Privacy notice

At the Bone and Joint Infection Society (BAJIS), we are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy.
This Policy explains when and why we collect personal information about people who visit our website, purchase one of our event registrations or apply for membership and any other member services we provide. It also includes the conditions under which we may disclose information about you to others and how we keep it secure. From time to time we may need to change this Policy. You are advised to check this page occasionally to ensure that you’re happy with any changes.
By using our website, you are agreeing to be bound by this Policy. Any questions regarding this Policy and our privacy practices should be sent using our contact form on the website, or in writing to BAJIS at The Royal College of Surgeons, 35-43 Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London WC2A 3PE.

Who are we?

We are the Bone and Joint Infection Society, also known a BAJIS. We are an organisation which provides education, research and professional development opportunities to its members and also non-members. Our members are generally surgeons and allied health professionals. With time, we aim to be develop as a resource for our members, allied health professionals, GP’s and our patients.

Our registered address is The Royal College of Surgeons, 35-43 Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London WC2A 3PE. The Data Controller is the responsibility of our Membership Secretary. 

How do we collect information from you?

We obtain information about you when you use our website, for example, when you contact us about our events and services, opt-in to our event newsletter, register for one of our events or apply to become a member.

What type of information is collected from you?

The personal information we collect might include your name, address, email address, IP address, and information regarding what pages you accessed and when.

We will also collect information from you if you:

  • apply for membership – we will ask you to complete an application form which will ask for your preferred methods of communication including mobile telephone numbers, home address, work and educational history and the names of two current members who are prepared to sponsor your application. We will also ask you to complete a direct debit mandate to provide a method of payment for your annual subscription.
  • Register for one our events – we will ask you for your invoicing address, mobile telephone number, emergency contact mobile number, allergies or dietary requirements and any other special arrangements we might need to be aware of. We will make your name and institution name available to our delegates and exhibitors but we will not share any of your contact details unless you ask us to do so. If you opt to pay your registration fee by debit or credit card your card information is not held by us, it is collected by our third party payment processors, who specialise in the secure online capture and processing of credit/debit card transactions. If you opt to pay by BACS your account information is stored by us only to ensure correct financial procedures.
  • As a member apply for one our committee vacancies, fellowships, research grants, submit a survey proposal or request your clinical fellowship to be advertised on our website – we might ask you for your work and educational history, a personal statement and/or proposal and any other information essential for making a decision regarding your application.

How is your information used?

We may use your information to:

  • to carry out our obligations arising from any contracts entered into by you and us;
  • seek your views or comments on the services we provide;
  • notify you of changes to our services;
  • send you communications which you have requested. These may include information about our events or other events which we feel might be of interest to you.
  • administer your membership.
  • process an application for membership.
  • process a fellowship or grant application.
  • process a survey proposal request.
  • process an application for committee membership.
  • advertise your clinical fellowship at your request.
  • fulfilment of orders for goods and services requested, including registration for educational courses, scientific meetings and other events, as well as subscriptions to publications.
  • administer abstract submissions.
  • verify your identity when you contact us.
  • comply with legal and statutory regulations.

We review our retention periods for personal information on a regular basis. We will hold your personal information on our systems for as long as is necessary for the relevant activity or until you request us to remove or erase your information.

Who has access to your information?

We do not sell or rent your information to third parties.

We do not share your information with third parties for marketing purposes.

We do have Third Party Service Providers working on our behalf: We may pass your information to our third party service providers and other associated organisations for the purposes of completing tasks and providing services to you on our behalf (for example to provide support in an IT capacity or to assist us with the running of our events). However, when we use third party service providers, we disclose only the personal information that is necessary to deliver the service and we have a contract in place that requires them to keep your information secure and not to use it for their own direct marketing purposes.

Please be reassured that we will not release your information to third parties beyond the BAJIS network, unless you have requested us to do so, or we are required to do so by law, for example, by a court order or for the purposes of prevention of fraud or other crime.

When you are using our secure online payment pages, your payment is processed by a third party payment processor, who specialises in the secure online capture and processing of credit/debit card transactions. If you have any questions regarding secure transactions, please contact us.

We may transfer your personal information to a third party as part of a sale of some or all of our business and assets to any third party or as part of any business restructuring or reorganisation, or if we’re under a duty to disclose or share your personal data in order to comply with any legal obligation or to enforce or apply our terms of use or to protect the rights, property or safety of our members and staff. However, we will take steps with the aim of ensuring that your privacy rights continue to be protected.

Your choices

You have a choice about whether you wish to receive direct marketing communications from us.

As a non-member or member you must opt-in to these mailings.

We will not contact you for marketing purposes by email, phone or text message unless you have given your prior consent. We will not contact you for marketing purposes by post if you have indicated that you do not wish to be contacted.

You can change your marketing preferences at any time by contacting us using our online contact form, or by telephone at 020 7269 5200.

If you choose to opt out of direct marketing communications in this way, this will not apply to personal data provided to us as a result of your membership with BAJIS. There are some communications that need to happen regardless of your marketing preferences. We describe these as essential communications to fulfil our promises to you as a BAJIS member or as a purchaser of one of our events. We may therefore use your identity, contact, technical, usage and profile data for the following:

  • Membership-related mailings, such as your renewal reminders and AGM notices;
  • Transaction notification messaging, such as payment confirmation or Direct Debit collection notifications;
  • Communications about events you have registered to attend or other events which we consider may be of interest to you.

How you can access and update your information

Under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and The Data Protection Act (DPA) you have a number of rights with regard to your personal data. You have the right to request from us access to and rectification or erasure of your personal data, the right to restrict processing, object to processing as well as, in certain circumstances, the right to data portability.

The accuracy of your information is important to us. We are working on ways to make it easier for you to review and correct the information that we hold about you. If you change email address, or any of the other information we hold is inaccurate or out of date, please contact us using our contact form, or write to us at The Royal College of Surgeons, 35-43 Lincoln’s Inn Fields, London WC2A 3PE. You can also call us on 020 7269 5200.

You can also contact us to exercise your right to ask for a copy of the information BAJIS holds about you (known as a ‘subject access request’). A copy will be sent to you as soon as possible and no later than 30 days after your request. Should there be a delay in providing this information we will keep you informed by your preferred contact method.

If you are not satisfied with our response or believe that we are processing your personal data not in accordance with the law, you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

Security precautions in place to protect the loss, misuse or alteration of your information

When you give us personal information, we take steps to ensure that it’s treated securely. When you are on a secure page, a lock icon will appear on the bottom of web browsers such as Microsoft Internet Explorer.

BAJIS does not store any financial information for any transaction, only the payment method used and the amount processed during the transaction.

Non-sensitive details (your email address etc.) are transmitted normally over the Internet, and this can never be guaranteed to be 100% secure. As a result, while we strive to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee the security of any information you transmit to us, and you do so at your own risk. Once we receive your information, we make our best effort to ensure its security on our systems. Where we have given (or where you have chosen) a password which enables you to access certain parts of our websites, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential. We ask you not to share your password with anyone.

Profiling

We do not currently analyse your personal information either as a member or visitor to our website to create a profile of your interests and preferences.

Use of ‘cookies’

Like many other websites, the BAJIS website uses cookies. ‘Cookies’ are small pieces of information sent by an organisation to your computer and stored on your hard drive to allow that website to recognise you when you visit. They collect statistical data about your browsing actions and patterns and do not identify you as an individual. For example, we use cookies to store your country preference or login session to the BAJIS website. This helps us to improve our website and deliver a better more personalised service.

It is possible to switch off cookies by setting your browser preferences. For more information on how to switch off cookies on your computer please see your browser. Turning cookies of may result in a loss of functionality when using our website.

Links to other websites

Our website may contain links to other websites run by other organisations. This privacy policy applies only to our website. You are encouraged to read the privacy statements on the other websites you visit. We cannot be responsible for the privacy policies and practices of other sites even if you access them using links from our website.

In addition, if you linked to our website from a third party site, we cannot be responsible for the privacy policies and practices of the owners and operators of that third party site and recommend that you check the policy of that third party site.

16 or Under

We do not currently provide services, events or membership for those who are 16 or under. However, we are concerned to protect the privacy of children aged 16 or under. If you are aged 16 or under‚ please get your parent/guardian’s permission beforehand whenever you provide us with personal information.

Transferring your information outside of the UK

As part of the services offered to you through this website, the information which you provide to us may be transferred to countries outside the UK. By way of example, this may happen if any of our servers are are located in a country outside of the UK. These countries may not have similar data protection laws to the UK. By submitting your personal data, you’re agreeing to this transfer, storing or processing. If we transfer your information outside of the UK in this way, we will take steps to ensure that appropriate security measures are taken with the aim of ensuring that your privacy rights continue to be protected as outlined in this Policy.

Review of this Policy

We keep this Policy under regular review. This Policy was last updated in February 2023.