April 2025

We are Beyond GM Ltd (“we”, “us”, “our”) and we are the Organisation responsible for running “Beyond GM” (“Organisation” or “Beyond GM”). For our full contact details see section 9. We take your privacy rights very seriously and this privacy policy (“Privacy Policy”) explains in simple terms how certain information about you may be processed. It covers data collected via our Websites listed below and data gathered offline by our employees or volunteers.

For ease of reference, we own and control the following Websites (“Websites” or “Website”):

www.beyond-gm.org

abiggerconversation.org

www.gmfreeme.org

www.theletterfromamerica.org

We are also responsible for maintaining the mailing lists for the groups Mums Say No to GMOs and GM Education.

GENERAL PRINCIPLES

We take privacy and data protection very seriously. We collect your personal data in order to inform you of the progress of the Organisation, to provide news and information and respond to actions you have taken (e.g. using our photo uploading tool). We never collect more data than is necessary, nor do we hold it for longer than is required to fulfil our purposes.

You may be removed from our databases at any time by asking us to remove you, or you may choose to unsubscribe from our mailing lists by emailing unsubscribe [at] beyond-gm.org  or clicking the link in the bottom of all our emails. We will never sell your data from any of our Websites to third parties or make any of your data public without your explicit consent. You may make a subject access request to us, and ask us to disclose all data that we hold on you, or that you have provided to us. We use cookies on our Websites, and use Google to help analyse and track usage statistics such as length of time on our Websites, clicks-throughs, time and date of access and IP addresses. See section 7 for more details of this.

DETAILED INFORMATION

1. Your Data

“Your Data” means any information about you from which you may be personally identified including your name, address, email address, Facebook data, photos submitted to our campaigns, and any other information from which you can be identified and which you may disclose to us on our Websites, in conjunction with the Organisation or otherwise at any time.

We may collect and use the following information about you:

1.1 information that you provide by filling in forms on our site. This includes information provided at the time of registering to use our site (where applicable), subscribing to our services (where applicable), personalising our site with your preferences, posting material or requesting further services;

1.2 information submitted when you enter a competition or promotion or when you respond to a survey and/or when you report a problem with our site;

1.3 if you contact us, we may keep a record of that correspondence;

1.4 details of your visits to our site including, but not limited to, which URL you used to get to our site, searches you make, traffic data, location data, weblogs and other communication data, whether this is required for our own billing purposes or otherwise and the resources that you access;

1.5 information about yourself provided by you to us for specific purposes.

1.6 To help us improve our services, if you send us personal information which identifies you via email, we may keep your email and your email address. We may also collect information that is available from your browser.

1.7 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 to our advertisers/partners. This is statistical data about our users’ browsing actions and patterns, and does not identify any individual.

1. 8 For the same reason, we may obtain information about your general internet usage by using a cookie file which is typically stored on the hard drive of your computer (as with most sites). Detailed information about our use of cookies is set out in Part 6 of this policy.

2. When do we collect your data?

2.1 We collect Your Data from you when you:

2.1.1 sign up to participate in, support, or receive information about the Organisation , whether through our Websites, applications, sign-up cards or sheets, or through our online store, or via our partners;

2.1.2 choose to post Your Data when using any of our blogs, through our social media pages or forums through our Websites;

2.1.3 make a complaint or enquiry or provide other feedback to us; or

2.1.4 otherwise disclose Your Data to us through our Websites or otherwise at any time.

3. How do we use Your Data?

3.1 We use Your Data to:

3.1.1 publicise you as a participant in the Organisation on our Websites, but only where you have agreed to this;

3.1.2 monitor, develop, run and improve our Websites and the Organisation;

3.1.3 process any requests from you to participate in, support, or receive information about the Organisation;

3.1.4 send you information by email, Facebook message or post, tweet, or other means about the Organisation

3.1.5 in accordance with your marketing preferences, pass Your Data to third parties for environmental marketing purposes as set out in section 4 below;

3.1.6 process and deal with any complaints or enquiries made by or about you;

3.1.7 monitor and investigate any suspected breach by you (or otherwise relating to you) of this Privacy Policy or of the terms and conditions relating to our Websites or the Organisation; and

3.1.8 campaign on issues related to the genetic modification of food and farming where you have expressed a clear interest in such activity (e.g. sending a letter to a representative via our Websites).

3.2 You can change your mind and choose to not have your data passed on to third parties pursuant to paragraph 3.1.5 at any time by sending an email requesting this to unsubscribe [at] beyond-gm.org. Please understand that if you are receiving communications from these third parties already, you will need to refer to their privacy notice to stop receiving communication from them.

3.2.1 You can also choose to not receive any communication from us via Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or any other social networking site where we have a presence by removing yourself from our pages/feeds in line with their own privacy notices. Note that you will still need to unsubscribe yourself from our mailing list if you wish to stop receiving communication from us altogether.

4. Will we pass on Your Data to third parties?

4.1 We will never sell or pass on Your Data to third parties for marketing purposes without your consent. We only pass on Your Data to third parties as follows:

4.1.1 We may pass Your Data to our employees, agents, subcontractors, and partner organisations to help administer our Websites and provide relevant information to you;

4.1.2 Your Data may be transferred to a successor company or other organisation in the event of a sale or insolvency administration; (but you will be notified and offered the chance to unsubscribe if this occurs);

4.1.3 in some cases we may use subcontractors or partner organisations to conduct some processing of Your Data on our behalf, but this is always subject to strict contractual control and in compliance with UK data protection legislation; this may include using a third party to identify individuals from our database who may be in a position to support our work further or take part in market research activities;

4.1.4 only if you have given your consent for such purpose, we pass Your Data to third parties so that they can send you information about GM food and arming campaigns and information which may be of interest to you; and

4.1.5 in exceptional circumstances we may need to disclose Your Data to the police, regulatory bodies or legal advisers in connection with any alleged criminal offence or suspected breach by you (or otherwise relating to you) of this Privacy Policy or any terms and conditions or pursuant to a court order.

4.2 In addition, some general statistical information about our user base may be passed on to reputable third parties for research purposes but these details will never include information personally identifying you.

4.3 Remember that if you are using a blog, or forum on our Websites or Facebook, any information about you which you choose to post will be available for others to see and we can’t control how they may use it. Please therefore exercise caution and think carefully before posting any personal information. Likewise, we require that you don’t post any personal information about other people without first obtaining their express consent to do so.

4.4 We do not knowingly collect, store or use any personal information about children under the age of 16.

4.5 The use of photos on websites, on social media and in other publications poses direct and indirect risks to children and young people. We welcome photos of family members of all ages on this site but will not post, and will take steps to remove, pictures of children in unsuitable dress, or who are unattached to a family group (as evidenced by their postcode information). Submission of your child’s photo is taken as consent for that photo to be used by us as set out in section 3 and in our Terms & Conditions. We urge parents, wherever possible and practicable, to ask for the child’s permission to use their image before submission.

5. Data Security, links and international transfers

5.1 We will take all reasonable steps to protect Your Data. All Your Data collected by us is stored on a secure server.

5.2 Please act with caution when using blogs, forums and other applications as set out in 4.3 above.

5.3 Please be aware that our Websites may link to other websites which may be accessed by you. We are not responsible for the privacy policies, content or security of those linked websites.

5.4 We don’t make any other transfers of Your Data outside of the European Economic Area other than where we have measures in place to protect and continue to control Your Data and keep it secure even when on the US servers. All third party data stores are subject to strict contractual controls.

6. Mailing lists

6.1 We use MailChimp to collect, process and store data on those who subscribe to our mailing list. Subscribers must actively sign up to these lists, (e.g. via electronic or manual forms) and must complete the double opt in to be added to the list. MailChimp stores such personal data as we collect in order to create our subscriber mailing lists. As part of its processing MailChimp may transfer personal data to certain of its sub-processors, who perform some critical services, such as helping MailChimp prevent abuse and providing customer support.

6.2 Email communications sent to our supporters/subscribers via MailChimp include obvious links which allow supporters/subscribers to access, correct, amend or delete information held about them, and also to unsubscribe from the mailing list.

6.3 You may be removed from our mailing list at any time by asking us to remove you, or you may choose to unsubscribe from our mailing lists by emailing unsubscribe [at] beyond-gm.org or clicking the link in the bottom of all our emails.

7. Donations

7.1 Our websites use Paypal to collect online donations. Paypal shares data with a range of third parties a list of which is available here. Sharing this information with payment processors and credit reference and fraud agencies and group companies is necessary in order for Paypal to fulfil obligations to its customers. The regulatory agencies with which Paypal shares its data are carrying out their purpose in accordance with their regulatory objectives and requirements.

8. Cookies

8.1 A cookie is a small element of data that a Website can send to your browser, which may then be stored on your hard drive. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, though you do not have to.

Our Website uses cookies for the purposes of collecting statistical information about the date and time at which our Websites were accessed, to track users’ movement through Our Website, for purposes of detecting if users have software (javascript) necessary for the proper functioning of the site installed, in order to keep the site secure from certain types of [attack], and for the necessary functioning of some features of the site (e.g. the shop). Wherever possible we will prevent third parties whose services we may use on Our Website (e.g. YouTube, Facebook) from setting cookies, but do not control the use of cookies by such third parties.

As a rule, cookies will make your browsing experience better. If you wish to disable cookies then you can do so by readjusting your browser settings, although please note that by disabling cookies you may not be able to use all features of our Websites. For more information on cookies and how to disable them, you can consult the information provided by the Interactive Advertising Bureau at www.allaboutcookies.org.

8.2 Our Websites use Google Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Google Inc. (“Google”), which uses cookies. Google Analytics provides anonymous information regarding site usage which is used by Beyond GM and its associated websites to evaluate traffic statistics, such as the times of day and days of week at which these websites see peak traffic, and to assess the relative popularity of different areas of our Websites. This data is used by Beyond GM to improve its Websites’ performance and enhance its user offering.

The information generated by the cookie about your use of our Websites (including your IP address) is transmitted to and stored by Google. Google uses this information for tracking how you use the website, compiling reports on website activity for website operators and providing other services relating to website activity and internet usage. Google may also transfer this information to third parties where Google is legally required, or where such third parties process the information on Google’s behalf. Google can combine your IP address with any other data held by Google. By using our Websites, you consent to the processing of data by Google in the manner and for the purposes set out above. If you would like to opt-out of Google Analytics monitoring your behaviour on our sites please use this link.

8.3 Any changes we may make to our privacy and cookies policy in the future will be posted on this page.

9. Your rights

9.1 Data protection laws provides the following rights for individuals:

• The right to be informed about the collection and use of their personal data.
• The right to access their personal data and supplementary information.
• The right to have inaccurate personal data rectified, or completed if it is incomplete.
• The right for individuals to have personal data erased.
• The right to request the restriction or suppression of their personal data.
• The right to obtain and reuse their personal data for their own purposes across different services.
• The right to object to processing based on legitimate interests or the performance of a task in the public interest/exercise of official authority (including profiling); direct marketing (including profiling); and
  processing for purposes of scientific/historical research and statistics.
• Rights in relation to automated individual decision-making (making a decision solely by automated means without any human involvement); and
  profiling (automated processing of personal data to evaluate certain things about an individual).

9.2 These rights apply in some, but not all circumstances. You can find more information about data protection and your rights of privacy from the Information Commissioner’s Office at www.ico.gov.uk. You can also find general information about data protection within the EU here.

10. Information about us

10.1 Beyond GM Ltd, is a company registered in England and Wales under registration number 9078147. Our registered address and administrative office is Beyond GM Ltd, 99 Brentwood Road, Brighton, East Sussex BN1 7ET.

11. Contact us about privacy

11.1 If you have any comments or queries or complaints in connection with our Privacy Policy, would like to access Your Data or need to send us updated or corrected information, please contact us by email at info [at] beyond-gm.org  or write to us at: 99 Brentwood Road, Brighton, East Sussex BN1 7ET.

Copyright notice: ©Beyond GM 2014-2023

This Privacy Policy was last updated on 26/02/23