Privacy Policy

Please note that not all of the information below will be relevant to all of our websites.

This privacy policy explains how we use any personal information we collect about you. It applies to information we collect about visitors to our websites:

www.vegsoc.org, 
www.nationalvegetarianweek.org,
www.veggielotto.org

People who use our services, eg who subscribe to our newsletter, order resources, join as a member.

Visitors to our websites
When someone visits one of our sites we collect standard internet log information and details of visitor behaviour patterns. We do this in a way which does not personally identify the visitor. This enables us to gather statistics on such things as number of visitors to the website, most popular pages, how long people stay on the site etc. This information is used to help improve the website and the user’s experience. We use Google Analytics to collect this information and further information on Google’s privacy policy can be found here.

When someone visits www.vegsoc.org and logs-in then we do associate some limited visitor behaviour patterns, as listed below, to Personal Identifiable Information (PII).

What we do with your personal identifiable information
The information you provide to the Vegetarian Society when contacting us by any means will be added to our database in accordance with the Data Protection Act, upcoming General Data Protection Regulations and this policy. This information may be used for, but is not limited to, purposes such as mailing you Vegetarian Society publications, administering membership, informing you of charity news, events and fundraising activities and other related Vegetarian Society activities. We aim to keep this information as up to date as possible and ask you to let us know, or update your details online, if any of your personal information changes.

We may use data you provide as well as data we hold on your past interests and interaction with the Vegetarian Society and Vegetarian Society Cookery School to send you specific information tailored to you. This may include but is not limited to campaigns, cookery course details, fundraising activities, and events.

We will never pass it on to anyone, with the exception of third parties such as mailing houses, software suppliers and social media providers to send out information on our behalf, but these third parties are only allowed to use the information for the specific purpose for which the data has been supplied and they must fully comply with the Data Protection Act. We do also use trusted companies like fundraising agencies, commercial fulfilment houses and software development companies, to administer some of our activities, in which case they will use your details only for that specific purpose.

People who choose to supply personal identifiable information and are under 18
The information you provide to the Vegetarian Society will be added to our database and may be used to inform you of charity news and Vegetarian Society activities. We do not pass this information to any third party with the exception of those specified above.

If you are under 18 please ensure you obtain your parent or guardian’s consent before submitting any personal information to our websites.

Payment processing
To process donations or payments we use Stripe and PayPal. These companies share PII about specific consumers with third parties, such as banks and credit card processors in order to process transactions. Their privacy policies can be found here and here.

We are compliant with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard which is a set of EU-wide requirements to enhance credit card data security.

The padlock symbol is displayed whenever personal and payment information is being processed to make you aware that your information is being collected and processed in line with the Data Protection Act.  When payment details are collected we use a secure server, as indicated by the prefix HTTPS, to encrypt your financial information. Our database is hosted in a secure data centre. Although these measures are in place we cannot guarantee the security of any information you transmit to us and you do so at your own risk.

Where your information is stored
Information which you submit via our websites is transferred to the United States of America, where our website hosting provider is located. The company complies with the EU-US Privacy Shield Framework, as set forth by the U.S. Department of Commerce and the European Commission, regarding the collection, storage, transfer, use and other processing of data transferred from the European Union to the United States.

Facebook Conversion Tracking and Custom Audiences
Facebook provides certain features and tools (e.g., pixels, software development kit- SDKs and application programming interface – APIs) that we have added to our websites or mobile apps to allow us to send data about actions that people take on our websites or mobile apps (Event Data) to Facebook to track conversions (Conversion Tracking), to create custom audiences of people who have visited our websites or receive email communications (Custom Audiences from your Website), or to create custom audiences of people who have visited our mobile apps (Custom Audience from your Mobile App). Further details can be found in the guide to Facebook tracking.

Cookies
We use cookies on our site to remember your login, book online and gather statistics to make the website better. For further information please read our Cookie Guide.

Your rights over your data

Under the terms of the Data Protection Act, 1998 and the upcoming EU General Data Protection Regulations, you have the right to object to the use of your data for any of the above purposes. In addition, you have the right to request details of all data we hold on you, and the right to request we remove it entirely.  If you would like to discuss this or receive a copy of your personal information please email or write to us at the address below.

Data Protection
The Vegetarian Society
15 Jersey Street
Ancoats
Manchester
M4 6EZ

Or call 0161 925 2000

We want to make sure that your personal information is accurate and up to date. You may ask us to correct or remove information you think is inaccurate.

How to contact us
If you have any further questions or queries not covered here then please let us know. You can contact us at hello@vegsoc.org or call 0161 925 2000.

Other websites
Our websites contain links to other websites. This privacy policy only applies to this website so when you link to other websites you should read their own privacy policies.

Changes to our privacy notice
We keep our privacy policy under regular review and we will place any updates on this webpage. This privacy policy was last updated on 21 March 2023.