Privacy Policy

Our principles

The Bureau is a not for profit organisation which produces journalism in the public interest. This is our privacy policy for our website and for our other services, which include newsletters and our social media presence.

We use data to find and tell stories, and hold power to account, but we also understand that we have ethical and legal obligations to protect any data that we collect from individuals.

That’s why we want to make sure we’re clear with all of our supporters, friends and funders how we use and protect the data you share with us.

How we protect your privacy

We do our best to protect your privacy by using security measures. This means:

• We make sure that we have installed security measures to protect the limited information we have about you.
• We will collect and use individual user details only if we have your permission to do so.
• We will only use personal information for the purposes for which it was collected. We will have systems in place so that we know why we are holding information, what is being held and we will ask your consent to hold the data.
• If we delete it we will do so securely.
• Our site is accessible through the internet. So if you post comments, other people can see them.
• We never sell your personal details to anyone and do not use your data commercially.

What we collect from you

The information we collect from most users is very limited.

We collect information to help us improve our journalism in the form of anonymised analytics measuring reach, engagement, location and other metrics.

We also send users newsletters about our work.

Below is a comprehensive audit of the more detailed kinds of data we collect from members of the public, what we do with it and how we protect it.

Job applicants

Information from prospective candidates is usually received via email. Candidates we are interested in reviewing for a role/interview will usually have their CV downloaded and can expect that document to be circulated amongst members of our staff who will be involved in the recruitment process. After the recruitment process a candidate's information will either be formally saved and moved into their personnel file if they become a staff member. Where applications are unsuccessful, a candidate's information is either deleted or securely archived and kept on file for a reasonable period of time if we believe that a suitable vacancy for that individual may arise in the near future.

Publishing Partners

We hold very limited personal data about previous and current publishing partners of TBIJ; information held includes the following:

• TBIJ’s main point of contact including name, email and contact numbers.

This information is used to ensure that we are able to communicate effectively with our publishing partners in order to ensure that our contracts with them are fulfilled.

Funders

We hold information about previous and current funders of TBIJ; information held on them includes contact details, contracts, signatory details and company bank details. We hold this information on the basis that we have a legitimate interest in retaining full and accurate records of individuals who have funded our work, both to help us to understand who has helped us and why, as well as to ensure that we keep accurate books and records about our finances.

Donors

The Bureau has access to the names and minimal personal financial data of our individual donors through our account with secure online payment processing sites Stripe and Paypal. These platforms allow our organisation to receive donations via our website. The Bureau of Investigative Journalism is a not-for-profit organisation and as such receiving donations from individuals is vital to our business model and fundraising strategy. We collect data on those who donate to us to understand the pattern of donation and to allow us to identify and thank those that have chosen to donate to us. We also monitor transaction details to alert us to large individual donations, for example if we receive a high level donation which would qualify to join our membership scheme called the ‘Friend of the Bureau.’ At no point is any donor's personal and financial data shared, saved or processed for any other reasons. The Bureau uses secure online payment platforms to ensure the security of our donors' personal data. We hold these records on the basis that our donors have explicitly asked us to in order to enable them to make a donation and, in the longer term, on the basis that we have a legitimate interest in retaining full and accurate records of individuals who have funded our work, both to help us to understand who has helped us and why, as well as to ensure that we keep accurate books and records about our finances.

Mailing Lists

We hold information on anyone that has signed up to receive our newsletters. The information held on them includes the following:

• Full name

• Personal/business email address

• Analytics about behaviour (i.e. how many times they read our newsletters and click through to our links)

Anyone who has subscribed to any of our mailing lists, is able to unsubscribe at any time. If they wish to unsubscribe, they can simply do so by clicking on the unsubscribe button which will automatically remove them from the mailing list and they will no longer receive emails. Once unsubscribed, their personal data is securely archived or deleted from the system if explicitly requested. However, please note that if you unsubscribe from our mailing list we will keep your email on file to ensure that we know not to direct correspondence to it in the future.

Alternatively, individuals may choose to unsubscribe from any of our emails at any time by contacting us here: [email protected]

Staff and Personal Data

As part of their job our employees, collect data and information from various sources for journalistic research and development purposes. This information will be archived after an appropriate period.

Bureau Local

Bureau Local, our network promoting grass-roots, data-led journalism, holds personal data on its members, including names, locations, emails, Twitter handles and work details. It holds personal data relating to its Slack members as well, including usernames and emails. It also holds the data of professional partners and potential professional partners.

Who we share it with

We do not share member, Slack member or partner data externally, but we do share it among our team. Where we name individuals as supporters on our website, we do so because those individuals have explicitly consented to be identified in that way as part of filling in their membership form.

What we do with it

We have added additional information to our member and partner data for the purposes of better segmenting contacts. We will be updating our website to include those who opted in to be named on the website.

Use of cookies

We set a strictly limited number of cookies when someone visits the Bureau website. We use some third party platforms as outlined below - please visit their privacy policies for further information.

Please refer to this page for further information referring to the Facebook Pixel.

We use Embedly, to embed content like videos and documents. Please refer to its page for further information.

Analytics

For statistical reasons, we use Google Analytics to track how many users we have and how often they visit us. We collect information listing which of our pages are most frequently visited, when and from which countries.

In addition, if a user comments on an article, we collect their name, email, IP address and information about the browser they are using.

We also use Twitter Analytics and Facebook Insights to track anonymised users in the same way. We also post our videos on YouTube and Vimeo, and some audio on SoundCloud but do not collect data from these platforms. Users can refer to their terms of service to look at their privacy settings.

Legal Information and how to contact us

Find out more and contact us about your rights to obtain information about what data we hold. You read more about the law and subject access requests here. There may be circumstances in which we cannot fulfill your request, due to the law around exemptions, which you can read here.

For questions or comments about this policy speak to our Data Protection Officer. If you're in the UK:

• By email
• by post

If you're outside the UK:

• by post:

The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, PO Box 76421, London, EC2P 2SH

We're regulated by the Information Commissioner's Office. You can also contact them for advice and support.

Under the UK Data Protection Act 2018, we have to say who the ‘data controller’ is for the Bureau. The data controller is the organisation responsible for protecting information and for us this is The Bureau of Investigative Journalism.

If you would like access to or a copy of information we hold about you, or to request a correction, or have any questions, please contact the Data Protection Manager at the address or email shown above. They will deal with complaints within 30 days. Please address your request to the Data Protection Manager.

If you are not satisfied, you may be able to refer your complaint to the Information Commissioner's office, address above.

Changes to our privacy policy

If we make changes to our privacy policy, we will post the changes here. If they are significant, we will email our users for their consent.

There are no current changes.