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Privacy notice

Privacy notice

BMJ wants to ensure that it understands who is editing its journals, and is transparent about conflicts of interest. This notice explains what information we want to collect about your qualifications, diversity, and conflicts of interest, and how we use it.  You can find our contact details here if you would like to discuss this with us.

Click here to download a copy of this privacy notice.

Information collected

Type of information

Required

What it is used for

Lawful basis

Qualifications and experience

Relevant qualifications and experience

Yes

To check that you are suitable for the role

Necessary for contract

Relevant professional associations and memberships

Yes

To check that you are suitable for the role

Necessary for contract

Conflicts of interest

Paid or unpaid work in the fields of health, research, publishing, or another relevant field

Yes

To understand whether there are potential personal conflicts of interest with employment, financial incentives that may affect the actual or perceived validity of your contributions.

To understand whether there are any other work-related potential conflicts of interest that may lead to actual or perceived bias affecting the validity of your contributions.

Legitimate interests

Other employment, social, historical or financial links to relevant organisations

Yes

To understand whether you may have links to other organisations that would affect the actual or perceived validity of your contributions.

Legitimate interests

Diversity

Gender identity

No

To understand the demographics of people who work with BMJ and to evaluate the impact of diversity initiatives

Legitimate interests

Racial or ethnic identity

Religious, philosophical, or spiritual belief

Health or disability

Sexual orientation

No

To understand the demographics of people who work with BMJ and to evaluate the impact of diversity initiatives

Legitimate interests

Equality of opportunity or treatment (Data Protection Act 2018, Schedule 1, paragraph 8)

 

BMJ’s reputation for providing high-quality, reliable materials for the health sector is essential to our business. We will want to make sure that editors have suitable experience. We recognise that people who contribute to BMJ’s work can legitimately have interests in other organisations. BMJ needs to manage the risks of bias or the appearance of bias in our work. BMJ values having people from a wide range of backgrounds in order to have the broadest understanding of different perspectives. We also want to understand the diversity of people undertaking work for BMJ, and to understand the impact of diversity policies. You can choose to provide or not provide any diversity information. There are no negative consequences of any kind if you choose not to answer diversity questions. 

Do you share my data?

Information about who you are, your qualifications, and experience is made available on BMJ websites. 

Information about conflicts of interest will be available to anyone consulting BMJ materials that you have contributed to. While BMJ does not send your data to other individuals or organisations, it will be available publicly.

Your diversity data is held confidentially, and is only accessible to BMJ staff as necessary to monitor diversity.

How long will you keep information about me?

We will keep information about your qualifications and experience, conflicts of interest and diversity alongside other information about you. It will be deleted together with the other data we hold about you six years after your last work for BMJ. However, where your conflict of interest information forms part of BMJ’s materials, your data will remain available through those materials indefinitely. At the end of the retention period, diversity data will be anonymised.

What are my rights?

You have rights over your data. You can contact us if you would like to:

  • Have a copy of your personal data
  • Correct inaccurate information about you
  • Erase information about you
  • Restrict how your data is used
  • Object to our use of your data
  • Have your data ported to another organisation

You can find advice about your rights on the website for the Information Commissioner’s Office (the regulator for data protection law in the UK). 

If you have any concerns or complaints, we’d like it if you contacted us in the first instance. You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office if you’d like to. 

Wherever you are in the world, you can get in touch with BMJ in the first instance through our email address: dataprotectionlead@bmj.com. However, in accordance with the requirements of the GDPR (Article 27), BMJ has a data protection representative in the EU:

activeMind.legal Rechtsanwaltsgesellschaft m.b.H.

Geschäftsführer: RA Klaus Foitzick

Kurfürstendamm 56

10707 Berlin

HRB 185355 Amtsgericht München

Email: euprivacy@bmj.com  

Tel: +49 (0) 30 / 770191070

Web: www.activemind.legal

 

Editorial Board Privacy Notice – Aug 2023