BGSO Privacy Policy

Purpose of policy

We are committed to protecting your personal information and being transparent about what information we hold about you. Using personal information allows us to develop a better understanding of our patrons and in turn to provide you with relevant and timely information about the work that we do - both on and off stage.

As a charity, it also helps us to engage with potential donors and supporters. The purpose of this policy is to give you a clear explanation about how we collect and use the information we receive from you directly and from third parties.

We use your information in accordance with all applicable laws concerning the protection of personal information.

This policy explains

What information we may collect about you
How we may use that information
In what situations we may disclose your details to third parties
Our use of cookies to improve your use of our website
How we keep your personal information secure, how we maintain it for you, and your rights to access it.

If you have any queries about this policy, please contact the BGSO Secretary at Birmingham Gay Symphony Orchestra by emailing secretary@bgso.org.uk or using the contact form at www.bgso.org.uk.

Who we are

Birmingham Gay Symphony Orchestra (BGSO) is the Midlands’ LGBT orchestra. BGSO promotes musical talent directly from within the LGBT community, illuminating the diversity that exists within it to the wider community and beyond.

BGSO is a registered charity funded by individual donors and supporters as well as through our concerts and other activities. The Birmingham Gay Symphony Orchestra is a Charitable Incorporated Organisation, registered in England, number 1144646

Information collection – audience members and donors

We collect various types of information and in a number of ways:

Information you give us
When you register on our website, buy tickets or make a donation, we’ll store personal information you give us such as your name, email address, postal address and telephone number. We will also store a record of your purchases and donations.
Information about your interactions with us
When you visit our website, we collect information about how you interact with our content and ads. When we send you a mailing we store a record of this, and in the case of emails we keep a record of which ones you have opened and which links you have clicked on.
Information from third parties
We occasionally receive information about you from other sources. For example, as we are a touring company we may receive your personal information when you book tickets through venues where we are performing. We will always contact you to let you know if we have been given your information from a third party, and we will always tell you how to access this policy so you know how we will use your data.

Sensitive personal data

Data Protection law recognises that certain categories of personal information are more sensitive such as health information, race, religious beliefs and political opinions. We do not usually collect this type of information about our patrons unless there is a clear reason for doing so.

Legal basis

There are three bases under which we may process your data as an audience member or donor:

1. Contract purposes
When you make a purchase from us or make a donation to us, you are entering into a contract with us. In order to perform this contract we need to process and store your data. For example we may need to contact you by email or telephone in the case of cancellation of a concert, or in the case of problems with your payment.

2. Legitimate business interests

In certain situations we collect and process your personal information for purposes that are in our legitimate business interests. However we only do this if there is no overriding prejudice to you by using your personal information in this way. We describe below all situations where we may use this basis for processing.

3. With your explicit consent

For any situations where contract or legitimate business interest bases are not appropriate, we will instead ask for your explicit consent before using your personal information in that specific situation.

Marketing communications

We aim to communicate with you about the work that we do in ways that you find relevant, timely and respectful. To do this we use data that we have stored about you, such as what events you have booked for in the past, as well as any preferences you may have told us about. We use our legitimate business interest as the legal basis for communications by post and email. In the case of postal mailings, you may object to receiving these at any time using the contact details at the end of this policy. In the case of email, we will give you an opportunity to opt out of receiving them during your first purchase with us. If you do not opt out, we will provide you with an option to unsubscribe in every email that we subsequently send you, or you can alternatively use the contact details at the end of this policy.

If you explicitly opt-in to receive information from us we use consent as the legal basis for communicating with you - for example, this is the basis we use if you sign up on our website to receive information about concerts and events. You can withdraw consent at any time using the contact details at the end of this policy.

We may also contact you about our work by telephone however we will always get explicit consent from you before doing this. Please bear in mind that this does not apply to telephone calls that we may need to make to you related to your purchases (as described in the Legal basis: 1. Contract purposes section of this policy).

Other processing activities

In addition to marketing communications, we also process personal information in the following ways:

We may analyse data we hold about you to ensure that the content and timing of communications that we send you are as relevant to you as possible.
We may analyse data we hold about you in order to identify and prevent fraud.
We may analyse data we hold about you in order to comply with reporting requirements from funders.
We may analyse information about how you use our website and the content and ads that you interact with in order to improve our website.

We will always keep your rights and interests at the forefront to ensure they are not overridden by our own interests or fundamental rights and freedoms. You have the right to object to any of this processing at any time. If you wish to do this, please use the contact details at the end of this policy. Please bear in mind that if you object this may affect our ability to carry out tasks above that are for your benefit.

BGSO Members

When you join BGSO as a musician or supporter we need to process and store your data. For example we need to store your information to contact you about rehearsals and concerts. We use a secure membership management database to store and manage this information. You can access and update your own record at any time; for information on how to do this, please contact the BGSO Secretary at secretary@bgso.org.uk.

Although we do not explicitly ask for you to disclose sensitive personal information, if you choose to share this with us we will ensure it is stored and processed in the most secure way, and only retained for as long as is necessary – for example you may choose to share information about a medical condition you suffer from so that we can take appropriate measures to help you attend our rehearsals.

Non-members, deputy performers and other artists

We record the personal information of non-members, deputy performers (deps) and artists including name, contact information, instrument played and previous performances performed in with BGSO securely. This information is processed:

In our legitimate business interests to maintain a list of musicians who are able to perform with BGSO where there is no member available.
To enter into contracts with musicians who we pay to perform in our concerts, either as artists (for example a concerto soloist) or as deps.

Third parties

There are two circumstances under which we may disclose your personal information to third parties. These are:

To our own service providers who process data on our behalf and on our instructions (for example our email provider). In these cases we require that these third parties comply strictly with our instructions and with data protection laws, for example around security of personal data.
Where we are under a duty to disclose your personal information in order to comply with any legal obligation (for example to government bodies and law enforcement agencies).

Cookies are small text files that are automatically placed onto your device by some websites that you visit. They are widely used to allow a website to function (for example to keep track of your basket) as well to provide website operators with information on how the site is being used.

Your debit and credit card information

We have engaged a third party box office and so will not ask for or use your debit or credit card information ourselves.

Maintaining your personal information

We store your personal information indefinitely such that for any subsequent purchases you make we are able to link them back to a single unique record that we hold for you on our system. If there are aspects of your record that are inaccurate or that you would like to remove, you can let us know by contacting us using the details at the end of this policy. Any objections you make to any processing of your data will be stored against your record on our system so that we can comply with your requests.

Storage and transfer outside of Europe

Your data will be stored securely on servers in the EU. We may transfer personal data to our email provider Mailchimp, which has servers in the USA. Mailchimp is compliant with the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield Framework. More information on Mailchimp can be found here.

Security of your personal information

We will put in place appropriate safeguards (both in terms of our procedures and the technology we use) to keep your personal information as secure as possible. We will ensure that any third parties we use for processing your personal information do the same.

Your rights to your personal information

You have a right to request a copy of the personal information that we hold about you and to have any inaccuracies in this data corrected. Please use the contact details at the end of this policy if you would like to exercise this right.

Contact details and further information

Please get in touch with us if you have any questions about any aspect of this privacy policy, and in particular if you would like to object to any processing of your personal information that we carry out for our legitimate organisational interests.

Contact:

BGSO Secretary
secretary@bgso.org.uk