Who we are
The International Association of Hydrogeologists (IAH/AIH) is a scientific and educational charitable organisation for those working in the field of groundwater. Our mission is to further the understanding, wise use and protection of groundwater resources throughout the world.
IAH is a registered charity in England and Wales under number 3956233. Our contact details are shown at https://iah.org/about/contact.
About our privacy and cookies policy
This policy sets out how we use and protect information that you give us when you use this website. It also covers the personal and potentially sensitive data that we may gather from our members.
IAH is committed to ensuring that your privacy is protected. All information which we hold or acquire will be treated in accordance with this policy, which accords with applicable legislation and with good practice. Should we ask you to provide certain information by which you can be identified when using this website, then you can be assured that it will only be used in accordance with this privacy statement.
We may change this policy from time to time by updating this page. You should therefore check this page from time to time to ensure that you are happy with any changes.
We provide further detail on our overall policy managing personal data, which can be obtained by emailing info@iah.org.
What we collect
IAH does not retain personal information on anyone who visits our web site but who does not complete any online forms.
Cookies
IAH uses cookies to track which pages are being used on its site by using Google Analytics (view Google Analytics privacy centre). This helps us to analyse overall data about web page traffic to enable us to improve our website for the benefit of our community. By monitoring which pages are used more than others we can make amendments to our site as required. We use this information only for statistical analysis and then the data is removed from the system.
Cookies are also used for our online forms and members area, allowing IAH’s web applications to respond to you as an individual. In so doing this website can operate to your needs by gathering and remembering information about your preferences and interaction with IAH.
You can choose to accept or decline cookies. However declining cookies may prevent you from taking full advantage of this website, particularly if you are an IAH member.
For our members
We collect the following information:
- name
- contact information including email address
- demographic information such as address, preferences, interests, non-sensitive employment/career information
- other information relevant to the member and/or IAH
Members in IAH’s Mentoring Scheme
Members participating in IAH’s Mentoring Scheme are asked to provide more detailed and sensitive personal information about themselves to enable us to provide you with the service required. This information is gathered using separate processes and secure systems (not via IAH’s website) and the utmost level of privacy is assured.
For our non-members
For non-members who are subscribers to our eNews we hold only names and email addresses, as provided by those who opt in.
What we do with the information we gather
IAH gathers the information to understand the needs of its members, supporters and users to provide our community with the services that you expect:
- Internal record keeping.
- To improve this website, our services, benefits and charitable actions.
- For our members we use the personal information to manage their membership of the Association including our Hydrogeology Journal alerts, eNews, its registration and renewal processes, and for other IAH related or relevant communications. This involves providing personal information under secure and controlled conditions to IAH’s service providers. We make some of the personal information available in a membership directory on this website to enable members to make contact with other members. Access to this information is restricted via a Members Area, accessible by secure means by our members only.
- For registered non-members we only use their information to distribute our eNews. This is maintained using a secure system (not IAH’s website) and is accessible only to IAH Secretariat staff.
We aim to give you as much control over your data as possible and so where possible we rely on consent as our legal basis for using data. We also use legitimate interests, contracts and legal obligation as the legal basis where appropriate. We rely on legitimate interest for processing applications for membership and helping you to renew this. We also use this basis to let our national chapters and our commissions and networks know about your membership so that they can keep you informed of any activities that you may be interested in.
Controlling your personal information
The International Association of Hydrogeologists will not sell, distribute or lease your personal to third parties unless we are required by law to do so. Very occasionally we may send you promotional information either from IAH or from relevant third parties that you may find interesting – as far as is practical such information will be included in our regular communications (eNews, journal alerts).
For reasons of efficiency and economy the Association uses electronic systems of administration and cannot accept into membership persons who are not willing for the Association to hold their address and other personal information electronically. Members can change their personal details and privacy settings by logging in to the Members Area of this website.
All online mailings from IAH, for both members and non-members, contain unsubscribe information.
You may request details of personal information which we hold about you under the Data Protection 1998 and EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) 2018. A small fee may be payable. If you would like a copy of your information held please email info@iah.org.
If you considered data we hold about you is incomplete or inaccurate then you have the right to ask for this to be rectified. We aim to make the rectifications as quickly as possible unless there is a valid reason for not doing so, on which case we will notify you. If you are a member you can edit your personal data on your membership page (https://iah.org/members/your-membership).
You may inform us at any time that you no longer wish us to process your data at any time, or if you would like us to erase data unless we are legally required to retain this, but please be aware that we can only provide you with the service you may be expecting if we are able to use the right data. Where you have given your consent for us to contact you, including for marketing, we will ask you periodically if you wish to maintain this consent. We will review other data at least every 3 years and consider whether it is necessary to retain this.
Our commitment to data security
IAH is committed to ensure that your information is kept secure. In order to prevent unauthorised access or disclosure we have put in place suitable physical, electronic and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure the information we collect online.
Complaints
You may make a complaint to us or to the supervisory authority about how we process your personal data if you are unsatisfied with how we have handled this information. The supervisory authority in the UK is the Information Commissioner (contact https://ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/).
