1. You are here:
  2. Homepage
  3. OUR COMMUNITY
  4. Data & Privacy Policy

Data & Privacy Policy

Last updated on: 30 April 2024

The Association of Association Executives (collectively, "AAE," "we," "us" or "our") managed by Professional Community Services Ltd, recognises the importance of protecting the personal information collected from users in the operation of its services and takes reasonable steps to maintain the security, integrity and privacy of any information in accordance with this Data & Privacy Policy. If you are less than 16 years of age, then you must first seek the consent of your parent or guardian prior to submitting any personal information.

This Data & Privacy Policy describes how the AAE collects and uses the personal information you provide to the AAE. It also describes the choices available to you regarding our use of your personal information and how you can access and update this information. This privacy policy has been created using ICO guidance.

Contact Details

Our full details are:

  • Full name of legal entity: Association of Association Executives is managed by Professional Community Services Ltd
  • Registered: United Kingdom
  • Company Number: 15313455
  • Email address: [email protected]
  • Postal address: 8 Posterngate, Hull HU1 2JN, United Kingdom
  • Telephone number: +44 (0) 203 954 8000

1.GDPR

The AAE holds and manages personal data on the basis of Data Protection Act 2018 of the UK. With the data, our purpose is to educate and inform association executives, our processing of data is necessary to further these interests, and on balance our interest over-rides the data subjects’ interest, considering they may unsubscribe at any time.

Personal data means any information capable of identifying an individual. It does not include anonymised data. Personal data includes that of: employees and officers of associations who are considered interested in the AAE's news, information and services provided free-of-charge and those charged for; and of employees of suppliers to associations who are considered interested in the AAE's services to promote their services to association executives.

2.How AAE collects information

The AAE may collect personal information from you in the following ways:

1) directly from your verbal or written input (such as by consenting to receiving marketing emails, filling out surveys etc.);

2) directly from your input for subscription or membership, online/offline event registration or

3) automatically through the AAE's website technologies including tracking online, such as by web cookies.

3. Information you provide

The types of personal information that the AAE collects directly from you may include:

  • Contact details, such as your name, email address, postal address and telephone number;
  • Internet Protocol ("IP") addresses used to connect your computer to the Internet;
  • Educational and professional interests;
  • Tracking codes such as cookies;
  • Usernames for the AAE website;
  • Payment information, such as a credit or debit card number, this information will not be stored with the AAE;
  • Comments, feedback, posts and other content you provide to the AAE (including through the AAE website or surveys shared with you);
  • Communication preferences;
  • Location-aware services, the physical location of your device in order to provide you with more relevant content for your location; and
  • Communications with other users of the AAE's services.

In order to access certain content and to make use of additional functionality and features of the AAE's websites and services, we are asked you to register for an account by completing and submitting a registration form, which may request additional information.

4. Use of your information

The AAE will use your personal information in the performance of any contract, subscription or registration we enter into with you, to comply with legal obligations, or where the AAE has a legitimate business interest in using your information to enhance the services and products we provide. Legitimate business purposes include, but are not limited to, one or all of the following: providing direct marketing and assessing the effectiveness of promotions and advertising; modifying, improving or personalising our services, products and communications; detecting fraud; investigating suspicious activity (e.g., violations of our Terms & Conditions, which can be found here [link to Terms&Conditions]) and otherwise keeping our site safe and secure; and conducting data analytics.

In addition, we may use your information in the following ways (after obtaining your consent, if required):

  1. Telephone

When you provide us with your telephone number, you may receive telephone contact from us to follow up a booking or request you make with us, or rarely with an invitation or information on products, services, surveys, or upcoming events. This is a requirement of subscribing and membership.

  1. Postal Address

When you provide us with your postal address, you may receive periodic mailings from us with information on products, services, surveys, or upcoming events. We may include third-party information, for example as an insert, along with our information. This is a requirement of membership.

  1. Email Address

When you provide us with your email address, you may receive mailings from us for the management of your request, for subscription or membership, or news or including information on products, services, surveys, or upcoming events. This is a requirement of subscribing and membership.

  1. Agents

The AAE uses agents, contractors and representatives to perform various functions of the organisation.

Personal information will be kept in line with our retention policy and not for longer than the purpose for which it was collected. This means that, unless information must be retained for legal or archival purposes, personal information will be securely destroyed, put beyond use or erased from the AAE's systems when it is no longer required or, where applicable, following a request from you to destroy or erase your personal information.

5. Disclosure and sharing your information

The AAE will not disclose or sell your personal information with any unaffiliated third party except as follows:

  • Where necessary in connection with services provided by third parties (i) who provide us with a wide range of office, administrative, information technology, production, payment, or business management services, and (ii) who are required to comply with this policy.
  • You request a report or subscription published by a third party and where it is indicated "Your details will be provided to [third party] to fulfil your request." (Details passed to third party: Name, Job Title, Email, Phone and Organisation)
  • You register for an event your details will be published on the registrant list provided to other registrants (Details published: Name, Job Title, Organisation)
  • You request to attend an event or part of an event hosted by a third party and where it is indicated "On registering for this event your details will be provided to [third party] as event hosts. If you do not wish this to happen, please do not register for this [part of the] event."

(Details passed to third party: Name, Job Title, Email, Phone and Organisation)

  • Where the AAE is required to disclose personal information in response to lawful requests by public authorities and government agencies, including to meet national security or law enforcement requirements; to comply with a subpoena or other legal process; when we believe in good faith that disclosure is necessary to protect our rights, to enforce our Terms of Service, or to protect the rights, property or safety of our services, users or others; and to investigate fraud.

By agreeing to pass your information to a sponsor for marketing purposes, they will be provided with your name, email address, affiliation, location and areas of interest.

As all users, members and subscribers register in a work capacity, other colleagues registered from the same organisation may see their basic information (name, title, job title) in the membership platform and may have the rights to remove or edit their profile from the organizational profile.

When a platform user publishes their public profile, their public profile will be visible to other users logged into the membership platform. The information available on the public profile can be edited or revoked at any time.

6. International Transfers

We share your personal data within our membership, which involves transferring your data outside the UK for the following reasons:

  • In order to process your transactions, we may store your personal information on our servers and those servers may reside outside the country where you live. The AAE has servers in the United Kingdom. The AAE service providers are mainly located in the United Kingdom, however, some may reside outside of the United Kingdom. Such processing may include, among other things, the fulfilment of your order, the processing of your payment details and the provision of support services.
  • As the AAE is an International Society, in order to satisfy global reporting requirements, AAE may be required to provide your personal information to affiliates in other countries.

We will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that your personal information is treated securely and in accordance with this Privacy Policy and all applicable data protection laws.

7. Data Security

We will use appropriate physical, technical and administrative safeguards to protect your data.  Access to your personal data will be restricted to only those who need to know that information and required to perform their job function.  In addition, we train our employees about the importance of maintaining the confidentiality and security of your information.

We are committed to ensuring that your information is secure. In order to prevent unauthorised access or disclosure, we have put in place suitable physical, electronic and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure the information we collect online.

8. Disclosure in chat rooms and forums

You should be aware that identifiable personal information--such as your name or e-mail address--that you voluntarily disclose and that is accessible to other users (e.g. on membership platform, event platforms, videoconference platforms, website or in chat areas) could be collected and disclosed by others. The AAE cannot take any responsibility for such collection and disclosure.

9. Data retention

We will only retain your personal data for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements.

To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal requirements.

By law we have to keep basic information about our customers (including Contact, Identity, Financial and Transaction Data) for six years after they cease being customers for tax purposes.

In some circumstances you can ask us to delete your data.

In some circumstances we may anonymise your personal data (so that it can no longer be associated with you) for research or statistical purposes in which case we may use this information indefinitely without further notice to you.

10. Controlling your personal information

You may choose to restrict the collection or use of your personal information in the following ways:

  • whenever you are asked to fill in a form on the website, ensure you do not click to indicate that you agree to your information being used by anybody for direct marketing purposes
  • if you have previously agreed to us using your personal information for direct marketing purposes, you may change your mind at any time by updating your Contact Preferences via your profile.

If you believe that any of the information AAE holds about you is incorrect or out of date, please log in and edit your information, and if the data is not editable, forward the accurate information to [email protected].

11. Your rights

You have the right to make a written request to be informed whether or not we hold or process any of your personal information (by emailing [email protected]). In your written request, you may:

  • Request that we provide you with details of your personal information that we process, the purpose for which it is processed, the recipients of such information, the existence of any automated decision making involving your personal information, and what transfer safeguards we have in place;
  • Request that we rectify any errors in your personal information;
  • Request that we delete your personal information if our continued processing of such information is not justified;
  • Request that we transfer your personal information to a third party;
  • Object to automated decision-making and profiling based on legitimate interests or the performance of a task in the public interest (in which event the processing will cease except where there are compelling legitimate grounds, such as when the processing is necessary for the performance of a contract between us);
  • Object to direct marketing from us; and
  • Object to processing.

Where applicable under law, we will not use your personal information for marketing purposes, nor disclose your information to any third parties, unless we have your prior consent, which we will seek before collecting your personal information. You can exercise your right to prevent such processing by checking certain boxes on the consent forms we use when collecting your personal information.

If at any point you wish to review or change your preferences you can use the "opt-out" or unsubscribe mechanism or other means provided within the communications that you receive from us or by updating your Contact Preferences in your profile. Note that you may still receive transactional communications from the AAE.

When providing you with personal data overview, we may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your personal data (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is a security measure to ensure that personal data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it. We may also contact you to ask you for further information in relation to your request to speed up our response.

We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month. Occasionally it may take us longer than a month if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests. In this case, we will notify you and keep you updated.

12. Changes to this Data & Privacy Policy

Please note that the AAE's Data & Privacy Policy is reviewed periodically. The AAE reserves the right to modify its Data & Privacy Policy at any time without notice. If changes occur, you will be notified via email, but we encourage you to periodically review this page for the latest information on our privacy practices.

13. Recourse

Any comments, complaints or questions concerning this policy or complaints or objections about our use of your personal information should be addressed by directing your comments to [email protected].

If you are not happy with any aspect of how we collect and use your data, you have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues (www.ico.org.uk). We would be grateful if you could contact us first if you do have a complaint so that we can try to resolve it for you.

14. Cookie Policy

A cookie is a small file which asks permission to be placed on your computer's hard drive. Once you agree, the file is added and the cookie helps analyse web traffic or lets you know when you visit a particular site. Cookies allow web applications to respond to you as an individual. The web application can tailor its operations to your needs, likes and dislikes by gathering and remembering information about your preferences. A cookie in no way gives us access to your computer or any information about you, other than the data you choose to share with us.

AAE uses traffic log cookies to identify which pages are being used. This helps us analyse data about web page traffic and improve our website in order to tailor it to customer needs. We only use this information for statistical analysis purposes and then the data is removed from the system.

You can choose to accept or decline cookies. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually modify your browser setting to decline cookies if you prefer. This may prevent you from taking full advantage of the website.

15. Disclaimers

The information on this site is for general guidance only. It is essential to take professional advise on specific issues and their impact on any individual or entity. No liability can be accepted for any errors or omission or for any person acting or refraining from acting on the information provided on this site.

The site includes links to external sites. AAE is not responsible for the content of these sites.

Email Communications Disclaimer

Please note that we cannot accept any responsibility for viruses and it is your responsibility to scan or otherwise check your incoming email and any attachments.