Privacy Statement

Information within the Scottish Raptor Monitoring Scheme (SRMS) is managed in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Under GDPR any personal data the SRMS holds for you (e.g. your name and contact information) should be freely given, specific and informed.  It is important that the SRMS is clear of your wishes relating to the processing of the personal data that the SRMS holds for you.

Please use our SRMS Registration Form (https://raptormonitoring.org/getting-involved/registering-for-srms) to provide the SRMS with your personal details that you are comfortable sharing with the SRMS and let us know the ways in which you consent for your personal information to be used. 

Personal information that you may provide to us

The SRMS processes your personal data (e.g. your name and contact information) for keeping you up to date with SRMS work and to help us make informed decisions when it comes to processing and sharing any raptor records that you (or others) have shared with the SRMS. Your personal contact data is stored in a database accessible only to BTO SRMS staff. These personal contact data will be retained until such time as you ask for them to be removed or your association with the SRMS ceases. SRMS staff will not share your contact data with anyone unless you have given permission to do so.

If you submit data to the SRMS via SRMS-Online (our preferred way for you to provide records to the SRMS from 2020) then you will have supplied personal data (email, name, address) through registering an account with MyBTO. These personal data will be managed in accordance with BTO’s Privacy Policy (https://www.bto.org/about/privacy-statement).

If you supply raptor monitoring data to the SRMS then you will also supply personal data (e.g. your name) in an observer field against every record you submit. This observer information is accessible to the SRMC and a BTO Research Ecologist who are custodians of these data on your behalf in line with our Data Sharing & Use Policy (https://raptormonitoring.org/srms-data/data-sharing-use-policy). This observer information is securely stored alongside each of the raptor monitoring records and therefore can reside in a number of different formats accessible via a range of programmes (e.g. Excel, ArcGIS, R) as they undergo a process of checking and archiving. Where your name is supplied against a record this will be retained indefinitely with the original raptor monitoring records in the SRMS master dataset. Your observer information will not be included in any records shared with SRMS partners or other individuals or organisations unless you have given permission to do so. The exception to this is sharing information with the NatureScot Licensing Team & BTO Ringing Unit if you are making returns via the SRMS to satisfy Schedule 1 return reporting.

What we may do with the information we collect

SRMS will never sell your personal data, and will only ever share it with other individuals or organisations where necessary and where guarantees as to its privacy and security have been provided.

When you interact with SRMS and have not advised us to the contrary, you are agreeing that we may use your personal information for the purposes set out in this statement. SRMS will only process your personal data where it has a lawful basis for doing so (as specified under Article 6 of the EU General Data Protection Regulation – GDPR). In most cases, the lawful basis is that processing such data is necessary for the legitimate interests of SRMS.

SRMS seeks to balance the preservation of your rights under the GDPR & the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR) with the SRMS’s legitimate interest in promoting and coordinating volunteering activities associated with the monitoring of raptors.  This activity is central to the achievement of our objectives. We reinforce your rights by offering you the option not to receive information linked to this purpose.  If you feel your personal rights override our legitimate interests, you will have the opportunity to ask us not to use your information in such a way.

Your rights

Whilst we collect and process personal information in order to undertake our work, SRMS very much wishes to protect your rights and here we set out a brief description of them.

  • You have the right to confirmation as to whether or not we have your personal information and, if we do, the right to obtain a copy of the personal information we hold (this is known as a Subject Access Request). Should you wish to make such a request, please contact us as detailed above.
  • You have the right to request that we remove some or all of your personal information (though this may not apply where it is necessary for us to continue to use the data for a lawful reason). If you wish to make such a request, please contact the Scottish Raptor Monitoring Coordinator (srmc@bto.org).
  • You have the right to have any inaccurate personal information corrected; and/or to specify some of the purposes for which we may contact you; and/or to specify some of the channels by which we may contact you. You can do this at any time via by re-submitting a SRMS Registration Form to the Scottish Raptor Monitoring Coordinator (srmc@bto.org).
  • If you believe that any aspects of your data protection or privacy rights have been infringed by SRMS, you can complain to the UK Information Commissioner’s Office which regulates and enforces data protection law in the UK. Details of how to do this can be found at ico.org.uk.