Privacy Policy

Read our privacy policy to find out how we keep our members' personal details safe.

This privacy notice sets out the way we process your information and details our privacy and fair processing policy. We will always refer to this page when we ask you for your consent. This page will be updated to show you all the things we do with your personal information so that you can be confident when sharing your information with us that it will be only used for what we say here.

2. How we use personal information

Personal information provided to us will be used for the purposes outlined at the time of collection or registration in accordance with the preferences you express.

Personal data collected and processed by us may be used for the following purposes:

Administration of membership(s)
Fulfilment of orders for goods and services requested
Administration of donations and legacies
Internal research and statistical analysis
Communication about our membership, fundraising and other activities that we think may be of interest to you
Ensuring all marketing communications you receive from us are relevant.

Personal data collected and processed by us may be shared with the following groups where necessary:

The Mathematical Association’s employees,
The MA Officers and the Chair of Membership,
Contractors, for the purposes of delivering our journals to you.

When we allow access to your information, we will always have complete control of what they see, what they are allowed to do with it and how long they can see it. Each address list sent to the mailing house for the mailing of your journals, will carry with it a notice request that the list is deleted once the mailing run has been completed.

We do not sell or share your personal information.

You are always in control of how we communicate with you. You can update your choices by contacting the address in section 6 below.

Your Marketing Permissions

The Mathematical Association always acts upon your choices around what type of communications you want to receive and how you want to receive them. However there are some communications that need to happen regardless of your marketing preferences. These are what we would describe as essential communications to fulfil our promises to you as a member or buyer of goods or services from The Mathematical Association. Examples of this type of communication would be:

Transaction notification messaging, such as Direct Debit confirmation
Membership related mailings such as your renewal reminder, your selection of journals and AGM notices

3. Retention

We hold your information only as long as necessary for the purposes for which we use it or until such time as you cease to be a member.

4. Consent

Where we need your consent, we will ensure always that you are as fully informed as possible at the time on what we do with your information, with whom it may be shared and how long we will keep it. This is in line with the requirements of the current Data Protection Act and other relevant legislation.

5. Accessing your personal data held by The Mathematical Association

You have the right to ask us, in writing or by e-mail, for a copy of all the personal data held about you. This is known as a 'subject access request'.

A copy will be sent to you as soon as possible but this will not be later than 40 days after your request.

If you would like to access your personal data held by us, please apply in writing to the address below:

Membership Officer

The Mathematical Association
Charnwood Building
Holywell Park
Loughborough University Science and Enterprise Park
Leicestershire
LE11 3AQ

6. Updating and amending your personal information

If, at any time, you want to update or amend your personal data or preferences please write to:

The Mathematical Association
Charnwood Building
Holywell Park
Loughborough University Science and Enterprise Park
Leicestershire
LE11 3AQ

or email the Membership Officer via office@m-a.org.uk.

Whenever possible we will verify, update or amend personal data within 28 days of receipt of your request.

7. Children and Young People

We take great care to protect and respect the rights of individuals in relation to their personal data, especially in the case of children and young people.

Children and young people may be members of the Society of Young Mathematicians, or may subscribe to SYMmetry Plus or Mathematical Pie. We will not send marketing e-mails, letters, or messages to such under 18 year-olds. In order to donate to The Mathematical Association or order things from The Mathematical Association you must be an adult. The sole use to which we will put the personal data of under 18 year olds is to send them SYMmetry Plus and Mathematical Pie.

For the information of parents, we do not publish the names or pictures of members of the Society of Young Mathematicians or subscribers to SYMmetry Plus and Mathematical Pie in these two magazines. We will not use the personal data of under 18 year olds for marketing purposes and we will not profile it. If a young person turns 19 and wishes to join The Mathematical Association as an adult, some of the personal data we hold about that individual (e.g. membership history of the Society of Young Mathematicians) will be carried over to their member profile.

8. Cookies

Please see our web page regarding The Mathematical Association's use of cookies

9. Links to third party websites

This privacy policy applies solely to the personal data collected by The Mathematical Association and does not apply to third party websites and services that are not under our control.

We cannot be held responsible for the privacy policies of third party websites and we advise users to read the privacy policies of other websites before registering any personal data.

10. Security

We recognise the concerns that many people have about giving personal information online. These are the measures that we take to secure your information whilst using our web based services.

We use strong encryption both when your information is moving to or from our web services and also whilst your information is held by us.

The Mathematical Association's web pages are available in secure encrypted https format. The secure version of the pages provides you with confidence that your communications are safe and carried out directly with an authentic Mathematical Association website and web server.

The Mathematical Association's web pages that require you to enter personal information are already in the secure format. On any of our data entry pages you can check the security and authenticity by right clicking on the padlock icon in the address bar.

Our web servers use strong encryption and only store information for a temporary period. Once you have fully submitted your information, any temporary information is purged from our systems.

The Mathematical Association's does not store sensitive payment card data in its systems.

11. Payment card information

The Mathematical Association has an active PCI-DSS compliance programme in place. This is the international standard for safe card payment processes. As part of our compliance to this very stringent standard, we ensure that our IT systems do not directly collect or store your payment card information; for example the full 16 digit numbers on the front of the card or the security code on the back.

Our online payment solutions are carried out using the 'payment gateway' Sage Pay, which is a direct connection to a payment service provided by a bank. This means that when you input card data into the payment page, you are communicating directly with Sage Pay and Sage Pay passes your payment to us. This means that your payment card information is handled by Sage Pay and not processed or held by us.

12. What this page tells you and how it is updated

This page will hold the latest information regarding our privacy and fair processing notification and we will refer to it when we ask you for your consent. This page will be updated from time to time to reflect the latest view of what we do with your data.