Privacy Policy for Researchers, Lenders and Depositors

What information do we hold about you and why?

Conducting research using the Trust’s collections

When you carry out research using the Trust’s archive, library, material or photographic collections or databases, either remotely or onsite, we will collect the following information from you:

Your full name – to process your research request and retain a record of research carried out
Your contact details – to contact you regarding the research

Our legal grounds in relation to this processing is our legitimate interests, in that we consider it necessary to process your information for the purposes of retaining a record of research that has been carried out, and in some cases retain a copy of this research.

Conducting biological recording on behalf of the Trust

When you submit a record of biological species, either from a casual sighting or extracted from formal monitoring reports, we will collect the following information from you:

Your full name – to retain a record of the sighting
Your contact details – to contact you regarding the sighting, for verification purposes only

Our legal grounds in relation to this processing is legitimate interests, in that we consider it necessary to process your personal data for the purposes of accurately recording the sighting and contacting you for verification purposes only.

If you submit your sighting online, we will collect the same information, but it will be collected by the Biological Records Centre, in partnership with the Trust.

A record of your sighting may be shared with and published on the National Biodiversity Network Atlas if you provide your consent. You may withdraw your consent at any time by contacting the National Trust for Scotland and we will ask the National Biodiversity Network Trust to remove your details from their online atlas.

Depositing an item with the Trust

When you deposit an item with the Trust, we will collect the following information from you:

Your full name – to process and retain a record of your deposit
Your contact details – to contact you regarding your deposit

Our legal grounds in relation to this processing is legitimate interests, in that we consider it necessary to process your personal data for the purposes of accurately recording the deposit and for understanding the sources of acquisitions received in the Trust’s collections.

Lending an item to the Trust

When you arrange to lend an item to the Trust, we will collect the following information from you:

Your full name – to process and retain a record of your loan
Your contact details – to contact you regarding your loan

Our legal grounds in relation to this processing are our legitimate interests, in that we consider it necessary to process your information to retain a record of the loan agreement with the Trust.

Contacting us with historical enquiries

When you contact us with an enquiry, we will collect the following information from you:

Your name – to effectively process your enquiry
Your preferred contact details – to respond to your enquiry
The details of your enquiry – to respond to your enquiry

When we process information about you to respond to research or historical enquiries, our legal grounds for processing are our legitimate interests, in that we consider it necessary to process your information to effectively respond to your enquiry and manage any additional enquiries in future.

Who will have access to your data and who will we share it with?

Access to your personal data will be restricted to Trust employees and volunteers on a need-to-know basis only. We will never sell your data to third parties.

We will share your information with the following third parties to support your relationship with us:

Our collections database host – for the purposes of maintaining accurate records

Our collections database host are a data processor and process your data on behalf of the Trust only. We have a contract in place which requires the third party to process your personal data on our instructions only. They will not process your personal data for any other purpose and they will retain it securely.

We may share your name with the National Biodiversity Network Trust if you have provided us with your consent to do so. Please refer to the section on ‘Conducting biological recording’ for further information.

In some cases, your data will be processed outside of the UK. Where this is the case, we will ensure that there are adequate safeguards in place (for example, the use of Standard Contractual Clauses) for the protection of your personal data.

How long will we keep your personal data?

Research requests and associated records – permanently for understanding research that has been carried out and for future research and historical interest purposes
Biological sightings records – permanently for retaining an accurate record of sightings
Deposit agreements and associated records – permanently for retaining an accurate record of deposits with the Trust
Loan agreements and associated records – permanently for retaining an accurate record of loans with the Trust
Enquiries – permanently for understanding enquiries that have been submitted and responded to and for future research and historical interest purposes