Last Updated: 23 April 2025
Thank you for visiting the Infection Prevention Society.
Your privacy is important to us. This Privacy Policy is where we explain to you what personal information is collected when you visit our site, become a member of our society, attend one of our events, or submit information to us. This policy also explains how your personal information is collected, how we may use that information, where we store it, how long we store it for, and how we protect it. We will also explain your rights in relation to your personal information.
Please read the following carefully to understand our views and practices regarding your personal information and how we may collect it and treat it.
We have divided our data protection policies into three separate pages:
- Our Privacy Policy: This policy explains generally how we collect, use, store, and protect your personal information.
- Our Cookie Policy: Our Cookie Policy is available [HERE] and explains more about how we may collect personal information about you via cookies (it also explains what cookies are).
- Our Retention Policy: You can find out how long we may hold onto your personal information [HERE].
If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact our Governance & Engagement Manager at info@ips.uk.net
WHO WE ARE
We are the Infection Prevention Society. We are registered in England as a limited liability company. Our registered number is 0627384 and our registered office is at c/o Saffery Champness, 71 Queen Victoria Street, London, EC4V 4BE.
But, for the purposes of this Privacy Policy, it’s just easier if we refer to ourselves as “we”.
WHAT THIS PRIVACY POLICY GOVERNS
This Privacy Policy applies to our sites www.ips.uk.net our membership services, any communications that we may send to you in connection with your membership with us, when you register for any of our events and any other services that we may provide to you (we’ll just call these “our services” for short).
In the context of this Privacy Policy “personal information” means information which, on its own or in combination with other information, can be used to identify you, in particular by reference to an identifier such as your name, your address, banking information, or location data.
Provided that you consent to us collecting your personal information when you visit our site, become a member of our society, attend one of our events, or opt-in to receive communications from us then this Privacy Policy will govern how we may use that personal information.
Because we are an organisation located in the United Kingdom the personal information that you give us or that we collect from you will be held under UK data protection legislation (but we’ll just refer to this as “the legislation”). The legislation requires that we tell you that we are a data controller for your personal information or, in other words, we determine the purposes for which and the manner in which any of your personal information are, or are to be, processed by us.
HOW YOU CONSENT TO US COLLECTING YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION
Depending on how you interact with us we may seek to obtain your consent in a number of different ways. We will determine which method is more appropriate but, in any event, we will always ask your express consent before collecting your personal information.
Our website
When you visit our website, you’ll see a message at the bottom of the screen with a link to this Privacy Policy and our Cookie Policy. If you click “I accept,” you’re giving us permission to collect and use your personal information in line with this policy.
If you don’t click “I accept,” we won’t collect your personal information — but there’s one exception (see below).
If you don’t see the message, it might mean you’ve already accepted our policies, or your browser may be using a pop-up blocker that’s stopping the message from showing. To make sure everything works properly, please disable any pop-up blockers when you visit our site. We can’t take responsibility if these tools prevent us from meeting our legal obligations.
Even if you don’t accept cookies, we still automatically collect some basic technical details about your device — like your browser type, operating system, and the time you visited our site. This information doesn’t identify you personally. We use it only to help us run and improve the website, for things like performance testing, fixing bugs, and internal statistics.
Membership
If you’re already a member or want to join our society, we’ll need to collect some personal information from you during the sign-up process. Before you can complete your registration, we’ll ask you to read this Privacy Policy and agree to its terms.
We only collect the information we need to manage your membership — we won’t ask for anything unnecessary.
To become a member, you must agree to this Privacy Policy. If you don’t give us permission to collect and use your information, we won’t be able to offer you membership. This information is essential so we can manage your account, keep you updated about society news and events, and track your membership status.
Our Events
If you found out about our society through an event and want to join, you might be asked to sign up online.
If you register online, you’ll be asked to read and agree to this Privacy Policy. If you fill out a paper form, the Privacy Policy should be included with it, and you’ll be asked to give clear consent for us to collect your personal information.
We will only hold your personal information as detailed in our Retention Policy [HERE].
Information you give to us:
ou may give us personal information about you by filling in forms on our site or by corresponding with us by phone, e-mail or otherwise. This includes information you may provide to us when you register to use our site, subscribe to our services, search our site, attend our events, participate in any discussion boards or other social media functions on our site, enter a competition, promotion or survey, and when you report a problem with our site.
The information you give us may include:
- Your name;
- Address;
- E-mail address;
- Phone number;
- IP address;
- Financial and credit card information;
- Dietary requirements
- Access requirement
- Photographs and/or videos
Information we collect about you:
Our website:
When you visit our site we may collect information about you, including which pages you have visited (including date and time) which services and pages you viewed or searched for, page response times, download errors, files downloaded, length of visits to certain pages, page interaction information (such as scrolling, clicks, and mouse-overs), and methods used to browse away from a page and any phone number used to call our customer service number.
The purpose of this information is to allow us to administer our site and for internal operations, including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, research, improving our site to ensure that content is presented in the most effective manner for you and for your computer, and as part of our efforts to keep our site safe and secure.
Membership:
When you become a member, we may also collect extra information — like your professional interests, your area of expertise, and where you’re based. This helps us tailor your membership experience and offer you the most relevant content and opportunities. Most of this information is used in a general, anonymous way and not for marketing.
We may keep this data for historical, research, or archive purposes to help us reflect on and support the society’s long-term goals.
Sometimes, we might bring together information you've shared with us — for example, details from your membership or events you've attended. This could include photos or videos taken at events. We only do this when the information is clearly connected and useful for preserving the society’s story and activities over time.
Information we receive from other sources:
We may combine information we collect through our website, membership, events, and other services we run. This helps us keep everything up to date and better understand how members engage with us.
We also work with trusted third parties – like technical service providers, payment processors, analytics tools, and event booking platforms – and may receive information about you from them. For example, we might get confirmation that you’ve RSVP’d to an event, or payment details if you used a service like PayPal, WorldPay, or Stripe to pay for something related to your membership.
We only use this information when it relates to your membership or services you've requested from us.
We never share your personal information with third parties for marketing unless you’ve clearly agreed to it.
If you engage with us on social media, please remember that each platform has its own privacy rules. Be careful about what personal information you share. We’ll never ask you for sensitive details through social media — if you need to talk to us about anything private, please contact us by phone or email instead.
Information you may pass to third-parties outside our control:
We keep records of payments made for membership or other services. Debit/credit card information is securely transferred to our card payment provider and not stored within our database. Similarly direct debit payments are handled securely by GoCardless or Moorepay and your bank account details cannot be viewed by us.
Information we may pass to third-parties:
Depending on how you interact with us, we may need to share some of your personal information with trusted third parties such as payment processing. We only do this when it’s necessary to provide you with a service or as part of your membership.
Examples of the kind of third parties we work with are:
- IT companies who support our website, customer relationship system and other business systems i.e third party payment processors
- Suppliers and subcontractors for the performance of any contract we enter into
- Where we outsource any of our business functions. For example, professional conference organiser to manage our annual conference
If we need to share your personal information with any of the third parties, we’ll make sure it’s properly protected. We’ll put the right safeguards in place to keep your data secure and to protect your rights.
HOW WE MAY USE YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION
When you give us your personal information then we may use it to:
- Manage and keep track of your membership with us.
- Carry out our responsibilities from any agreements you’ve made with us and provide you with any information you’ve requested.
- Send you updates about our news, industry updates, events from head office, and your chosen branch.
- Make sure the content on our site is displayed in the best way for you and your device.
If you give us your email address, we may contact you through email. We’ll use your email to keep you informed about upcoming events, send notifications for events you’ve registered for or shown interest in, and share general updates about the society and the industry.
When you become a member, you choose a branch, and the branch leaders will email you directly about their activities. We won’t send you promotional emails from our industry partners unless you’ve specifically agreed to it.
If you don’t want to receive any emails from us, just let our Governance & Membership Engagement Manager know (contact details are below).
We do not use your information for profiling or automated decisions. This means we won’t analyse or predict things like your financial situation, health, personal interests, or behaviours without your clear permission.
Marketing
If you’re a member, we have a legitimate reason to contact you by email or post during your membership. This includes sending reminders about any unpaid fees or upcoming renewals. If you don’t want to receive these messages, please contact us.
If you’re not a member but attend one of our events and choose to receive information from us, we may contact you by:
- E-mail; or
- Post.
We’ll send you information about similar events that we think you might be interested in. By opting in, you’re helping us understand what you like, stay in touch, and send you updates that matter to you.
We’ll let you know how we plan to communicate with you, but you can always opt out later if you change your mind.
Sometimes, we may share your information with trusted third parties who help us communicate with you on our behalf.
Examples of the kind of third parties we work with are:
- IT companies who support our website, customer relationship system and other business systems i.e. third party payment processors
- Suppliers and subcontractors
- Where we outsource any of our business functions. For example, a professional conference organiser to manage our annual conference
We will never sell your personal information for marketing purposes or share it with third parties without your explicit consent. For example, we won’t share your details with event exhibitors unless you’ve agreed to it.
If you think you’re receiving communications from us by mistake, or if you’ve opted out and are still getting messages, please contact us, and we apologize for any inconvenience.
DISCLOSURE OF YOUR INFORMATION
We have appointed Fitwise Management Limited (“Fitwise”) as our Professional Conference Organiser (PCO) for our 2025 annual conference. As a result, information that we may collect about you in relation to IP2025 will be disclosed to Fitwise. The information processed and collected on our behalf by Fitwise will only be used for the purposes of organising the conference and communicating with you on our behalf. Fitwise will not use this information for marketing themselves.
Subject to the disclosure of information to Fitwise, and the listed third parties we will not knowingly share your personal information with anyone outside of our society unless we are required under UK law or where we have anonymised your information so that you can no longer be identified.
Please remember that our Cookies Policy covers matters such as using your personal information for analytics purposes.
In some cases we may disclose information with select third parties:
- If we or substantially all of our assets are acquired by a third party, in which case personal information held by us about you may be one of the transferred assets.
- If we are under a duty to disclose or share your personal information in order to comply with any legal obligation, or in order to enforce any agreements with you, or to protect our rights, property, or safety of our employees, or others.
WHERE WE STORE YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION
We store your personal information in the United Kingdom and the European Economic Area (EEA). In some cases, we may need to store or transfer limited types of personal information outside the EEA, but only if it’s necessary for your membership or if you’ve agreed to share more information with us.
If we transfer your data outside the EEA, we’ll make sure there are proper safeguards in place to protect your information and your rights.
All the personal information you give us is stored on secure servers. When you make payments online, we use encryption to protect your payment details. If you have a password to access parts of our site, it’s your responsibility to keep it safe. Don’t share your password with anyone.
While we do everything we can to protect your personal information, it’s important to know that transmitting data over the Internet isn’t completely secure. We can’t guarantee that your data will always be safe during transmission, so any information you send is at your own risk. Once we receive your data, we use strict security measures to protect it.
We follow a "Privacy by Design" approach, which means we build privacy and data protection into everything we do.
YOUR RIGHTS
You have the right to ask us not to process your personal information or to limit how we use it. However, if you have an account or membership with us and you withdraw your consent, we may need to suspend or cancel your access to certain parts of our site or your membership.
If you want to exercise your rights, just contact our Governance & Membership Engagement Manager. If you’ve agreed to let us collect and process your personal information but change your mind, you can contact us to request that we erase the information we hold about you.
Keep in mind that even if you ask us to delete your personal information, we may not be able to remove everything. For example, we might need to keep some information because we have a legitimate reason, like an ongoing contract, outstanding payments, the information being related to someone else, or a legal requirement to keep it. If that’s the case, we’ll let you know.
ACCESS TO INFORMATION
You have the right to ask for a copy of the personal information we hold about you.
To request a copy, you need to contact our Governance & Membership Engagement Manager (contact details are at the bottom of this page). However, please note that there are certain things we can’t share with you. For example, we can’t disclose information that identifies someone else or anything protected by legal rules.
In some cases, we might need to black out parts of the information we send to you to comply with the law.
Also, we can’t release your personal information to anyone without your permission. To make sure your information is being given to the right person, we will need to confirm your identity before sharing any details with you.
If you request a copy of your personal information, we may ask for identification, like a valid passport, driver’s license, and a recent utility bill (no more than 3 months old) with your current address.
While this process may seem strict, please understand that we are required to protect your personal information and need to ensure we’re sharing it with the correct person.
WHAT IF I DO NOT CONSENT OR WITHDRAW CONSENT?
If you do not agree to let us collect your personal information, we cannot guarantee that you will have full access to our site or be able to keep your membership with our society. This is because we need to collect certain types of personal information in order to provide these services. We are not responsible for any limited access to the site or services if you choose not to share this information.
Also, our site may have links to other websites belonging to our partners or affiliates. If you click on a link to one of these sites, please note that they have their own privacy and cookie policies. We are not responsible for their policies, so we recommend you check them before providing any personal information on those sites.
HOW LONG WILL YOU HOLD ONTO MY PERSONAL INFORMATION?
Depending on how you engage with us it may be necessary for us to store your personal information for shorter or longer periods of time. Either way, we will only store your personal information for a legitimate and lawful reason.
You can find details on how long we may hold onto your personal information on our Retention Policy which can be found [HERE].
CHANGES TO OUR PRIVACY POLICY
We may need to update this Privacy Policy for legal reasons or to reflect changes to our site, membership, or services. If we do make changes, we’ll update the Privacy Policy on our site and show the new “Last Updated” date.
Once we update the Privacy Policy, it will become binding on you 30 days after it’s posted on our site. During this time, you can contact us if you have any questions about the changes.
If you don’t agree with the changes, we might have to limit your use of certain parts of our site or membership services that rely on your personal information. We’re sorry if that happens, but we hope you understand that we need everyone to follow the same rules to make sure everything works properly and fairly. Feel free to contact us if you have any questions about the changes.
CONTACT US
This Privacy Policy is designed to be clear and to the point, but it doesn’t cover every single detail about how we collect and use your personal information. If you need more information or clarification, feel free to contact us.
If you have any questions, comments, or requests about our Privacy Policy, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us:
IPS Governance and Engagement Manager
info@ips.uk.net
COMPLAINTS
If you are not satisfied with the way that we have handled any of your requests or queries relating to our use of your personal data then you can contact the Information Commissioner’s Office at www.ico.org.uk. The Information Commissioner’s Office is the statutory body responsible for overseeing data protection legislation and law in the United Kingdom.