CMEP Privacy Policy

This website is operated by the Centre for Middle Eastern Plants (CMEP) on behalf of The Board of Trustees for the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE). We are committed to protecting the privacy of all of our users.

This Policy (together with our Terms & Conditions of Use and any other documents referred to on it) sets out the basis on which any personal data we collect from you, or that you provide to us, will be processed by us. Please read the following carefully to understand our views and practices regarding your personal data and how we will treat it. By submitting personal details to us you are deemed as agreeing to the use of these details as described in this Policy.

For the purpose of the Data Protection Act 1998 (the “Act”), the data controllers are RBGE, of 20A Inverleith Row, Edinburgh, EH3 5LR. RBGE (registration number Z5723674) is registered with the Information Commissioner. The Information Commissioner’s Office regulates the processing of information relating to you and grants you various rights in respect of your personal data. We are not responsible for the privacy policies or practices of any other website which you may link to from our own. This Policy applies solely to the information we collect.

In using this website we assume that you have read and understood this Policy.

Information we may collect from you

We may collect and process the following data about you:

Information that you provide by filling in forms on our site www.cmep.org.uk. This includes information provided at the time of subscribing for updates. If you contact us, we may keep a record of that correspondence, we may also ask you to complete surveys that we use for research purposes, although you do not have to respond to them. We may also keep details of your visits to Our Site including, but not limited to, traffic data, location data, weblogs and other communication data, and the resources that you access. 

IP addresses and cookies

We may collect information about your computer, including where available your IP address, operating system and browser type, for system administration and to report aggregate information for our internal purposes and to our board of trustees, members and supporters. This is statistical data about our users’ browsing actions and patterns, and does not identify any individual.

For the same reason, we may obtain information about your general internet usage by using a cookie file which is stored on the hard drive of your computer. Cookies contain information that is transferred to your computer’s hard drive. They help us to improve Our Site and to deliver a better and more personalised service. They enable us:

To estimate our audience size and usage pattern.

To recognize you when you return to Our Site.

You may refuse to accept cookies by activating the setting on your browser which allows you to refuse the setting of cookies. Unless you have adjusted your browser setting so that it will refuse cookies, our system will issue cookies when you log on to Our Site.

Storage of your personal data

We will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that your data is treated securely and in accordance with this privacy policy.

Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the Internet is not completely secure. Although we will do our best to protect your personal data, we cannot guarantee the security of your data transmitted to Our Site; any transmission is at your own risk. Once we have received your information, we will use strict procedures and security features to try to prevent unauthorized access.

Uses made of the information

Subject to the terms of this Policy, CMEP and RGBE may share your information with each other for the purposes set out below. We use information held about you in the following ways:

To ensure that content from Our Site is presented in the most effective manner for you and for your computer.

To provide you with other information, products or services that you request from us or which we feel may interest you, where you have consented to be contacted for such purposes. 

To carry out our obligations arising from any contracts entered into between you and us.

To notify you about changes to our service.

Disclosure of your information

We may disclose your personal information to third parties:

If CMEP or RBGE are acquired by a third party, in which case personal data held by it about its customers will be one of the transferred assets.

If we are under a duty to disclose or share your personal data in order to comply with any legal obligation, or in order to enforce or apply our Terms & Conditions of Use or terms and conditions of supply and other agreements; or to protect the rights, property, or safety of CMEP or RBGE. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organizations for the purposes of fraud protection and credit risk reduction.

Commenting on our site

Please remember that if you post any personal information in the comments on the CMEP website, such information will be viewable by other users over whom CMEP or RBGE has no control. We are not responsible for the use made of such information by third parties.

Your rights

You have the right to ask us not to process your personal data for marketing purposes. We will usually inform you (before collecting your data) if we intend to use your data for such purposes or if we intend to disclose your information to any third party for such purposes. You can exercise your right to prevent such processing at any time by contacting us. 

Our Site contains links to and from the websites of our partner organizations, supporters and affiliates. If you follow a link to any of these websites, please note that these websites have their own privacy policies and that we do not accept any responsibility or liability for these policies. Please check these policies before you submit any personal data to these websites.

Access to information

The Act gives you the right to access information held about you. Your right of access can be exercised in accordance with the Act. Any access request may be subject to a fee of £10 to meet our costs in providing you with details of the information we hold about you.

Changes to Privacy Policy 

Any changes we may make to our privacy policy in the future will be posted on this page and, where appropriate, notified to you by e-mail.

Contact

Questions, comments and requests regarding this privacy policy are welcomed and should be addressed to Jane McCrorie, Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, 20A Inverleith Row, Edinburgh, EH3 5LR.