The data Controller is the Society of Will Writers, Chancery House, Whisby Way, Lincoln, Lincolnshire LN6 3LQ.

As a not-for-profit organisation, the Society is not required to be registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) as per their assessment. We are however still required to be compliant with the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation.

You can contact us at [email protected] or on 01522 687888

If you’re a member of the public, then we’ll only use your personal information to resolve issues you raise to us about one of our members. To do this, we’ll only need your contact information (name, address, phone &/or email). If you’re using this website, we may record which pages you use help us improve them.

If you’re a will writer, or you’re training to be one, then we collect information about you and your business to administer your membership of the society, keep you informed about training and industry news, and to help you promote your services on our website member directory. If relevant, this includes:

• Your contact details
• Professional development records you provide us with
• Relevant information about past convictions

We offer all members an opportunity to join their regional professional group – if you agree to this, we’ll pass your contact information to a regional group organiser.

Where we arrange events and training sessions that you attend in person, we may collect special category health information about you to cater to your dietary needs.

In exceptional circumstances, we’ll use your information to help members of the public resolve any complaint or dispute that they are unable to resolve with you directly.

In almost all cases, our lawful basis for using personal information is legitimate interest. We have a legitimate interest in running a professional industry body to improve the professional standards and capability of the UK’s will-writing industry and our members.

If you’re a member of the public raising an issue about a will writer, we will ask for your consent to share your details with that will writer (so we can help resolve the issue.)

For catering and dietary preference information, we will request your consent to process your information.

For information on past criminal convictions, our condition for processing information is protection of the public from dishonesty.

Most of your personal information is retained within the Society, or its group of companies (including the National Will Archive).

We may share your information with companies that we use for services such as accounting and bookkeeping, event organisation and training.

We use some external providers for our IT services – for database management and accounting. These “processors” act only after receiving written instructions from us.

In exceptional circumstances, we may share your information in the event of a complaint raised against a Society member by a member of the public or other evidence of alleged wrongdoing by a Society member brought to our attention. This is to discharge our duties to the public as a professional organisation and ensure a thorough and fair investigation into a complaint or issue.

We may share your information with external providers that we use for services such as accounting and bookkeeping, event organisation and training. They, in turn, may store the information on their servers – some of these are outside the UK or the EU.

Some countries have poor privacy protection law, so we ensure that your personal data is protected by “Standard Contractual Clauses” that apply the stringent standards of GDPR to any place your information is held.

Your personal information belongs to you.

Where we are processing your data based on your consent you can withdraw your consent and we must immediately stop processing your data. Please note that up to that point, we’re acting lawfully with your consent, withdrawal of consent cannot be backdated.

You have the right to request a copy of all personal data we hold relating to you and we must provide this within 30 days. You also have the right to require us to correct any records that are wrong. We have the right to confirm your identity before providing this information.

You have the right to require us to erase personal data and we must comply unless we need it for one of the purposes described above (for example, this might include the fact that we need to demonstrate your employer has undertaken training for you.) We also retain the right to keep data that is needed to establish, exercise or defend a legal claim.

Where we process your data based on a “legitimate interest” (see lawful basis section, above) you still have the right to object to our processing of your data. From that point, we must stop processing your data until we have determined whether your rights to privacy override the legitimate interests we have defined.

Finally, you may have the right to have your personal data transferred to another organisation, and we’re obliged to provide it to you in a clear and reasonable format.

We don’t do any automated profiling of data or people.

If you have a complaint about how we use your personal information, please contact us in the first instance at: [email protected] or on 01522 687888

We hope that we can resolve your issue to your satisfaction. If not, you also have a right to lodge a complaint with the regulator, the Information Commissioner’s Office (the ICO). Please refer to the ICO at https://ico.org.uk/concerns or by calling them on 0303 123 1113.