THIS PRIVACY POLICY APPLIES TO MEMBERS OF THE SUFFOLK BEEKEEPERS’ ASSOCIATION. IT EXPLAINS HOW WE PROCESS PERSONAL INFORMATION ABOUT YOU IN RELATION TO MEMBERSHIP OF OUR ASSOCIATION. 

Introduction

The Suffolk Beekeepers’ Association (SBKA) is a membership organisation for beekeepers in the county. In turn, SBKA is itself a member organisation of The British Beekeepers’ Association (BBKA) and acts as an agent for the collection of subscriptions and premiums for Bee Diseases Insurance Ltd. (BDI). SBKA also as relationships with Beecraft, Beebase and BeeConnected. 

This Privacy Policy applies to all these activities. For the purposes of this statement members, whether individuals, branches other groups are referred to as ‘members’. We maintain the highest standards of confidentiality regarding the personal information provided to us by our members. This Privacy Policy has been prepared to inform you of our policies and practices concerning the collection, processing and security of your personal information which we use in relation to our activities within SBKA. 

Personal information 

For this Privacy Policy, personal information means any information we may hold about you, which is recorded in any form. In order to provide you with membership and other services we offer and to keep you in touch with you about our activities. We have a contractual obligation to process your personal information and this Privacy Policy explains why and how we collect, use and store your personal information. 

What type of personal information do we use? 

All personal information is held in strict confidence and not revealed to anyone outside SBKA unless it is necessary in relation your membership of SBKA or is otherwise expressly or implicitly authorised by you or required by applicable law. In the course of our relationship with you, we will need to collect, process, and sometimes, disclose various types of personal information for various purposes associated with your membership. The personal information we collect may vary between individuals and may include some or all of the following:

  • Your full name and home address;
  • Contact information, such as your home and mobile telephone numbers and e-mail addresses;
  • Details of the numbers of beehives you manage;
  • Details of any beekeeping qualifications you may hold
  • Details of any offices you may hold or have held in your local, regional or national beekeeping associations;
  • Whether you have accepted or unsubscribed from our mailing lists or those of the BBKA or other bodies we are members of, including BDI, Beecraft, BeeBase and BeeConnected.
  • Any other personal information that you may voluntarily provide to us.

How do we use your personal information? 

SBKA uses personal information for the purposes set out in this Privacy Policy. Under no circumstances will we sell any of your personal information to another organisation for them to promote their products or services to you. We may use your personal information for the following purposes:

  • Information: to provide you with details of our activities, and those of other beekeeping groups;
  • BBKA; to enable BBKA to provide the services to you that we have agreed, including the provision of a monthly magazine by post, email or other means as you have indicated
  • Insurance (BDI): to fulfil our obligations under the insurance contract with BDI that we act as agents for in this matter.
  • BDI; to in turn be provided to the National Bee Unit part of Animal and Plant health Agency (NBU). This information is then used to update the voluntary register of beekeepers that the NBU maintains called “BeeBase”. Information is only made available to the NBU provided that a) the local association has consented to their members being offered this facility – such consent and the date of being given being recorded on eR2. b) This consent has not been subsequently withdrawn. c) the individual member has given consent for their personal data to be transferred to the NBU, having been provided with full information as to what personal information is to be transferred and been made aware of the National Bee Unit part of Animal and Plant health Agency’s privacy policy which states how the NBU may use the data. d) the member’s consent has not been withdrawn.
  • Any purpose which is required by applicable law; and
  • To carry out any other purpose which is disclosed to you and to which you consent. You may ask for your details to be modified at any time. We may also disclose personal information about you to other organisations that perform services for us. Only such personal information as is relevant will be provided to such organisations, providing they agree to provide appropriate protection for such information.

Use of your information outside the United Kingdom 

We may sometimes need to transfer your personal information to countries outside the UK where the level of protection may not be as comprehensive as it is within the UK. Where appropriate, we have procedures in place to ensure that your personal information is adequately protected.

Your Data Protection Rights 

We will endeavour to ensure that any personal information provided by you and/or held by us is as accurate, current and complete as necessary for the purposes for which we use that information. Under data protection law, you have rights including:

  • Your right of access - You have the right to ask us for copies of your personal information.
  • Your right to rectification - You have the right to ask us to correct personal information you think is inaccurate or complete information you think is incomplete.
  • Your right to erasure - You have the right to ask us to erase your personal information in certain circumstances.
  • Your right to restriction of processing - You have the right to ask us to restrict the processing of your personal information in certain circumstances.
  • Your right to object to processing - You have the right to object to the processing of your personal information in certain circumstances.

You are not required to pay any charge for exercising your rights. If you make a request, we have one month to respond to you. To make a request, please use the contact details at the end of this policy. We may verify your identity to our satisfaction before doing so. There may be circumstances where access cannot be granted (e.g., where it would lead to the disclosure of another individual's personal information). In such cases, you will be notified of the reason.

Limiting collection, use, disclosure and retention of personal information SBKA may collect and store your personal information in many forms (hard/soft copy, electronically, facsimile, telephone conversations/recordings, etc.), but will only do so by lawful means and only for necessary purposes that have been disclosed to you.

Personal information collected in any form will only be retained so long as it is required: 

a) for the purpose for which it was collected; 

b) to be retained by law; or 

c) to address any issues that may arise at a later date. 

When your personal information is no longer required for these identified purposes, we use secure procedures to destroy, delete or erase the personal information. 

Consent 

By providing your personal information to SBKA, you agree that we may collect, use and disclose your personal information in accordance with the terms of this Privacy Policy, as updated from time to time. If you do not agree with these terms, you are requested not to provide any personal information to us, other than that which is necessary in relation to your membership with SBKA. 

Please note that there are circumstances where the use and/or disclosure of personal information may be justified or permitted or where SBKA may or must disclose information without consent, in accordance with the applicable law. Where obliged or permitted to disclose information without consent, SBKA will not disclose more information than is required for the purpose that obligates or permits us to disclose such information. You have the right to revoke your consent to the collection, use and disclosure of your personal information at any time. 

We will discuss with you the reason we need your personal information and why the revocation of your consent affects our ability to continue with certain aspects of your membership with SBKA, including the provision of benefits you have paid for.

Storage and security

SBKA has taken steps to maintain physical, procedural and technical security for personal information. We will take appropriate technical and organisation measures to keep your information confidential and secure in accordance with our internal procedures for covering the storage, access and disclosure of information. 

SBKA intends to use the services of ‘eReturn2’ provided by BDI Ltd and Purely Solutions Ltd as the prime method of storing and processing your membership data, as this provides a fully secure and GDPR compliant membership system. However, information may be also kept in paper files.

  • eReturn2: BDI / Purely Solutions act as a ‘Data Processor’ in relation to our membership services. SBKA has a contract in place which confirms that the processing of your data will comply with the terms of this privacy policy.
  • Local data: There will be times when data is downloaded to local computers – e.g., for the printing of address labels. In such circumstances data will be processed and deleted after processing. Any files stored locally will only be held on password protected computers that will have anti-virus and anti-malware protection installed. No data will be emailed that is not password protected or otherwise encrypted either internally within SBKA or to third parties.

Our website, Cookies and Social Media 

This Privacy Policy includes activity in relation to our website (www.sbka.org.uk.)

A 'cookie' is a small data file stored on your computer. Our website uses cookies. However, we only use cookies that are strictly necessary to provide the services offered on the website (for example, to allow you to log in to a members' area). We do not use cookies for tracking, analytics, or marketing purposes. We do not harvest or sell any information collected by cookies. 

This policy does not cover external websites or social media platforms. We cannot control the use of your personal information by such external sites. Use of your personal information on social media or external websites is entirely at your discretion, and SBKA cannot be responsible for the actions of any third party organisations.

Accountability

SBKA takes the protection of personal information seriously. We require all the other organisations who provide services in connection with our activities to comply with these obligations. In accordance with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018, SBKA is registered as a 'Data Controller' on the public Register of Data Controllers as maintained by the Information Commissioner.

Our Data Protection Officer (DPO) is Jackie McQueen.

Effective date of this Privacy Policy 

This Privacy Policy is in effect as of 1st November 2025.

If there are any updates, appropriate notices will be sent to you. 

Contact us 

Should you have any questions, complaints or concerns regarding this Privacy Policy or the personal information we hold about you, you may contact us: 

By post: Mrs Jackie McQueen, 643 Foxhall Road, Ipswich IP3 8NE 

By e-mail: memsec.sbka@suffolkbeekeepers.co.uk 

By phone: 07847 688775