Privacy Policy

At the British Model Flying Association (BMFA), we’re committed to protecting and respecting your privacy.

This Policy explains when and why we collect personal information about people who register on our website and/or join the BMFA by whatever means, how we use it, the conditions under which we may disclose it to others, how we keep it secure and your rights in relation to your personal data.

We may change this Policy from time to time so please check the website at www.bmfa.org/Privacy-Policy occasionally to ensure that you’re happy with any changes. By registering on our website or by becoming a BMFA member, you’re agreeing to be bound by this Policy.

Any questions regarding this Policy and our privacy practices should be sent by email to admin@bmfa.org or by writing to Data Protection Officer, British Model Flying Association, Chacksfield House, 31 St Andrews Road, Leicester, LE2 8RE. Alternatively, you can telephone 0116 244 0028.

Who Are we?

The British Model Flying Association is the trading name of the Society of Model Aeronautical Engineers LTD (SMAE), the national governing body (NGB) for the sport of model aircraft flying in the UK and the country’s largest air sports association. The registered address is British Model Flying Association, Chacksfield House, 31 St Andrews Road, Leicester, LE2 8RE.

How do we collect information about you?

We obtain information about you when you register on our website or become a member of the BMFA either online, via telephone, through an affiliated club or in person.

What type of information is collected about you?

The personal information we collect might include your name, address, email address, telephone number, gender and IP address.  If you join the BMFA, purchase a product or enter a contest/event online, your card/payment information is not held by us, it is collected by our third party payment processors, who specialise in the secure online capture and processing of credit/debit card transactions, any payment information provided by you by other means (telephone/mail) is destroyed immediately after processing.

The legal bases for the processing of your personal data are as follows

(a)       you have given consent by providing the information on our membership website portal.

(b)       to enable the BMFA to fulfil our contractual obligations to provide membership services and insurances including the BMFA news.

How is your information used?

We may use your information to:

  • process your membership;
  • process orders that you have submitted;
  • to carry out our obligations arising from your membership;
  • dealing with entries to courses, workshops, contests and events;
  • seek your views or comments on the services we provide;
  • notify you of changes to our services;
  • send you communications which you have requested and that may be of interest to you. These may include information about BMFA events and contests, government regulation changes that affect model aircraft flying and other BMFA related news;

How long do we retain your information?

We will hold your personal information on our systems for as long as is necessary to carry out our obligations in relation to your membership, or as long as is set out in any relevant agreement between us. Where an individual persons BMFA membership lapses your information will be securely kept for a period of 7 years for the purposes of maintaining achievement scheme records, after which your information will be deleted.

Who has access to your information?

We will not sell or rent your information to third parties.

We will not share your information with third parties for marketing purposes.

If you have selected to join a BMFA affiliated club or BMFA specialist body by using the BMFA online membership service that club/body will have access to your personal data.

Third Party Service Providers working on our behalf: We may pass your information to our third party service providers, agents subcontractors and other associated organisations for the purposes of completing tasks and providing services to you on our behalf (for example send you mailings such as the BMFA News and membership cards). However, when we use third party service providers, we disclose only the personal information that is necessary to deliver the service and we have a contract in place that requires them to keep your information secure and not to use it for their own direct marketing purposes and delete it once it has been used as directed. Please be reassured that we will not release your information to third parties beyond the BMFA unless we are required to do so by law, for example, by a court order or for the purposes of prevention of fraud or other crime.

When you are using our secure online payment pages, your payments are processed by a third party payment processor, who specialises in the secure online capture and processing of transactions. If you have any questions regarding secure transactions, please contact us.

Drone and Model Aircraft Registration and Education Scheme (DMARES)

We will only share members data for the purposes of DMARES when you give direct consent by opting to add CAA Registration to your membership.

By adding CAA Registration you agree to your data being shared with the CAA for the purposes of registration for an Operator ID. The CAA will also use your email address to send your Operator ID number and important safety and regulatory updates.

The data we will share is your first name, surname, address, date of birth and email address.

By opting to add CAA registration you must agree with the CAA DMARES Privacy Policy, see https://register-drones.caa.co.uk/privacy-notice

How you can access and update your information?

The accuracy of your information is important to us. You can check the information we hold is correct on your members profile of our membership portal at https://bmfa.azolve.com and update the information if necessary on the portal, or by email to admin@bmfa.org or write to us at: British Model Flying Association, Chacksfield House, 31 St Andrews Road, Leicester, LE2 8RE. Alternatively, you can telephone 0116 244 0028.

Links to non BMFA websites?

Our websites may contain links to other websites run by other organisations. This privacy policy applies only to our websites‚ so we encourage you to read the privacy statements on the other websites you visit. We cannot be responsible for the privacy policies and practices of other sites even if you access them using links from our website.

In addition, if you linked to our website from a third party site, we cannot be responsible for the privacy policies and practices of the owners and operators of that third party site and recommend that you check the policy of that third party site.

What are your rights?

(a)       the right to access;

You have the right to confirmation as to whether or not we process your personal data and, where we do, access to the personal data, together with certain additional information. That additional information includes details of the purposes of the processing, the categories of personal data concerned and the recipients of the personal data. Providing the rights and freedoms of others are not affected, we will supply to you a copy of your personal data. The first copy will be provided free of charge, but additional copies may be subject to a reasonable fee. You can access your personal data by visiting your members dashboard when logged into our website.

(b)       the right to rectification;

You have the right to have any inaccurate personal data about you rectified and, taking into account the purposes of the processing, to have any incomplete personal data about you completed.

(c)       the right to erasure;

In some circumstances you have the right to the erasure of your personal data without undue delay. Those circumstances include: the personal data being no longer necessary in relation to the purposes for which the data was collected or otherwise processed, you are no longer a BMFA member and wish the data not to be held for our standard 5 year period.
Please note a request for data erasure for a current member would require that member to forfeit membership. The data is required for the BMFA to fulfill its obligations.

(d)       the right to restrict processing;

In some circumstances you have the right to restrict the processing of your personal data. Those circumstances are: you contest the accuracy of the personal data; processing is unlawful but you oppose erasure; we no longer need the personal data for the purposes of our processing, but you require personal data for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims; and you have objected to processing, pending the verification of that objection. Where processing has been restricted on this basis, we may continue to store your personal data. However, we will only otherwise process it: with your consent; for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims; for the protection of the rights of another natural or legal person; or for reasons of important public interest.

(e)       the right to object to processing;

You have the right to object to our processing of your personal data for direct electronic communications purposes. If you make such an objection, we will cease to process your personal data for this purpose. You can set your electronic communications preferences on your members dashboard when logged into our website

(f)         the right to data portability;

To the extent that the legal basis for our processing of your personal data is:

  1. consent; or
  2. that the processing is necessary for the performance of a contract to which you are party or in order to take steps at your request prior to entering into a contract,

and such processing is carried out by automated means, you have the right to receive your personal data from us in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format. However, this right does not apply where it would adversely affect the rights and freedoms of others.

(g)       the right to complain to a supervisory authority;

If you consider that our processing of your personal information infringes data protection laws, you have a legal right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioners Office. https://ico.org.uk

(h)       the right to withdraw consent.

To the extent that the legal basis for our processing of your personal information is consent, you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time. Withdrawal will not affect the lawfulness of processing before the withdrawal.

You may exercise any of your rights in relation to your personal data by written notice to us OR by using your members dashboard when logged into our website

British Model Flying Association
Chacksfield House
31 St Andrews Road
Leicester, LE2 8RE
admin@bmfa.org
Tel 0116 244 0028