Privacy Policy

Privacy Statement for the RAF Galaxy Alumni Service v0.2

The UK Ministry of Defence (MOD) Privacy Notice can be found here MOD privacy notice - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) and it is the underpinning Privacy Notice for this RAF Alumni service and provides details regarding Subject Access Requests and a nominated point of contact for these requests. It is important that you read this privacy policy together with the MOD privacy notice when we are collecting or processing personal data about you so that you are fully aware of how and why we are using your data.

In addition, the following is a specific statement regarding Privacy and Cookies within this RAF Alumni service (Galaxy) and how your personal information and data will be managed. This privacy policy supplements other notices and privacy policies and is not intended to override them.

The Royal Air Force (RAF) values the lifelong relationships it holds with its Alumni and current serving personnel. How we use your personal information reflects the importance of this relationship to us. 

We will use your data to help us:

• Ensure we contact you in the most appropriate way
• Improve our services
• Ensure we work efficiently and effectively

This statement applies to all users of this service both current and former RAF personnel.

DATA PROTECTION PRINCIPLES

We will comply with the Data Protection Act (DPA) 2018 and any subsequent updates of this Act, the personal information and data we hold about you must be:

• Used lawfully, fairly and in a transparent way
• Collected only for valid purposes that we have clearly explained to you and not used in any way that is incompatible with those purposes.
• Relevant to the purposes we have told you about and limited only to those purposes.
• Kept only as long as necessary for the purposes we have told you about
• Kept securely

INFORMATION WE HOLD

All of the personal information and data we store and process has been given to us by you, this may include:

• Name, title, gender, date of birth
• Service history (sanitised where required), including service number
• Contact details (postal addresses, personal email addresses, personal phone numbers and social media links)
• Education information
• General Information about your time in the Royal Air Force and your past-time interests
• Your employment history
• Connections to other Alumni, supporters, and friends
• Media articles
• Information on your engagement in RAF Galaxy events, volunteering, groups, or networks
• Generic and non-offensive or non-sensitive images that you have chosen to upload
• Your preferences concerning how we contact you and for which purposes

We do not collect any Special Categories of Personal Data about you (this includes details about your race or ethnicity, religious or philosophical beliefs, sex life, sexual orientation, political opinions, trade union membership, information about your health, and genetic and biometric data). Nor do we collect any information about criminal convictions and offences.

CHANGES TO THE PRIVACY POLICY AND YOUR DUTY TO INFORM US OF CHANGES

We keep our privacy policy under regular review. This version was last updated on: 11 Apr 2022. Historic versions can be obtained by contacting us at: Air-RAFGalaxyalumni@mod.gov.uk 

It is important that the personal data we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your personal data changes during your relationship with us.

COLLECTING YOUR INFORMATION

We collect certain information or data about you when you use our site. This includes your IP address, details of which version of a web browser you are using and information on how you use the site. We do this by using Cookies and page tagging techniques. This helps us to improve the site by monitoring how you use it. We can’t personally identify you using this data.

WHERE YOUR DATA IS STORED

We store your data on secure servers. It might be viewed by our staff or suppliers in support of this service. By submitting any of your personal data (for instance by filling in a form), you agree to this.

KEEPING YOUR DATA SECURE

Transmitting information over the internet can carry some level of risk, any information or data you transmit is at your own risk and choice. We have procedures and security features in place to enforce security once we receive it. We won’t share your information with any other organisations for marketing, market research or commercial purposes, and we don’t pass on your details to other websites.

HOW LONG WILL YOU USE MY PERSONAL DATA FOR?

We will only retain your personal data for as long as reasonably necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, regulatory, or reporting requirements. We may retain your personal data for a longer period in the event of a complaint or if we reasonably believe there is a prospect of litigation in respect to our relationship with you.

To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal, regulatory or other requirements.

DISCLOSING YOUR INFORMATION

We may pass on your personal information and data if we have a legal obligation to do so, or if we have to enforce or apply our terms of use and other agreements.

YOUR DATA PROTECTION RIGHTS

Under data protection law, you have rights including:

• Your right of access - You have the right to ask us for copies of your personal information. 
• Your right to rectification - You have the right to ask us to rectify personal information you think is inaccurate. You also have the right to ask us to complete information you think is incomplete. 
• Your right to erasure - You have the right to ask us to erase your personal information in certain circumstances. 
• Your right to restriction of processing - You have the right to ask us to restrict the processing of your personal information in certain circumstances. 
• Your right to object to processing - You have the right to object to the processing of your personal information in certain circumstances.
• Your right to data portability - You have the right to ask that we transfer the personal information you gave us to another organisation, or to you, in certain circumstances.

You are not required to pay any charge for exercising your rights. If you make a request, we have one month to respond to you.

Please contact us at: Air-RAFGalaxyAlumni@mod.gov.uk if you wish to make a request.

You can of course also unsubscribe from the service yourself whereupon your data and information will be subsequently removed and/or anonymised as stated above.

LINKS TO OTHER WEBSITES

This website may contain links to and from other websites. This privacy policy only applies to this website and the inherent Alumni service therein and doesn’t cover other services or sites that we might have links to outside of our service boundary. If you visit other providers’, we strongly advise you to read their privacy policies to find out how these other providers use your personal information/data.

COOKIES

Small files (known as ‘Cookies’) are placed on to your computer to collect information about how you browse the site.

Cookies are used to:

• Measure how you use the website so it can be updated and improved based on your needs
• Remember the notifications you’ve seen so that we don’t show them to you again

These Cookies aren’t used to identify you personally.

You’ll normally see a message on the site before we store a Cookie on your computer.

Find out more about how to manage cookies.

HOW COOKIES ARE USED ON THE RAF GALAXY ALUMNI SITE

For our website and services therein, we use Cookies for analytics and to enhance the user experience; Cookies are small text files that can be used by websites to make a user's experience more efficient.

 The law states that we can store Cookies on your device if they are strictly necessary for the operation of this site. For all other types of Cookies, we need your permission.

 This site uses different types of Cookies and some Cookies are placed by third party services that appear on our pages.

 You can at any time change or withdraw your consent from the Cookie Declaration on our website.

 When accepting the use of our Cookies, your consent applies to the following domains: https://alumni.raf.mod.uk/

Required Cookies

These Cookies are necessary for the website to function and cannot be switched off in our systems. They are usually only set in response to actions made by you which amount to a request for services, such as setting your privacy preferences, logging in or filling in forms. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these Cookies, but some parts of the site will not then work. These Cookies do not store any personally identifiable information.

Targeting Cookies

These Cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these Cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

Performance Cookies

These Cookies allow us to count visits and traffic sources so we can measure and improve the performance of our site. They help us to know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site. All information these Cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. If you do not allow these Cookies we will not know when you have visited our site and will not be able to monitor its performance.

How to control and delete cookies

We will not use Cookies to collect personally identifiable information about you. However, if you wish to restrict or block the Cookies which are set by our websites, or indeed any other website; you can do this through your browser settings. The ‘Help’ function within your browser guide you on how this can be achieved. Alternatively, you may wish to visit www.aboutcookies.org which contains comprehensive information on how to do this on a wide variety of browsers. You will also find details on how to delete Cookies from your machine as well as more general information about Cookies.

Please be aware that restricting Cookies may impact on the functionality of our website and services therein.

If you wish to view your Cookie code, just click on a Cookie to open it. You'll see a short string of text and numbers. The numbers are your identification card, which can only be seen by the server that gave you the Cookie.

To opt-out of third-parties collecting any data regarding your interaction on our website, please refer to their websites for further information.

REPORT A SECURITY VULNERABILITY

Report a vulnerability via e-mail to our service provider Enterprise Alumni via their Security Operations Team at: secops@enterprisealumni.com