Privacy Policy for BMI Education Workshops & International Schools Forums
We believe that trust is the foundation of any thriving education networking community, and at BMI Education Workshops, we treat your data privacy with exactly the same diligence and care that we pour into curating our international schools forum discussions. When you join one of our events, you are not just a name on a list; you are a valued colleague in the UK and global education sector, and we want to be completely transparent about how we look after the information you share with us. This policy explains everything clearly and simply, so you can feel confident that your personal details are in safe hands.
What Information We Collect at Our Events
Whenever you sign up for a BMI workshop or one of our flagship international schools forum gatherings, we ask for a few essential details to make your experience smooth, welcoming, and professionally relevant. The information we collect depends on the nature of the event, but it always stays proportionate to what we genuinely need to deliver a high-quality session, whether we are meeting at a central London venue or connecting online with educators from across the United Kingdom.
Information you provide directly
Our registration forms, which you might encounter on our website or through our trusted ticketing partner Eventbrite, typically capture your full name, email address, the international school or organisation you represent, and your professional role. If we are running a workshop at a physical venue like the British Museum or the Institute of Education, we may also ask for your contact number on the day, purely to reach you if there is a last-minute room change. We sometimes request optional details about your specific areas of interest in international education, which helps us tailor breakout discussions during our forums and ensures the networking opportunities we create genuinely match what you are looking for.
Sensitive data and dietary requirements
We understand that dietary requirements can reveal information about your health, religious beliefs, or personal circumstances, and we handle this data with particular sensitivity. When you tell us about your needs for catering purposes at a workshop, we use that information exclusively to ensure the refreshments we provide are appropriate for you. We never store this data beyond the event itself, and it is never shared with anyone outside the immediate planning team. You are never obliged to share more than you feel comfortable with, and we always design our catering options to be inclusive by default.
How We Use Cookies and Similar Tracking
Our website uses a deliberately small set of cookies to keep things running reliably for our international schools forum community, and we have worked hard to keep our digital footprint as lightweight as possible. When you first visit our site, you will see our clear cookie banner that gives you control over what runs on your device, and we believe in explaining what each small text file actually does rather than burying the details in technical jargon.
Strictly necessary functional cookies
These essential cookies allow our booking system to remember the items you select for a BMI workshop or education networking event as you move through the registration steps. Without them, the sign-up process would simply not work properly, and we consider them fundamental to providing the service you have requested. They do not gather any information about you that could be used for marketing purposes, and they typically expire when you close your browser.
Managing your cookie preferences
You can adjust your preferences at any time through the cookie settings link in our website footer, and most browsers also allow you to refuse or delete cookies through their own settings panels. We have designed our site so that even if you decline our analytics scripts, the core functionality for browsing international schools forum dates and registering for BMI workshops remains completely intact and unaffected.
Analytics and How We Monitor Site Traffic
We use a privacy-focused analytics approach to understand how educators from London to Manchester discover our education networking opportunities, helping us make informed decisions about where to share upcoming event details. We deliberately avoid the kind of invasive tracking that follows individuals across the wider web, because we believe you deserve to browse without feeling watched.
Anonymised IP addresses
Our analytics configuration masks the final segment of every visitor’s IP address before any data is processed, which means we can see that someone from a particular UK city visited our international schools forum page without ever being able to identify who that individual person was or which specific institution they browsed from.
No cross-site tracking
We do not deploy tracking pixels or scripts that monitor your behaviour on other websites, and the analytics tool we use operates entirely within our own domain. This means we never build profiles of your browsing habits beyond our own pages, and we never contribute to advertising networks that might attempt to retarget you elsewhere online.
Third-Party Services We Rely On
To deliver the best possible experience for our international schools forum community, we rely on a small number of carefully chosen partners who help us manage registrations, process payments, and communicate with attendees. Each of these providers has been selected because they share our commitment to responsible data handling, and they all operate under robust GDPR commitments that align with UK legislation.
Payment processing partners
When you pay for a BMI workshop ticket, the transaction is handled securely through our registration platform Eventbrite, which processes your payment details without us ever seeing or storing your full card information. Eventbrite is fully compliant with the Data Protection Act 2018 and UK GDPR, and their systems are designed to protect financial data throughout the entire booking journey.
Email communication platforms
We use Mailchimp to send out our newsletter and periodic updates about upcoming international schools forums, and we only ever add you to that list when you have given us clear, affirmative consent. Mailchimp maintains its own GDPR-compliant infrastructure, and every single email we send includes a straightforward unsubscribe link that takes effect immediately if you decide our updates are no longer relevant to your professional interests.
Your Data Protection Rights Under UK GDPR
Under the UK GDPR and the Data Protection Act 2018, you hold a comprehensive set of rights regarding the personal information we keep about you, and we are fully committed to honouring every one of them. Whether you attended a single BMI workshop or have been a regular at our international schools forum discussions for years, these rights apply equally to everyone in our education networking community.
Subject access requests
You have the right to ask us what personal data we hold about you and to receive a copy of that information, a process known as a subject access request. To submit one, simply email us at [email protected] with the details of your request, and we will respond within one calendar month, providing the information in a clear, accessible format at no cost.
Withdrawing consent and the right to erasure
Where we rely on your consent to process data, such as sending our Mailchimp newsletter, you can withdraw that consent at any time by clicking the unsubscribe link or by contacting us directly. You also have the right to request that we delete your personal information, and while there are some circumstances where we may need to retain certain records for legitimate reasons, we will always explain our decision clearly and promptly.
Lodging a complaint with the ICO
If you ever feel that we have not handled your data correctly, you have the right to raise a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office, the UK’s independent supervisory authority for data protection. We would always welcome the opportunity to address your concerns directly first, but the ICO provides a formal pathway if you feel it is necessary.
How Long We Keep Your Information
We maintain a clear retention schedule that balances our legitimate need to keep records of our international schools forum activities with the principle that we should not hold onto your personal details indefinitely. Different types of information follow different timelines, and we review our data stores regularly to ensure nothing is kept beyond its useful life.
Event attendance records
Attendance records for BMI workshops and education networking events are retained for a period of six years following the event date, reflecting our legitimate business interests in maintaining a historical record of professional development activities and our safeguarding responsibilities within educational contexts. After this period, the records are securely deleted or fully anonymised.
Mailing list retention periods
Our marketing preferences are refreshed annually, and if you have not engaged with our communications or our international schools forum community during that twelve-month window, we will reach out to confirm whether you still wish to stay on our mailing list. If we do not hear back, we take that as a natural cue to remove your details and stop sending further updates.
Contacting the BMI Team About Your Data
We genuinely want to make it easy for you to reach us about any privacy matter, whether you have a detailed technical question or simply want to check what we currently hold. Our team is based in London, and we are always happy to chat through your concerns or respond to your requests in plain, friendly language rather than legal boilerplate.
Data controller identity
The data controller responsible for your personal information is BMI Education Workshops, and our London-based postal address is available upon request by emailing [email protected]. We are registered in the United Kingdom and operate exclusively under the jurisdiction of UK data protection legislation, including the Data Protection Act 2018 and UK GDPR.
How to reach our Data Protection Officer
Our Data Protection Officer oversees our compliance efforts and serves as your dedicated point of contact for privacy matters. You can reach them directly at [email protected], and we aim to acknowledge every query within two working days, providing a substantive response as quickly as our investigation allows.
Our entire education networking community is built on the trust that you, as educators and school leaders, place in us when you share your information, and we never take that confidence for granted. We will continue to review and update this privacy policy whenever our internal processes evolve or the regulatory landscape in the United Kingdom shifts, and we will always notify you of any meaningful changes through our website and our regular communication channels. Thank you for being part of the BMI Education Workshops and international schools forum network, and please do not hesitate to reach out if there is anything we can clarify further.