1) The use is necessary in order to fulfill our commitments to you under our Terms of Service or other agreements with you or is necessary to administer your account–for example, in order to enable access to our website on your device or charge you for a paid plan; or
(2) The use is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation; or
(3) The use is necessary in order to protect your vital interests or those of another person; or
(4) We have a legitimate interest in using your information–for example, to provide and update our Services, to improve our Services so that we can offer you an even better user experience, to safeguard our Services, to communicate with you, to measure, gauge, and improve the effectiveness of our advertising, and better understand user retention and attrition, to monitor and prevent any problems with our Services, and to personalize your experience
Sharing Information
How We Share Information
We do not sell our users’ private personal information.
We share information about you in the limited circumstances spelled out below and with appropriate safeguards on your privacy:
- Subsidiaries, Employees, and Independent Contractors: We may disclose information about you to our subsidiaries, our employees, and individuals who are our independent contractors that need to know the information in order to help us provide our Services or to process the information on our behalf. We require our subsidiaries, employees, and independent contractors to follow this Privacy Policy for personal information that we share with them.
- Legal Requests: We may disclose information about you in response to a subpoena, court order, or other governmental request.
- To Protect Rights, Property, and Others: We may disclose information about you when we believe in good faith that disclosure is reasonably necessary to protect the property or rights of Automated Synthesis Forum, third parties, or the public at large. For example, if we have a good faith belief that there is an imminent danger of death or serious physical injury.
- Business Transfers: In connection with any merger, sale of company assets, or acquisition of all or a portion of our business by another company, or in the unlikely event that Automated Synthesis Forum goes out of business or enters bankruptcy, user information would likely be one of the assets that is transferred or acquired by a third party. If any of these events were to happen, this Privacy Policy would continue to apply to your information and the party receiving your information may continue to use your information, but only consistent with this Privacy Policy.
- With Your Consent: We may share and disclose information with your consent or at your direction. For example, if you explicitly authorise us to share your contact details with a 3rd-party vendor, either by checking the relevant box when entering your contact details, or by email reply.
- Aggregated or De-Identified Information: We may share information that has been aggregated or reasonably de-identified, so that the information could not reasonably be used to identify you.
How Long We Keep Information
We generally discard information about you when we no longer need the information for the purposes for which we collect and use it–which are described in the section above on How and Why We Use Information–and we are not legally required to continue to keep it.
For example, we will typically store email addresses for a period of 5 years in order to keep you informed of future conferences.
Choices
You have several choices available when it comes to information about you:
- Limit the Information that You Provide: When contacting us, you can choose not to provide optional information. Note that provision of email address, name, organisation and role is required to receive a delegate invitation to the conference.
- Limit Access to Information On Your Mobile Device: Your mobile device operating system should provide you with the ability to discontinue our ability to collect stored information or location information via our mobile apps. If you do so, you may not be able to use certain features.
- Opt-Out of Electronic Communications: You may opt out of receiving promotional messages from us. Just follow the instructions in those messages. If you opt out of promotional messages, we may still send you other messages, like those directly applicable to our services and legal notices.
- Set Your Browser to Reject Cookies: At this time, the webhost, Automattic, does not respond to “do not track” signals across all of our Services. However, you can usually choose to set your browser to remove or reject browser cookies before using Automattic’s websites, with the drawback that certain features of Automattic’s websites may not function properly without the aid of cookies.
- Leave the Forum : While we’d be very sad to see you go, if you no longer want to be involved with the Automated Synthesis Forum, then please let us know via email to UKASF.committee@gmail.com. Please keep in mind that we may continue to retain your information after closing your account, as described in How Long We Keep Information above–for example, when that information is reasonably needed to comply with (or demonstrate our compliance with) legal obligations such as law enforcement requests, or reasonably needed for our legitimate business interests.
Security
While no online service is 100% secure, we work very hard to protect information about you against unauthorized access, use, alteration, or destruction, and take reasonable measures to do so.
Your Rights
If you are located in certain countries, including those that fall under the scope of the European General Data Protection Regulation (AKA the “GDPR”), data protection laws give you rights with respect to your personal data, subject to any exemptions provided by the law, including the rights to:
- Request access to your personal data;
- Request correction or deletion of your personal data;
- Object to our use and processing of your personal data;
- Request that we limit our use and processing of your personal data; and
- Request portability of your personal data.
You can usually access, correct, or delete your personal data using your account settings and tools that we offer, but if you aren’t able to do that, or you would like to contact us about one of the other rights, scroll down to How to Reach Us to, well, find out how to reach us.
EU individuals also have the right to make a complaint to a government supervisory authority.
How to Reach Us
If you have a question about this Privacy Policy, or you would like to contact us about any of the rights mentioned in the Your Rights section above, please contact us.
This policy is adapted from that used by automattic (https://automattic.com/privacy/) under a creative commons license (CC-BY SA 4.0).
This policy solely refers to how we (UKASF) handle your data. For info on how any data provided by you to our hosting service (WordPress.com) is handled, please refer to https://automattic.com/privacy/