Press Contacts

MIL may collect and process personal data of press contacts, including journalists or other media representatives, for the purpose of disseminating information to the general public about Mensa. Such personal data may be collected from publicly available sources.

We perform the following activities to fulfil this purpose:

• Reach out to press contacts
• Communicate with press contacts 
• Follow up with press contacts

Personal Data	Name Email address Phone number Function Affiliation Details of our communication with you
Legal Basis	The processing is necessary in order to fulfil our legitimate interest of disseminating information to the general public about Mensa.
Retention Period	For as long as you are the representative of the organisation or entity with which we maintain press contacts. Historical records of our communications with you may be preserved beyond this period if required for documenting our past press interactions.

 

General Inquiries

If you contact MIL with general inquiries through any of our provided channels, such as our contact form, email, or regular mail, we will process your personal data to efficiently and effectively address your questions, feedback, and concerns.

We perform the following activities to fulfil this purpose:

• Receive and record inquiry
• Handle and investigate inquiry
• Respond to inquiry
• Follow up on inquiry

Personal Data	Name Email address Country of residence Details of our communication with you
Legal Basis	The processing is necessary in order to fulfil our legitimate interest of handling any general inquiries we may receive about Mensa.
Retention Period	One month after your inquiry has been fully addressed. After that, your information may be de-identified and preserved in an anonymous format for records and statistical purposes.

 

Social Media Engagement

MIL is active on several social media platforms. When you engage with MIL’s social media pages, including but not limited to comments, messages, and reactions, we process your personal data to connect with you, understand your feedback, and share information relevant to our mission.

Please note that any data you share with us on our social media pages will also be processed by the provider of that social media service. For more information about this, please see the section on Transfers on Social Media under How We Share Your Personal Data. 

We perform the following activities to fulfil this purpose:

• Review, moderate and, if necessary, delete comments
• Respond to your comments and/or messages
• Review and record feedback 

Personal Data	Name and/or username Details of our communication with you Engagement data
Legal Basis	The processing is necessary in order to fulfil our legitimate interest of engaging with the general public on social media. This interaction helps us to disseminate information about Mensa.
Retention Period	Data retained on the social platform itself will be processed until you choose to remove your own interactions with us, or until you delete your social media account.  Our communication with you may be de-identified and preserved in an anonymous format for internal records and statistical purposes.

 

Advertising Campaigns on Social Media

We may advertise posts on our social media pages from time to time by targeting users who belong to certain groups with common characteristics, such as people who are interested in certain topics. 

Please note that we do not gain access to any personal data about specific users; all actual processing of personal data is exclusively carried out by the provider of the social media service. However, MIL and the provider are joint data controllers for certain steps in the advertising process. For more information about this, please see the section on Transfers on Social Media under How We Share Your Personal Data. 

We perform the following activities to fulfil this purpose:

• Target advertising campaigns to certain user groups
• Run advertising campaigns
• Analyse results of advertising campaigns

Personal Data	Demographical data, such as age or approximate place of residence Interests Engagement data
Legal Basis	The consent given by you to the provider of the social platform to receive targeted advertising on the platform.
Retention Period	We do not store any personal data about individual users. Anonymous statistical information may be retained in an anonymous format.

Cookies

We use cookies for various purposes on mensa.org. These cookies may contain personal data. The information processed through cookies may include the full or partial IP address, device information, or visitor statistics. We only use cookies if you have consented via our cookie banner, or if they are strictly necessary for the website to function. Please see our cookie policy for more information. 

 

How We Protect Your Personal Data

Privacy by design is achieved by appropriate processes and regular annual training and refresher sessions for our staff to ensure that they are aware of the importance of keeping personal data private, whether the data belong to members, business affiliates, potential members or anyone else.

 

How We Share Your Personal Data

Transfers to third parties

We will not provide your personal data to third parties other than designated or authorised representatives of national Mensa groups, or to our service providers, unless required to by a court order or judgement. The circumstances under which we may authorise third parties to process or store your data on our behalf are outlined below.

In order to fulfil the purposes of our processing of your personal data, we may share your personal data with companies that provide services to us, e.g., to send out newsletters or to host our IT systems. These companies are only allowed to process your personal data on our instructions and are not allowed to use your data for any purposes of their own. 

We may also on occasion outsource work or liaison duties to trusted individuals not in our direct employment. For example, we may share certain personal data with trusted volunteers of MIL if necessary to fulfil one of the purposes described in this privacy policy. These individuals will have agreed to abide by our privacy policy and entered into confidentiality agreements.

 

Transfers outside the UK

We strive to process your personal data within the UK. In the case that we need to transfer your personal data outside the UK, we will do so only after ensuring that the level of protection of your personal data guaranteed UK data protection law is not undermined. 

For instance, we may transfer personal data outside the UK based on an adequacy decision; that is, if the third country in question has been deemed to provide adequate protection for people’s rights and freedoms concerning their personal data. For example, EU Member States have been deemed to provide such adequate protection. 

We may also transfer personal data outside the UK after entering into a contract with the recipient which incorporates standard data protection clauses recognised or issued in accordance with UK data protection laws.

 

Transfers on Social Media

Please note that any data you share with us on our social media pages will also be processed by the provider of that social media service. The provider is a separate data controller when it processes such data for its own purposes. In certain cases, however, MIL and the provider may be joint data controllers for the processing.

MIL, together with the provider, is jointly responsible for the collection and forwarding of data collected in connection with selecting a target audience for advertising campaigns in the social service, and for data collected when we use the provider’s tools to compile statistics on visits to our social media page. Thereafter, the provider is solely responsible for the subsequent processing of the collected personal data, for example, regarding the management of specific user accounts to target advertising campaigns or compile statistics.

For certain activities, such as creating reports and statistics on the impact of our advertising campaigns in the social service, MIL is the sole data controller. In this case, the provider acts as our data processor and must follow our instructions.

Personal data processed in connection with advertising campaigns will never be available to MIL in a format where you as a user can be identified. We only have access to statistics about the campaign in an anonymised form.

 

Your Rights

Details on Your Rights

Under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR), you have the following rights:

 

Right of access

You have the right to request information about whether we process your personal data and, if so, to access that data and information about how we use it. You also have the right to request a copy of your personal data. The first copy you request is free of charge, but additional copies may be subject to a fee. If you submit your request in an electronic format, we will provide it to you electronically, if possible. If you do not specify a particular electronic format, we will provide the information in a commonly used format, such as PDF.

If providing the information would adversely affect the rights and freedoms of others, we may refuse to disclose certain personal data. Please also note that the right of access does not mean that you always have the right to receive the actual document or file where your personal data is processed. 

 

Right to rectification

You have the right to have inaccurate personal data corrected without undue delay. If appropriate with regards to the purpose of our processing, you also have the right to have incomplete personal data completed, for example by providing us with supplementary information. 

 

Right to restriction of processing

A restriction of processing means that the personal data may only be used and processed in certain limited manners, for example, in that we may only store the personal data but not process it in any other manner during the time that the restriction applies. Other use may only take place with your consent, to protect the rights of others, or for an important public interest. You have the right to request that we restrict the processing of your personal data in the following four situations:

 

• If you contest the accuracy of your personal data, you have the right to request a restriction while we verify the accuracy of the personal data.
• If the processing is unlawful and you oppose the erasure of the personal data, you can instead request that its use be restricted. 
• If we no longer need the personal data for the purposes of the processing, but you need the personal data to establish, exercise or defend against legal claims, you may request that we retain the data for that purpose only.
• If you object to a processing of your personal data (in one of the circumstances outlined in this Privacy Policy), you have the right to request that the processing of your personal data be restricted while we verify whether our legitimate grounds for processing override your interests.

 

If we restrict the processing of your personal data, we are obliged to notify you before the restriction is lifted.

 

Right to erasure (‘right to be forgotten’)

You have the right to request the deletion of your personal data. We are obligated to delete your personal data without delay in the following cases:

 

• When the personal data is no longer necessary for the purposes for which it was collected.
• If you revoke the consent on which the processing is based and there is no other legal basis for the processing.

• If the processing of personal data is performed for the purpose of direct marketing, and you object to the data being processed for that purpose. 
• If you object to the processing (in one of the circumstances outlined in this Privacy Policy), and there are no legitimate grounds for the processing which outweigh your interests.
• If the personal data has been unlawfully processed. 
• If the personal data must be deleted in order to comply with a legal obligation. 

 

Please note that in certain circumstances, we may not be able to fulfil your request to have your personal data erased. We may refuse your request in whole or in part if our processing is necessary for any of the following reasons: 

 

• To fulfil other important rights, such as the right to freedom of expression and freedom of information.
• To comply with legal obligations.
• For the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims.
• For archiving purposes in the public interest, or for scientific, historical or statistical purposes.

 

Right to compensation

If you have suffered damage because your personal data has been processed unlawfully, you have the right to request compensation.

 

Right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner 

If you believe that our processing of your personal data is unlawful or not carried out correctly, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner (ICO). The ICO is the regulatory authority responsible for enforcing privacy laws in the UK. 

 

Right to object

If we are processing your personal data based on legitimate interests, you have the right to object to such processing on grounds relating to your particular situation. If so, we will no longer process the personal data, unless we can either demonstrate compelling legitimate grounds for the processing which override your given grounds, or if we need to continue the processing for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims.

Where personal data are processed for direct marketing purposes, you have the right to object at to our processing for such marketing purposes. If so, we will no longer process your personal data for such purposes.

 

Right to withdraw your consent

With regards to processing carried out on the basis of consent, you have the right to withdraw your consent at any time, in which case the personal data must cease to be processed. However, the withdrawal of your consent does not affect the lawfulness of processing based on consent performed before the withdrawal.

 

Right to move your personal data (“data portability”)

Automated processing (e.g. in an IT system) carried out based on your consent or on a contract, where the personal data has been collected directly from you, is covered by the right to data portability. This means that you have the right to request your personal data in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format and, if technically feasible, have this personal data transferred directly to another data controller.

 

How to Exercise Your Rights

You are always welcome to contact us with your questions or concerns about how we process your personal data, or to exercise one of your rights. All requests should be made in writing and submitted by you personally or emailed from the email address you have registered with us to directoroperations-mil@mensa.org. You can also reach out to our Data Protection Officer (DPO) at dpo@mensa.org. 

We may ask you to confirm your identity before we begin processing a request to exercise your rights. If your request is manifestly unfounded or excessive, we may request a reasonable fee from you or deny your request.

You can read more about your rights on the Information Commissioner’s website: https://ico.org.uk/for-the-public/. 

Updates to this Privacy Policy

We may update this privacy policy from time to time, e.g., if we were to process your personal data for new purposes, collect additional data or share your data with new recipients. The latest version of the privacy policy is always published on mensa.org.

 

Revision history
2018-05-01	Version 1.0	Original version
2024-04-27	Version 2.0	Updated version for the new website