Privacy Policy
1. Who we
are
The Benzo Research Project (BRP: “we” or “us”) is an unincorporated charitable association led by students and young people. Drugs and Me (DnM) is a drug harm reduction education website, on which we hosted the testimonial sharing platform (03–09/2022). Data controllers of your personal data and inquiries regarding this privacy notice and data subject rights can be made via hello@brp.org.uk
2. Scope of this Privacy Notice
This Privacy Notice aims at informing website visitors to the Benzo Research Project website, as well as contributors and other stakeholders about how we process personal data. We are committed to processing personal data responsibly, securely, and proportionally throughout the project.
3. How we collect your personal data
If you shared your testimony on Drugs and Me's website, this process is intended to be anonymous, and we don’t want to know your name or any other identifying details for this purpose. We do not collect or retain personal information about you when you are filling in your form, including your IP address or location.
However, there are other circumstances in which we will obtain personal information from you when you or interact with us. For example, when you:
a) enquire about our activities via email or instagram;
b) volunteer with us;
c) make a donation to us; or
d) otherwise provide us with personal information
4. The personal data types we collect
In the circumstances noted above, we collect the following types of general personal data about individuals, including:
Gender, location, email addresses, names, telephone numbers, social media accounts (Instagram). These are processed when we engage in email, phone, or correspondence through social media like Instagram, volunteers, media requests and other stakeholders who contact us.
5. The lawful bases for processing your personal data
We process personal data on the following bases:
6. What we do with your personal data
We process your personal data with the purpose of:
7. Analysis of testimonies by external parties
Explicit consent must be obtained from the Benzo Research Project before the testimonies can be used or analysed in any way by any external parties.
8. How we secure your data when we process it
Anonymous data
We require all testimonies submitted to be anonymous. Therefore we do not collect identifying information. Should a testimony be submitted with personal information, this will be edited out and the original deleted. This editing process is explained on the submission page. We have put appropriate technical and organisational security policies and procedures in place to protect the submitted testimonies from loss, misuse, alteration or destruction. All submitted testimonies are password protected and access is restricted only to those who need to access it. Those individuals who have access to the submitted testimonies prior to its anonymous posting online are required to maintain the confidentiality of such information, and sign a data confidentiality agreement document.
Personal data
For individuals who choose to contact us via social media, email or other means, usernames and contact details will be accessible through the social media platform for the purpose of contacting you again in relation to your enquiry, but will not be stored elsewhere. Your details or information shared in your enquiry will not be used in our research or passed to any third party without your explicit permission. We install and regularly update all security and anti-virus software in use on all of our systems.
Please be aware that the transmission of data via the Internet is not completely secure. Whilst we do our best to try to protect the security of your personal data, we cannot ensure or guarantee the security of your data transmitted to the Benzo Research Project or Drugs and Me website.
9. Do we use cookies?
Our website is hosted by Cloudflare who does not use cookies. Where cookies are used (e.g., an embedded social media post), a statement will be sent to your browser explaining the use of cookies.
10. Your data protection rights
You have the following rights in relation to your personal data that we process. You can exercise your rights by emailing us at hello@brp.org.uk, including:
11. How long do we retain personal data?
We retain personal data to comply with applicable laws, regulations, and professional obligations that we are subject to. Unless a different time frame applies as a result of business needs or specific legal, regulatory, or contractual requirements, we retain personal data for a period of 2 years.
12. Do we link to other websites?
Our websites may contain links to other sites that are not governed by this Privacy Notice. Please review the destination websites’ privacy policies before submitting personal data on those sites. Whilst we try to link only to sites that share our high standards and respect for privacy, we are not responsible for the content, security, or privacy practices employed by other sites.
13. Do we change this Privacy Notice?
We regularly review this Privacy Notice and will post any updates to it on this webpage. This Privacy Notice was last updated 2nd April 2024.
14. Contact us
If you have any concerns as to how your data is processed, you can contact us by email: hello@brp.org.uk. We will respond to your queries within 30 days from when we receive them.
The Benzo Research Project (BRP: “we” or “us”) is an unincorporated charitable association led by students and young people. Drugs and Me (DnM) is a drug harm reduction education website, on which we hosted the testimonial sharing platform (03–09/2022). Data controllers of your personal data and inquiries regarding this privacy notice and data subject rights can be made via hello@brp.org.uk
2. Scope of this Privacy Notice
This Privacy Notice aims at informing website visitors to the Benzo Research Project website, as well as contributors and other stakeholders about how we process personal data. We are committed to processing personal data responsibly, securely, and proportionally throughout the project.
3. How we collect your personal data
If you shared your testimony on Drugs and Me's website, this process is intended to be anonymous, and we don’t want to know your name or any other identifying details for this purpose. We do not collect or retain personal information about you when you are filling in your form, including your IP address or location.
However, there are other circumstances in which we will obtain personal information from you when you or interact with us. For example, when you:
a) enquire about our activities via email or instagram;
b) volunteer with us;
c) make a donation to us; or
d) otherwise provide us with personal information
4. The personal data types we collect
In the circumstances noted above, we collect the following types of general personal data about individuals, including:
Gender, location, email addresses, names, telephone numbers, social media accounts (Instagram). These are processed when we engage in email, phone, or correspondence through social media like Instagram, volunteers, media requests and other stakeholders who contact us.
5. The lawful bases for processing your personal data
We process personal data on the following bases:
- Consent – [Volunteers]
- Legitimate interest – [Media and other stakeholders]
6. What we do with your personal data
We process your personal data with the purpose of:
- Enhancing our research or undertaking additional research with trusted parties to provide insights and produce speciality knowledge to advocate for change
- Undertaking awareness raising to advocate for policy reformations, support curriculum planning with schools/universities and to increase awareness through media publications
- Promoting our message and mission (marketing)
- Complying with legal and regulatory obligations
- Contributing to the creation of a harm reduction application developed by the team at Drugs and Me
7. Analysis of testimonies by external parties
Explicit consent must be obtained from the Benzo Research Project before the testimonies can be used or analysed in any way by any external parties.
8. How we secure your data when we process it
Anonymous data
We require all testimonies submitted to be anonymous. Therefore we do not collect identifying information. Should a testimony be submitted with personal information, this will be edited out and the original deleted. This editing process is explained on the submission page. We have put appropriate technical and organisational security policies and procedures in place to protect the submitted testimonies from loss, misuse, alteration or destruction. All submitted testimonies are password protected and access is restricted only to those who need to access it. Those individuals who have access to the submitted testimonies prior to its anonymous posting online are required to maintain the confidentiality of such information, and sign a data confidentiality agreement document.
Personal data
For individuals who choose to contact us via social media, email or other means, usernames and contact details will be accessible through the social media platform for the purpose of contacting you again in relation to your enquiry, but will not be stored elsewhere. Your details or information shared in your enquiry will not be used in our research or passed to any third party without your explicit permission. We install and regularly update all security and anti-virus software in use on all of our systems.
Please be aware that the transmission of data via the Internet is not completely secure. Whilst we do our best to try to protect the security of your personal data, we cannot ensure or guarantee the security of your data transmitted to the Benzo Research Project or Drugs and Me website.
9. Do we use cookies?
Our website is hosted by Cloudflare who does not use cookies. Where cookies are used (e.g., an embedded social media post), a statement will be sent to your browser explaining the use of cookies.
10. Your data protection rights
You have the following rights in relation to your personal data that we process. You can exercise your rights by emailing us at hello@brp.org.uk, including:
- Right to Withdraw Consent – You can withdraw your consent that you have previously given to one or more specified purposes to process your personal data. This will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before you withdraw your consent.
- Right to Rectification and Erasure – You can ask us to correct our records if you believe they contain incorrect or incomplete information about you or ask us to erase your personal data after you withdraw your consent to processing or when we no longer need it for the purpose it was originally collected.
- Right to Restriction of Processing – You can ask us to temporarily restrict our processing of your personal data if you contest the accuracy of your personal data, prefer to restrict its use rather than having us erase it, or need us to preserve it for you to establish, exercise, or defend a legal claim. A temporary restriction may apply while verifying whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to process it. You can ask us to inform you before we lift that temporary processing restriction.
- Right to Object – You can object to our use of your personal data for direct marketing purposes, including profiling or where processing has taken the form of automated decision making. However, we may need to keep some minimal information (e.g., email address) to comply with your request to cease marketing to you.
- Right to Make a Complaint – You can contact the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (https://ico.org.uk/concerns/handling/) regarding any concerns you may have about our data handling practises. We may need to request specific information from you to help us ensure your right to access the information or to exercise any of your other rights. This helps us to ensure that personal data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it.
11. How long do we retain personal data?
We retain personal data to comply with applicable laws, regulations, and professional obligations that we are subject to. Unless a different time frame applies as a result of business needs or specific legal, regulatory, or contractual requirements, we retain personal data for a period of 2 years.
12. Do we link to other websites?
Our websites may contain links to other sites that are not governed by this Privacy Notice. Please review the destination websites’ privacy policies before submitting personal data on those sites. Whilst we try to link only to sites that share our high standards and respect for privacy, we are not responsible for the content, security, or privacy practices employed by other sites.
13. Do we change this Privacy Notice?
We regularly review this Privacy Notice and will post any updates to it on this webpage. This Privacy Notice was last updated 2nd April 2024.
14. Contact us
If you have any concerns as to how your data is processed, you can contact us by email: hello@brp.org.uk. We will respond to your queries within 30 days from when we receive them.
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