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Links to other sites

Our website contains some hyperlinks to other websites. We are not responsible for the content or functionality of any of those external websites (but please let us know if a link is not working by emailing us at digital@scottishbooktrust.com).

Zoom use and security

We use Zoom for our meetings and webinars. You can find out more information in our Zoom use and security policy. We may also use other video conferencing providers, such as Microsoft Teams or Webex if required.

Changes to Our Privacy Policy

We’ll amend this Privacy Policy from time to time to ensure it remains up-to-date and accurately reflects how and why we use your personal data. The current version of our Privacy Policy will always be posted on our website.

Last updated: 31 October 2024

Privacy policy

Scottish Book Trust is a national charity changing lives through reading and writing. We are committed to respecting and protecting your personal data. This privacy statement explains why we collect your personal data and how we use it.

Scottish Book Trust gathers personal data to deliver programme participation and also asks our audiences, programme participants and supporters to “opt-in” for marketing communications such as e-newsletters. You can decide not to receive communications from us at any time. If you wish to do opt out, please contact us by email info@scottishbooktrust.com, call us on 0131 524 0160 or write to The Director of Finance and Operations, Scottish Book Trust, Sandeman House, Trunk’s Close, 55 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1SR.

We will never sell your personal data, and will only ever share it with organisations we work with where necessary to deliver our services, and we will ensure the information is stored securely and will not be stored for longer than necessary.

About us

Your personal data (i.e. any information which identifies you, or which can be identified as relating to you personally) will be collected and used by Scottish Book Trust, a charity registered in Scotland with charity registration number SC027669. We are based at Sandeman House, Trunk’s Close, 55 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1SR. You can call us on 0131 524 0160 or email us at info@scottishbooktrust.com.

Information we collect and how we use it: programme participants

Personal data you provide

When you register for or take part in one of our programmes, we will collect the information you give us. This data is often collected through registration, application or feedback forms. Depending on the programme, we may collect the following information:

• Personal details (for example your name, email, job title, address, telephone etc.)   

• Details of your interests and preferences, including your participation in our programme(s)

How we use this data

We will use this information for legitimate interests to provide you with the information or materials you need to participate in the chosen programme(s).

We may carry out research and analysis on people taking part in our programmes to determine the success of programmes, better understand our audiences’ behaviour and responses and identify patterns and trends. This helps inform our approach to programme planning and design and makes sure Scottish Book Trust is delivering the programmes our audiences need and will benefit from.

If you have signed up to participate in one of our programmes, we will store your information for the life of the programme. This may extend to more than one year so that we can monitor participation patterns in our programmes. We will communicate with you about that programme while you are taking part in it and may contact you to ask if you would like to participate in the same or similar programmes in the future, unless you tell us not to. We continually review what information we hold and delete what is no longer required.

Sensitive personal data

We do not normally collect or store sensitive personal data (such as information relating to health, beliefs or political affiliation) about our audience or supporters. However, there are occasional, specific situations where this may happen, such as gathering health information for participants in residential writing retreats or our young writers’ conference. We do this so that we can meet your needs at events. The information will be stored securely and will not be stored for longer than necessary.

Information we collect and how we use it: marketing and fundraising

Personal data you provide

We ask you to “opt-in” for marketing communications, such as e-newsletters and use the personal data you give us with your consent for this purpose. You can choose to receive e-newsletters on different areas of interest around reading and writing which may include information on how to support us.

When you sign up for communications or donate to us, we will collect the information you give us which may include:

• Personal details (for example name, home address, email) when you register for e-newsletters

• Information on preferences and interests (e.g. whether you are a reader, writer or parent of young children) so that we know what information you are mostly likely to be interested in.

You can unsubscribe from our e-newsletters at any time through an automated system. This process is detailed at the footer of each email. If an automated system is unavailable clear instructions on how to unsubscribe will be detailed instead.

If you’ve opted out of any marketing communications, we may still need to contact you for administrative purposes. This includes emails around any programme participation.

How we use this data

We use the personal data you have consented to give us to communicate with you to share interesting opportunities and content on your chosen topic(s), promote Scottish Book Trust and our programmes and to suggest ways to support our work. This includes:

• Sending you e-newsletters you have opted-in to receive

• Administering donations or supporting your fundraising, including processing Gift Aid;

• Helping us respect your choices and preferences (e.g. if you ask not to receive marketing material, we’ll keep a record of this).

When you receive a communication, we may collect information about how you respond to or interact with that communication, and this may affect how we communicate with you in future.

We may carry out research and analysis on our subscribers and supporters to determine the success of campaigns, better understand behaviour and responses and identify patterns and trends. This helps inform our approach towards our communications and makes Scottish Book Trust a stronger and more effective organisation. Understanding our audience and supporters, their interests and what they care about also helps us provide a better experience (e.g. through more relevant communications).

We will only use and store information for as long as it is needed for the purposes it was collected for. If you have opted in to receive our e-newsletter(s), we will keep your information until you opt out. If you ask us not to send you e-newsletters by email, we will stop using your email for this purpose and we’ll keep a record of your preference not to be emailed. We continually review what information we hold and delete what is no longer required.

Sharing Data

We will never sell your personal data.

We may share personal data with subcontractors or suppliers who provide us with services. Examples include MailChimp for email management services, SurveyMonkey for evaluation and feedback or EventBrite for event management.

Occasionally, where we partner with other organisations, we may also share information with them (for example, if you register to attend an event being jointly organised by us and another charity). We’ll only share information when necessary to provide the service you have signed up for and we’ll make sure to notify you first.

How we protect and store your data

We use a variety of physical and technical measures to keep your data safe and to prevent unauthorised access to, or use or disclosure of your personal information. 

Electronic data and databases are stored on secure computer systems and we control who has access to information (using both physical and electronic means). Our staff receive data protection training and we have a set of data protection procedures which staff are required to follow when handling personal data.

Where we store information

Scottish Book Trust is based in Scotland and we store our data within the European Union. Some organisations which provide services to us may transfer personal data outside of the EEA, but we’ll only allow them to do this if your data is adequately protected.

For example, we use Mailchimp to manage our e-newsletter distribution. Mailchimp adheres to Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs) and still honours obligations to the EU-US Privacy Shield Framework. Stripe, our donation payment processor, follows the same terms and obligations.

Keeping you in control

We want to ensure you remain in control of your personal data. Part of this is making sure you understand your legal rights, which are as follows:

• the right to confirmation as to whether or not we have your personal data and, if we do, to obtain a copy of the personal information we hold (this is known as a subject access request)

• the right to have your data erased (though this will not apply where it is necessary for us to continue to use the data for a lawful reason)

• the right to have inaccurate data corrected

• the right to object to your data being used for marketing or profiling

Any questions you have in relation to this policy or how we use your personal data should be sent to info@scottishbooktrust.com or addressed to the Director of Finance and Operations, Scottish Book Trust, Sandeman House, Trunk’s Close, 55 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1SR.

If you want to access your information, please email info@scottishbooktrust.com or write to our Director of Finance and Operations at Scottish Book Trust, Sandeman House, Trunk’s Close, 55 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1SR.

Complaints

You can complain about an issue concerning your data protection and privacy rights to Scottish Book Trust directly by contacting our Director of Finance and Operations using the details above. If you wish to make a complaint which does not directly relate to your data protection and privacy rights, you can do so in accordance with our charity’s complaints policy.

If you are not happy with our response, or you believe that your data protection or privacy rights have been infringed, you can complain to the UK Information Commissioner’s Office which regulates and enforces data protection law in the UK.

Details of how to do this can be found at https://ico.org.uk/for-the-public/raising-concerns or you can contact the Information Commissioner’s Office directly at https://ico.org.uk/concerns or telephone 0303 123 1113.

Cookies and links to other sites

Cookies

This website uses cookies. Cookies are pieces of data, normally stored in text files that websites place on visitors’ computers to store information about the visitor or the device they’re using.  This information is used to make the site work as you expect it to. The information collected cannot personally identify you, but is used to personalise your time on our website. 

How do we use cookies? 

As with most online services, our website uses first-party and third-party cookies for several purposes. First-party cookies are mostly necessary for the website to function the right way, and they do not collect any of your personally identifiable data. 

The third-party cookies used on our website are mainly for understanding how the website performs, how you interact with our website, keeping our services secure, and all in all they help provide you with a better, improved user experience and speed up your future interactions with our website. 

Types of cookies we use 

Reporting and analytics 

We use Google Analytics and Microsoft Clarity to collect information on browsing. These tool uses cookies to tell us how many people visit the site, what pages they’re reading and the types of browsers and devices they use to visit the site. All of the information that is collected is anonymised and cannot be used to identify you. 

We use Demographics and Interest reporting. To achieve this, we connect data via first-party (Google Analytics) and third-party (Google Ads) cookies, using Google Signals which enables reporting information to include aggregated data from users who have Ads personalisation switched on. No individual user data is available to us. We can see aggregate reports only, for the subset of users who enable Ads personalisation in their Google account.  

Users can opt out of Demographics and Interest reporting by either not accepting Analytics cookies in the website cookie banner (and therefore not being tracked at all by Google Analytics), or by disabling Ads personalisation in their own Google account settings. 

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