At the European Social Marketing Association, we are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy. This policy explains when and why we collect personal information about people who visit our website, how we use it, the conditions under which we may disclose it and how we keep it secure.

We may change this policy from time to time so please check this page occasionally to ensure that you are happy with any changes. By using our website, you adhere to this statement and our privacy policies.

If you have subscribed to the European Social Marketing Association newsletter or registered as a member on the website, we also outline how we use this data, where it is stored and how it is processed in the relevant sections below.

Any questions regarding this statement and our privacy practices relating to this website should be sent by email to info@europeansocialmarketing.org

Who are we?

The European Social Marketing Association (ESMA) is a professional association for individuals and organisations practicing, researching and teaching social marketing in Europe. ESMA endeavours to contribute to the development, evidence base and promotion of the social marketing discipline in Europe and the world.

How do we collect information from you?

We obtain information about you when you use our website, when you subscribe to the European Social Marketing newsletter, when you register as a member on the website or when you contact us via email.

What type of information is collected from you?

The personal information we collect via our website may include your name, email address (if you email us) and information regarding what pages of our website are accessed and when. This information is required for us to understand what pages are of most interest to people to allow us to tailor content accordingly.

If you purchase membership which requires registration on our website, we may request details including name, email address, job title and position, organisation name, address, country, primary area of interest and how you found out about us. This information is required to check identity and set up your member account. Any payment details processed as part of membership registration are not held or retained by ESMA, they are collected by our third-party payment processors, Stripe and PayPal, who specialise in secure online capture and processing of credit/debit card transactions, as explained below. Please note that these payment processors may send data outside the EU (e.g. to the US).

If you subscribe to the European Social Marketing Association newsletter (i.e. regional Association newsletter), we will request that you provide us with your email address. Only your email address is a mandatory requirement for newsletter subscription.

How is your information used?

We collect this information when you register as a member on the website and when you email the ESMA. We use the information you provided to reply to your emails, provide our membership services and to help us create a community for our members. We may use your information to:

  • Process your ESMA membership registration.
  • Contact you in relation to your membership application (e.g. for organisational membership).
  • Provide you with membership services such as access to the members-only webpages.
  • Keep in contact with former members who have not unsubscribed from our mailing lists.
  • Process your registration for any event which we may organise in line with our standard collection and retention policy.
  • Deal with enquiries directed to us via our website.
  • Invite you to research, educational and training events and activities.
  • Invite you to conferences and other networking opportunities.
  • Seek volunteers for involvement in research or promoting social marketing matters.
  • Seek your views or comments on the membership services and products we provide.
  • Consult you or seek your views about social marketing related issues.
  • Notify you of changes to our services.
  • Send you communications which you have requested and that may be of interest to you. These may include information about the social marketing events, training, research news, job adverts.
  • From time to time, we may also use your information to contact you for research purposes. We may contact you by email. We may use the information to customise our memberships offer and the website according to your interests.

How long do we keep your information?

ESMA will not keep your information for longer than is necessary.

  • Details provided to us via our website will be retained for up to one year after your membership has expired and how long you remain subscribed to our newsletter. This is to allow you to renew your membership and reactivate your account more easily if you re-join the Association up to one year after your membership expires.

Who has access to your information?

ESMA will not sell or rent your personal information gathered as a result of visiting this website, emailing or completing membership registration or registration for an event that we organise to anyone.

The ESMA membership now includes free iSMA (International Social Marketing Association) membership. This means that when you join ESMA as a member you have the option to become a member of iSMA. When you register as an ESMA member you will be asked if you would like to sign up for complimentary free iSMA membership. For iSMA members’ benefits to be realised iSMA needs access to members’ personal details. Please go to the iSMA website for information about their privacy policies

Third party service providers working on our behalf:

We may pass your information to our third party service providers, agents, subcontractors, and other associated organisations for the purposes of completing tasks and providing service to you on our behalf (e.g. to distribute the ESMA newsletter, process European and World Social Marketing Conference registration). However, when we use third-party service providers, we disclose only the personal information that is necessary to deliver the service. Please be reassured that we will not release your information to third parties for them to use for their own direct marketing purposes, unless you have explicitly requested us to do so, or we are required to do so by law, for example, by a court order or for the purposes of prevention of fraud or other crime.

To manage our membership we use the PaidMembershipPro plugin. To manage and distribute the ESMA newsletters we use MailChimp. By subscribing to this mailing list you give consent for us to store any information you provide within this system for the explicit purpose of distrusting this newsletter. More information can be found about MailChimp’s privacy policies here.

Please note that when we run conferences, we may pass on your name to our conference organisers if you wish to benefit from memberships conference rates, but this will be advised to you when you sign up to this event

Choosing how we use your data

You have a choice about whether you wish to or not to receive information from us. ESMA will only contact those who have given explicit and clear consent to receive the newsletter and be contacted for communications purposes by selecting the relevant box on our website which is part of the registration form.

We will not contact you for marketing purposes by email unless you have given your prior consent.

You can change your communication preferences at any time by contacting us via email at info@europeansocialmarketing.org

If you currently receive the ESMA newsletter you may update your preferences or unsubscribe at any time using the links provided at the bottom of each newsletter. Only those who have actively subscribed to this newsletter will receive it. Subscriptions are gathered via the ESMA website during the membership registration process.

If you feel you are receiving this email in error, or have any queries about the newsletter or your preferences please contact info@europeansocialmarketing.org

Controlling your personal information

You have the right to:

  • Be informed about how we use your information.
  • Change and/or update the information we hold about you.
  • Have the information we hold about you deleted.
  • Request a copy of the information we hold about you.
  • If you would like to change, delete, or request a copy of your information please email us at info@europeansocialmarketing.org
  • You can unsubscribe from receiving membership communications emails from us by clicking the ‘Unsubscribe’ link at the bottom of the newsletter emails. Once you do this you will no longer receive emails from us.

If you believe that any information we are holding on you is incorrect or incomplete, please write to us as soon as possible, using the contact details above.

Security

When you give us personal information, we take steps to ensure that it is treated securely. Any sensitive information (such as invoice details) is encrypted and protected. When you are on a secure page, a lock icon will appear on the bottom of web browsers.

Non-sensitive details are transmitted normally over the Internet, and this can never be guaranteed to be 100% secure. As a result, while we strive to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee the security of any information you transmit to us, and you do so at your own risk. Once we receive your information, we monitor to ensure its security on our systems.

Use of cookies

Like many other websites, the ESMA website uses cookies. ‘Cookies’ are small pieces of information sent by an organisation to your computer and stored on your hard drive to allow that website to recognise you when you visit. They collect statistical data about your browsing actions and patterns and do not identify you as an individual.

Overall, cookies help us provide you with a better website, by enabling us to monitor which pages you find useful and which you do not. A cookie in no way gives us access to your computer or any information about you, other than the data you choose to share with us.

You can choose to accept or decline cookies. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but it is possible to switch off cookies by setting your browser preferences. You can read more about our cookies here.

Transferring your information outside of Europe

As part of the services we offer to our members, including the iSMA membership, the information which you provide to us (either by general enquiry or via membership   registration) may be transferred to countries outside the European Union (“EU”). By way of example, this may happen if any servers used by MailChimp and iSMA are located in a country outside of the EU. These countries may not have similar data protection laws to the UK. By submitting your personal data, you are agreeing to this transfer, storing or processing.

If you use our services while you are outside the EU, your information may be transferred outside the EU in order to provide you with those services.

Links to other websites

Our website may contain links to other websites of interest. However, once you have used these links to leave our site, you should note that we do not have any control over that other website. Therefore, we cannot be responsible for the protection and privacy of any information which you provide whilst visiting such sites and such sites are not governed by this privacy statement. You should exercise caution and look at the privacy statement applicable to the website in question.

How to contact us

If you have any questions about ESMA’s privacy policy, the data we hold on you, or you would like to exercise one of your data protection rights, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Email us at: info@europeansocialmarketing.org

Review of this Policy

We keep this Policy under regular review. This Policy was last updated October 2020.