Privacy & Cookies Policy.

 

1. Who we are

The Institute of Internal Communication (IOIC) is a professional membership body and a company registered in England (company number 00781781). This notice explains how we collect, use, share and protect personal information when you use our website, create an account, become a member, buy or enquire about our products and services, attend our activities, use member benefits or otherwise interact with us.

Contact: [email protected]. Registered address: Unit 7, BizSpace, 18 Rockingham Drive, Linford Forum, Milton Keynes, MK14 6LY. IOIC is registered with the Information Commissioner's Office. Registration Reference: Z6288989

2. Personal information we collect

• Identity and contact details, such as name, email, telephone number and postal address.
• Professional information, whether provided by you or obtained from appropriate business data sources, such as employer, job title, role, seniority, sector, professional interests, career history and membership information.
• Account, membership, booking, purchase, attendance, learning and enquiry information.
• Payment and transaction information required to administer purchases (payment card data is handled by our payment providers rather than retained by IOIC where applicable).
• Qualification/learning information where required to administer study and awards.
• Marketing preferences, permission source, subscription status and records of opt-outs or objections.
• Website, cookie and engagement information, subject to applicable cookie choices, including pages/content viewed and interactions with communications.
• Information you provide when using member benefits or third-party platforms made available through IOIC.

3. How we use personal information and our lawful bases

4. Marketing communications

We distinguish marketing from communications that are necessary to administer your membership, account, booking, enquiry or service. Unsubscribing from marketing does not prevent us sending necessary service communications.

Where you positively ask to receive marketing, we record your consent. Where you buy, or genuinely enquire about buying, an IOIC product or service, we may use the products-and-services 'soft opt-in' permitted by PECR to email you about our own similar products and services, provided the legal conditions are met and you were given a clear opportunity to opt out when we collected your details.

Simply creating a non-member account or requesting free content does not by itself create a new soft opt-in marketing permission. Where we need your consent for marketing on those journeys, we will ask you using an unticked choice.

For relevant business-to-business communications to contacts at corporate subscribers, we may rely on the rules applicable to corporate subscribers and our legitimate interests. Different PECR rules can apply to sole traders and some partnerships.

You can unsubscribe using the link in our marketing emails or contact us. If you object to direct marketing, we will stop using your personal information for that purpose and associated profiling. We may retain limited suppression information so we can honour your choice.

5. How we personalise marketing

If you are eligible to receive marketing, we may use information such as your membership status, professional role, purchases, event/course attendance, enquiries, reports or content requested, declared interests and proportionate engagement with our communications to group audiences and make communications more relevant. For example, requesting information about a qualification may indicate an interest in qualifications; downloading a research report may indicate an interest in that topic. These interest signals do not themselves create permission to send you marketing.

We do not intend to use special-category information to target general marketing. You can object to direct marketing and associated profiling at any time.

6. Data enrichment

We may supplement the professional and organisational information we hold about you using business information obtained through our CRM and data enrichment services, including information from publicly available sources and third-party business data providers. This may include information such as your job title, professional role or seniority, organisation, sector, location and organisation size.

We use this information to help keep our records accurate and up to date, understand our membership and audiences, improve our services and, where we are permitted to send you marketing communications, make those communications more relevant.

We currently use HubSpot's data enrichment functionality for this purpose. When we submit contact or company records to HubSpot for enrichment, limited business identifying information is used to find and verify relevant business information. Where a record is verified, limited business contact information may also be contributed to HubSpot's commercial dataset in accordance with HubSpot's applicable terms and privacy arrangements.

Data enrichment does not determine whether you are eligible to receive marketing from us and does not override your marketing preferences. You can object to the use of your personal information for direct marketing, including associated profiling, at any time.

7. Systems and organisations we use

We use carefully selected service providers to operate IOIC and deliver services. Depending on your relationship with us, your information may be processed in systems including:

We may also use venues, event, IT, professional-adviser and other suppliers where necessary. We require processors to handle personal information under appropriate contractual and security arrangements.

8. Access Abintegro careers platform

Eligible IOIC members can access a careers platform supplied by Access UK Limited trading as Abintegro. IOIC may share limited member information needed to create, authenticate or administer access to this member benefit. This sharing is for delivery of the careers service, not to add you to IOIC marketing.

You may provide additional information directly when using the careers platform, for example to use career-development tools and resources. Access states in its individual-user privacy information that the institution is the data controller and Access UK Limited trading as Abintegro processes personal data on the institution's behalf to deliver the service. The platform also provides its own privacy information when you use it.

9. How long we keep information

We keep personal information only for as long as needed for the purposes described in this notice, including membership/service delivery, professional or learning records, finance, legal claims, regulatory obligations and suppression of unwanted marketing. We maintain a retention schedule and periodically review information. Different periods apply to different records.

Where you unsubscribe from marketing, we may retain a minimal suppression record so that we do not accidentally contact you again for marketing. Where access to a member benefit such as Access Abintegro ends, access and associated data will be handled in accordance with IOIC's retention arrangements and the provider agreement.

10. International transfers

Some providers or their sub-processors may process personal information outside the UK. Where this occurs, we use an applicable adequacy arrangement or appropriate contractual safeguards and carry out any assessment required by UK data protection law.

11. Security

We use appropriate technical and organisational measures designed to protect personal information, including access controls, secure systems, supplier due diligence and secure transfer arrangements. No internet service can be guaranteed completely secure, but we take proportionate steps to protect the information entrusted to us.

12. Your rights

Depending on the circumstances, you may have rights to be informed, access your personal information, correct it, request erasure or restriction, receive portable information, object to processing, and obtain safeguards relating to certain automated decisions. You have an absolute right to object to the use of your personal information for direct marketing, including associated profiling.

You may withdraw consent at any time where we rely on consent. Withdrawal does not affect processing that was lawful before withdrawal.

13. Complaints and contact

If you have a question, want to exercise a right or wish to complain about our use of personal information, contact us at [email protected] or at the postal address above. We will provide an accessible route for data-protection complaints and respond in accordance with applicable law. You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office.

14. Cookies and similar technologies

Our website uses cookies and similar technologies. Some are necessary for the site, account and security functions. Others may support analytics, preferences or marketing. Where consent is required, non-essential technologies will not be used until you have made the relevant choice through our cookie banner.

Our cookie banner should provide meaningful category choices and a way to revisit them. The detailed cookie list should be generated from the current website/cookie configuration rather than hard-coded into this policy.

Cookie choices
We use a cookie consent management tool to give you control over non-essential cookies and similar technologies used on our website. This includes technologies used for website analytics and, where applicable, to help us understand how visitors interact with our website.

You can accept or reject non-essential cookies and manage your preferences through our Cookie Settings tool. You can change or withdraw your choices at any time.

Where you have provided the appropriate cookie consent, we may use HubSpot technology to understand website activity and help us improve and personalise our communications and services.

15. Changes to this notice

We may update this notice when our services, systems, suppliers or the law change. We will publish the current version on our website and highlight material changes where appropriate.