PRIVACY POLICY

The following statement explains our policy regarding the personal information we collect about you.

1. Statement of intent
2. Use and storage of your personal information
3. Access to your personal information
4. Information o­n visitors
5. What is a cookie?
6. How to find and control your cookies
7. How do you know which sites use cookies?
8. How to see your cookie code

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1. Statement of intent

From time to time, you will be asked to submit personal information about yourself (e.g. name and email address etc) in order to receive or use services o­n our website. Such services may include newsletters, competitions, "Alert Email", live chats, message boards and information about Benefit Fund membership.

By entering your details in the fields requested, you enable the Benefit Fund and its service providers to provide you with the services you select. Whenever you provide such personal information, we will treat that information in accordance with this policy. Our services are designed to give you the information that you want to receive. The Benefit Fund will act in accordance with current legislation and aim to meet current Internet best practice.

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2. Use and storage of your personal information

When you supply any personal information to the Benefit Fund (e.g. for competitions, other services or Benefit Fund membership) we have legal obligations towards you in the way we deal with that data. We must collect the information fairly, that is, we must explain how we will use it (see the notices o­n particular web pages that let you know why we are requesting the information) and tell you if we want to pass the information o­n to anyone else. In general, any information you provide to the Benefit Fund will o­nly be used within the Benefit Fund and by its service providers. It will never be supplied to anyone outside the Benefit Fund without first obtaining your consent, unless we are obliged or permitted by law to disclose it. Also, if you post or send offensive or inappropriate content anywhere o­n or to the Benefit Fund and we consider such behaviour to be serious and/or repeated, we can use whatever information that is available to it about you to stop such behaviour. This may include informing relevant third parties such as your employer or e-mail provider about the content and your behaviour.

We will hold your personal information o­n our systems for as long as you use the service you have requested, and remove it in the event that the purpose has been met, or, in the case of Benefit Fund membership you no longer wish to continue your registration as a member. For safety reasons, however, the Benefit Fund may store messaging transcript data (including message content, member names, times and dates) arising from the use of website services for a period of six months. Where personal information is held for people who are not yet registered but have taken part in other Benefit Fund services (eg competitions) that information will be held o­nly as long as necessary to ensure that the service is run smoothly. We will ensure that all personal information supplied is held securely, in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998.

If you are notified o­n the Benefit Fund site that your information may be used to allow the Benefit Fund or the British Friendly Society to contact you for "service administration purposes", this means that the Benefit Fund may contact you for a number of purposes related to the service you have signed up for. For example, we may wish to provide you with password reminders or notify you that the particular service has been suspended for maintenance. We will not contact you for promotional purposes, such as notifying you of improvements to the service or new services o­n the site unless you specifically agree to be contacted for such purposes at the time you submit your information o­n the site, or at a later time if you sign up specifically to receive such promotional information.

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3. Access to your personal information

You have the right to request a copy of the personal information the Benefit Fund holds about you and to have any inaccuracies corrected (we charge £10 for information requests.) Please address requests to the Data Protection Officer, BA Benefit Fund, Administration Office, 1 Trevor Street, Bedford, MK40 2AB (email: enquiries@babenefitfund.co.uk).

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4. Information o­n visitors

During the course of any visit to the Benefit Fund site, the pages you see, along with something called a cookie, are downloaded to your computer (see point 3 for more o­n this). Most, if not all, websites do this, because cookies allow the website publisher to do useful things like find out whether the computer (and probably its user) has visited the site before. This is done o­n a repeat visit by checking to see, and finding, the cookie left there o­n the last visit.

Any information that is supplied by cookies can help us to provide you with a better service and assists us to analyse the profile of our visitors. For example: if o­n a previous visit you went to, say, Sickness Benefit Plan pages, then we might find this out from your cookie and highlight relevant information o­n a second visit.

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5. What is a cookie?

When you enter a site your computer will automatically be issued with a cookie. Cookies are text files that identify your computer to our server. Cookies in themselves do not identify the individual user, just the computer used. Many sites do this whenever a user visits their site in order to track traffic flows.

Cookies themselves o­nly record those areas of the site that have been visited by the computer in question, and for how long. Users have the opportunity to set their computers to accept all cookies, to notify them when a cookie is issued, or not to receive cookies at any time. The last of these, of course, means that certain personalised services cannot then be provided to that user. NB: Even if you haven't set your computer to reject cookies you can still browse our site anonymously until such time as you register for Benefit Fund services.

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6. How to find and control your cookies

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7. How do you know which of the sites you've visited use cookies?

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8. How to see your cookie code

Just click o­n a cookie to open it. You'll see a short string of text and numbers. The numbers are your identification card, which can o­nly be seen by the server that gave you the cookie.