BRITISH INSTITUTE OF GNOSTIC STUDIES
1. Introduction
1.1 The British Institute of Gnostic Studies (the ‘Institute’, with ‘we’, ‘our’ or ‘us’ being interpreted accordingly) is committed to protecting the personal information of our website users. Personal information relating to you from which you can be identified, which we collect or you provide, is called personal data (‘Personal Data’).
1.2 This privacy policy (‘Privacy Policy’) tells you about the Personal Data we collect, how we handle or process it. This Privacy Policy also provides information on your legal rights in relation to your Personal Data.
2. Changes to this Privacy Policy
2.1 This Privacy Policy was updated in March 2024.
2.2 We may change this Privacy Policy from time to time, and when we do so, we will display the updated version on our website, and where appropriate we will inform you via email.
3. Our legal obligations regarding your Personal Data
3.1 We collect and process your Personal Data in accordance with applicable laws that regulate data protection and privacy. This includes, without limitation, the EU General Data Protection Regulation (2016/679) (‘GDPR’) and the UK Data Protection Act 2018 (‘DPA’), together with other applicable UK laws that regulate the collection, processing and privacy of your Personal Data (together, ‘Data Protection Law’).
4. Information Collected
4.1 The Personal Data about you that we may collect and use includes the following:
- Your name
- Your email address
- Records of your communication with us via email and
- Information about your visits to our website (see ‘Cookies’ below).
5. How your Personal Data is collected
5.1 We collect Personal Data about you in various ways as follows:
- When you join our mailing list to receive information on Gnostic events, new introductory courses, new magazine issues and new books published by Gnostic Editions UK.
- Through your relationship and communications with us. For example, if you contact us to ask a question about a course, or when you exchange emails with us.
- When you visit our website (see ‘Cookies’ below).
6. Disclosing your Personal Data to third parties
6.1 We do not sell or rent your Personal Data, under any circumstances.
6.2 We may disclose and exchange information with law enforcement agencies and regulatory bodies to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations.
7. How long we retain your Personal Data for
7.1 The British Institute of Gnostic Studies only retains Personal Data identifying you for as long as you have a relationship with us, or as necessary to perform our obligations to you, or as is required by applicable law.
7.2 We have a data retention policy that sets out the different periods we retain data for in respect of relevant purposes in accordance with our duties under Data Protection Law. The criteria we use for determining these retention periods is based on various legislative requirements; the purpose for which we hold data; and guidance issued by relevant regulatory authorities including but not limited to the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).
7.3 Personal Data we no longer need is securely disposed of and/or anonymised so that you can no longer be identified from it.
8. Links to other websites
8.1 Our website may contain links to other websites of interest, including those of other Gnostic Centres both in the UK and worldwide. However, once you have used these links to leave our website, you should note that we do not have any control over that other website. Therefore, we cannot be responsible for the protection and privacy of any information which you provide while visiting such websites because such websites are not governed by this Privacy Policy. You should exercise caution and look at the privacy statement applicable to the website in question.
9. Cookies
9.1 A cookie is a file containing an identifier (a string of letters and numbers) that is sent by a web server to a web browser and is stored by the browser. The identifier is then sent back to the server each time the browser requests a page from the server.
9.2 Cookies may be either ‘persistent’ cookies or ‘session’ cookies. A persistent cookie will be stored by a web browser and will remain valid until its set expiry date, unless deleted by the user before the expiry date. A session cookie, on the other hand, will expire at the end of the user session, when the web browser is closed.
9.3 Cookies do not typically contain any information that personally identifies a user, but personal information that we store about you may be linked to the information stored in and obtained from cookies.
9.4 Our website uses the following types of cookies:
- Necessary cookies: these cookies are essential for the website to function properly and cannot be disabled without severely affecting the usability of the website. The law does not require us to ask consent to use these cookies and they will always be placed when you use our website.
Any Personal Data that these cookies collect is anonymised before being used for any other purpose. Therefore, we do not keep records of your data or track you personally or monitor how you browse on other websites. - Functional cookies: these cookies remember various choices you make on the website to improve your experience. They are also used to display recommendations for you based on your past activity on the website. Functional cookies may be required for actions such as watching a video.
9.5 Managing cookies: most web browsers allow you to manage which cookies you accept via their settings. You can normally use the ‘Help’ functionality on your browser to find out about how it handles cookies and how you can manage your cookie preferences.
10. Your personal data rights
10.1 In accordance with your legal rights under applicable law, you have a ‘subject access request’ right under which you can request information about the Personal Data that we hold about you, what we use that Personal Data for and who it may be disclosed to as well as certain other information. Usually, we will have a month to respond to such a subject access request. We reserve the right to verify your identity if you make such a subject access request and we may, in case of complex requests, require a further two months to respond. We may also charge for administrative time in dealing with any manifestly unreasonable or excessive requests for access. We may also require further information to locate the specific information you seek before we can respond in full and apply certain legal exemptions when responding to your request.
10.2 Under Data Protection Law you also have the following rights, which are exercisable by making a request to us in writing:
- that we correct Personal Data that we hold about you which is inaccurate or incomplete;
- that we erase your Personal Data without undue delay if we no longer need to hold or process it;
- to object to any automated processing (if applicable) that we carry out in relation to your Personal Data;
- to object and/or to restrict the use of your Personal Data for purposes other than those set out above unless we have a legitimate reason for continuing to use it; or
- that we transfer Personal Data to another party where the Personal Data has been collected with your consent or is being used to contact you with and is being carried out by automated means.
10.3 If you would like to exercise any of the rights set out above, please contact us through the email address below.
10.4 If you make a request and are not satisfied with our response, or believe that we are illegally processing your Personal Data, you have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) – please see https://ico.org.uk/ for details.
11. Our details and Contact methods
11.1 This website is owned and operated by the British Institute of Gnostic Studies.
11.2 The Institute is an accredited charity in the United Kingdom.
11.3 You can contact us:
- by using our website contact form, or
- by email, using the email address below:
