Privacy policy

Last updated August 2023

The Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) is committed to protecting your privacy and managing your personal data in accordance with applicable data protection law. This Privacy Policy aims to be clear, concise and transparent about how we collect, store and use your personal data.

We strongly recommend that you review this policy on a regular basis to ensure that you remain happy with the way in which your data is processed.

Who we are

The data controller is The Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM).

CIM is the world’s leading professional marketing body, registered in England and Wales (registration number RC000886). Our registered address is Moor Hall, Cookham, Maidenhead, Berkshire SL6 9QH, UK.

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, you can get in contact by writing to:

Chief Data Officer, The Chartered Institute of Marketing, Moor Hall, Cookham, Maidenhead, Berkshire SL6 9QH, UK
mydata@cim.co.uk

How we collect information about you

There are several ways we may collect information about you. These include:

when you provide it to us by getting in contact (phone/email/web/webchat**)
when you subscribe to our services or place an order with us
when you interact with communications that we send to you
if you are studying a CIM qualification, your study centre may share information with us
if you are studying or join through an arrangement with your company, your company may share your personal information with us
if you submit your details when sending an enquiry through a third-party vendor
when you provide details at an exhibition or networking event
when you report a problem with CIM's websites or any of its services
when you undertake a proctored online or virtual assessment
if you register to use a third party software for access to CIM products or services

We may also collect information about you if you consent to the use of cookies when using our website.

*Phone calls may be recorded for training purposes or for the resolution of any disputes. Recordings are retained for 3 months and access is restricted to the customer services management team.

**Content from chat, pre-chat and post-chat surveys is stored for 13 months. During this period you can request that this content be redacted (which will remove all Personal Identifiable Information) by emailing mydata@cim.co.uk

What information we collect about you

This can include the following: name, date of birth, address, phone number, email address, job title, company name, company address, payment details where relevant, CV (for demonstration of your expertise in relation to membership, jobs or other skills-based activities you subscribe to), IP address, geographical location of where you accessed our website, information about how you use/interact with our websites and those belonging to our member benefit providers, information from cookies, information about your computer or other electronic device (tablet and browser type) and images of photographic identification (eg. passport or driving licence images) where required prior to commencing an online or virtual assessment. For more information on our use of cookies, click here.

If you provide your email address and consent to email marketing, or if you receive certain communications relating to your membership with CIM, some information is collected about when/if the email was opened and what links were clicked. This information is used to assess the engagement with our communications.

Security of your information

CIM respects your data and has taken appropriate technical and organisational measures to ensure we have mitigated against such risks as loss or unauthorised access, destruction, use, modification or disclosure of data.

Special category data

CIM does not collect special category data as a matter of course. However, individuals may on occasion supply health-related information in relation to delivery of services by CIM. For example, studying members may share such information should they require reasonable adjustments on health grounds for the completion of CIM assessments, or where an emergency deferral to an alternative assessments session is necessary. Dependent on the type of application, this information may be received directly from the member, or they may disclose this to their study centre who will in turn liaise with CIM. Equally, guests and delegates attending the CIM Business Centre may elect to provide details of dietary requirements. The information is retained only for as long as is necessary and is processed solely for this purpose.

How we use your information and the legal bases for this

Your information is used to process your purchases, deliver our services and contact you, as well as to improve the website experience for our users.

When you purchase from us, we may collect the following information: name, date of birth, phone number, email address, address, billing address, company name (if applicable), VAT number (if applicable). If you don’t provide this information, you won’t be able to purchase from us or enter into a contract with us. In these instances, we process your personal data because it is necessary for the performance of a contract with you, or in order to take steps at your request to enter into a contract.

Following your purchase, we may subsequently send you communications about selected CIM products and services. In these circumstances, the processing of your personal data is performed on the basis of legitimate interest. Within each communication we send, you have the option to opt out of further contact. You may also opt in to receive marketing communications in relation to specific areas of our products and services that are of interest to you. When you opt in to receive these communications from us, this processing is performed on the basis of your consent. Again, you may remove your consent at any time.

When you become a CIM member, one of the key features of your membership is access to the latest marketing insights, topical debate, inspiring events and a variety of member benefits. As such, from time to time, we’ll contact you with member-only communications that invite you to make the most of your membership. Data for these communications is processed on the basis of legitimate interest. You can elect to opt in or out of these and other CIM communications via the preference centre within the ‘MyCIM’ section of the website, which will act as an indication of your consent. If you elect to take advantage of these additional members services, any subsequent processing relating to those services will be performed on the basis of your consent, which you have the right to withdraw at any time.

In addition to this, we’ll also contact you with important operational information regarding your membership (for example, notifying you of Governance activity or advising you when your renewal is due). In these instances, we process your personal data on the basis of our contractual obligations.

For complimentary products and services (such as access to content or involvement in other institute activities) your data will be processed on the basis of Legitimate Interest and processing will be restricted to the purpose for which you have provided the data.

Digital accreditation

The purchase of membership and qualifications includes the provision of digital accreditation (e-badges) to demonstrate your achievements with us. For membership and qualifications (including modular awards) the associated processing will form part of your contract with us. If you hold a qualification or award, after ceasing membership this processing will continue on the basis of legitimate interest, from which you have the right to opt out at any time. Processing for digital badging in relation to training courses will be undertaken on the basis of legitimate interest, from which again you have the right to opt out.

Who we share your data with

We will only share your data with third parties for the purposes of delivering our services, fulfilling any contracts we enter with you, where required by law or to enforce our legal rights.

Third party communications

CIM will not disclose your details to third parties for the purpose of receiving communications from those third parties, including relevant business information, unless you specifically opt-in to this type of communication.

Service providers

Only when necessary to deliver our services and run our business, we share your information with various providers who will act as data processors. These include:

Telephone and email providers
Payment processing providers
IT service providers
Hosting providers
Mailing houses and print/fulfilment companies
Member benefit providers (where applicable, their privacy policies and terms of use can be found on the relevant sites)
Digital accreditation (e-badge) provider
Third party software providers (for example platforms for online assessment and plagiarism checks, or survey analysis platforms).

We use Google Analytics and Google Signals to understand our users’ online behaviour and to support cross-device tracking and reporting. Any associated personal data is anonymised and not collected or processed by third parties.

Social media and third-party advertising partners

When you visit our website, interact with us on social media and other online platforms, or click on links we have posted, we use cookies and other similar methods to collect specific types of anonymous and/or pseudonymised data about you.

We use tracking links and URL shortening services and collect data including the IP address and physical location of devices accessing the shortened link, the time and date of each access, the referring websites or services, and information about the link being shared on other third-party services such as social media platforms.

Please visit our Cookie Policy for further information and details on how to opt out.

This processing is undertaken for the purposes of monitoring engagement and tailoring our products and services.

Mailing, print and fulfilment companies

CIM will only disclose your information to print and fulfilment companies who are conducting business on CIM's behalf and only for an agreed purpose, such as magazine distribution, operational membership mailings or marketing mailings. Data is securely encrypted and, once the purpose for which it was transferred is complete, it is deleted.

Payment information

CIM does not store credit/debit card details, except for the purposes of processing bookings for the CIM Business Centre guests, when these details are stored securely and destroyed following payment. CIM does not share financial details with any third parties. However, it may (in appropriate circumstances) use certain other companies to provide services to you, such as a credit card processing company or a Direct Debit service. These companies do not retain, share, store or use personal information for any purposes other than to provide this service to CIM.

Research

CIM may share your details with third parties for the purposes of conducting research on our behalf, including membership surveys, only when you have consented to your data being processed in this way. You may change your preferences at any time via our website.

Qualifications

Assessment details: Studying members’ names, membership number and examination marks/grades will be shared with their CIM Accredited Study Centre (the educational institution which delivered the CIM qualification) and, with our online marking platform providers. The Department for Education also requires us to provide them with completion data as part of our regulated qualifications. This data may also be shared with our Regulators: OfQual, CEA, Qualification Wales in the event of any investigations.
Assessment submission platform: Studying members’ names and membership numbers are shared with our external assessment submission and marking system.
Online assessment platform: If you are sitting an online examination we will share your full name, email address and membership number with our third party supplier.
Exam venues: If you are sitting your exam with an independent or bespoke exam venue, it may be necessary to share your name, membership number, contact email and telephone number with the venue. This will only be provided for the purpose of the centre contacting you regarding your attendance and if necessary collection of additional pre-agreed fees. The data is deleted/destroyed once the exam has been completed.
Live recorded assessment via Microsoft Teams: If you are undertaking assessment through CIM for a CIM qualification or marketing apprenticeship, your assessment may include live assessments. These are conducted online whilst a proctored service monitors your device along with audio and video from your camera. You will be required to confirm your identity prior to commencing the assessment, which will involve showing photographic identification to the assessor via your camera. These sessions are recorded and retained for a period of 18 months, unless there is an outstanding issue, in which case it may be retained for up to one year.
Online proctoring: If you undertake your assessment via online proctoring, where you sit your exam remotely and are monitored online by the invigilator/computer via a webcam/microphone, your name, email, membership number, IP address, photographic ID and Accredited Study Centre will be shared with our third-party proctoring provider in order to administer your assessment. Again, the recording will be retained for 30 days after it will be securely destroyed. In the event of any issues arising with the assessment, this retention period may be extended for up to one year, after which the recording will be securely destroyed.
Digital accreditation: Full name, email and qualification/award completed will be shared with our chosen provider so that you can receive the relevant badge to denote your achievement.

Job site

When you complete your profile within the CIM job site, the information you provide becomes available to recruiters registered with the site. If you have uploaded your CV, our customers who ask for CVs matching your registered details will receive your CV and profile. These may be direct recruiters, employment consultants or other organisations. This site is administered on CIM’s behalf by LID Business Media, who also have access to your data solely for the purposes of delivering this service.

Verification requests

CIM may receive verification requests relating to individuals’ membership and qualifications. For Governance and disciplinary matters, it may be necessary for CIM to confirm your membership status, grade and Chartered Marketer status to a third party without your consent. Outside of these circumstances, CIM will not share any information unless a valid consent form, signed by you, accompanies the request.

Partners

Where you are purchasing discounted CIM products or services through our partnership activities with other organisations, we will share your data with that other organisation for the purposes of verifying your eligibility for the discount.

Where you are booking to attend a course or event run by one of our learning partners, your data will be shared with that organisation who will process it solely for the purposes of administering the activity.

Chartered Marketers and CPD

CIM provides a service for members to record their CPD online through a third party processor, including data recording via an online app. CIM will use the information recorded for management of CPD and Chartered Marketer status and as part of its wider monitoring of members’ progress.

We have a policy of transparency regarding the names of our Chartered Marketers and as such, we publish each individual’s name and CIM Region on our website. Members may request that their name be removed by contacting our Customer Services team.

Disciplinary

If a Member of any grade is subject to a disciplinary case in which the complaint is upheld, CIM will publish their name and the outcome of the disciplinary case. Any such processing will be completed on the basis of our own legitimate interests.

Sharing your information for legal reasons

CIM will share your information when required to do so in order to comply with a common law or statutory obligation. For example, this may include information surrounding criminal acts or threats to public security.

Transfer of your information outside the UK or European Economic Area (EEA)

If you are a member of a CIM Region outside of the UK or EEA, or registered with a study centre outside of the UK or EEA, information that CIM collects may be transferred to that Region or study centre, which may not have data protection laws in force equivalent to those within the UK/EEA. CIM will nevertheless take steps to ensure that personal data transferred is adequately protected. Any data transferred in this way will be securely encrypted and, once it has been used for the purpose it was transferred, it will be deleted.

When purchasing membership or learning products, CIM will transfer your name, email, membership grade/qualification/award/course completed (as appropriate) to two partner organisations based in the US for the purposes of providing digital accreditation and collating feedback on your experience.

When you undertake a live assessment with CIM, the video and audio from your session will be handled by a proctoring organisation based in the US, and may be accessed by examiners based outside of the UK and EEA via secure and compliant platforms.

Any transfer of data outside the UK of EEA will be conducted in accordance with the rules for restricted transfers under current legislation. Outside of the circumstances described above, we will not transfer your personal data to any country outside the UK or EEA.

How long we retain your data

We will keep hold of your data for no longer than necessary. The length of time we retain it will depend on any legal obligations we have (such as tax recording purposes), the nature of any contracts we have in place with you, the existence of your consent or our legitimate interests as a business.

Purchases

When you purchase from us, for example training, events and so on, we retain that information for a period of six years following the end of the financial year during which you purchased from us. It is our legal obligation to keep these records for tax purposes. In instances where material is purchased under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, the copyright declaration forms are retained for a period of seven years to comply with the law.

Enquiries

Unless you provide consent for future contact during your enquiry, we will keep your information for as long as is required to respond and complete your enquiry, and for a further 12 months, before deleting your information.

Membership

Membership information will be retained for a period of 10 years from your last renewal date in order to verify your member status and recent history to third parties on request or to allow you to re-join as a Member.

Qualifications and assessments

Qualifications information, including assessment results, will be retained for 25 years for the purposes of verifying your CIM qualifications. Live assessment recordings are retained for 18 months in order to meet our external regulation audit requirements.

Job site

If you haven’t accessed your account for over 2 years, we reserve the right to delete your account. In addition, we reserve the right to remove CVs that include content that we consider to be illegal or offensive.

Registration for complimentary activities or content

Your data will be retained for the duration of your involvement and will be destroyed after a further 12 months.

Profiling and automated decision making

Details on your interactions with CIM may be used to review the relevance and quality of the products and services we offer. However, we do not undertake any automated profiling or automated decision-making processes.

Your rights

Subject to certain limitations, you have the right to:

Request a copy of the information we hold about you and be told about its use.
Request that CIM rectifies or deletes your information, or restricts processing if you have concerns over its accuracy, deletion or fair and lawful use.
Object to the processing of your personal data, based on your particular situation, where this processing is based on the legitimate interests of CIM, where it involves direct marketing, or where it is completed for research or statistical purposes.
Withdraw consent to the use of your information. All of our communications (excluding operational membership communications) contain an unsubscribe link. If you are a member of CIM, you can manage your preferences at any time online within the ‘MyCIM’ section of our website. Otherwise, you can contact mydata@cim.co.uk to manage the communications you receive.
Receive your personal data in a portable, commonly used, machine-readable format to transfer to another data controller. However, in some circumstances we may be unable to provide you with some or all of your personal data, for example, if it compromises the confidentiality of a third party.

Concerns and complaints

If you have concerns or questions over the collection, storage or processing of your data, you are encouraged in the first instance to contact a member of staff to discuss and resolve any issues.

Alternatively, you can write directly to the Chief Data Officer at:

Chief Data Officer, The Chartered Institute of Marketing, Moor Hall, Cookham, Maidenhead, Berkshire SL6 9QH, UK
mydata@cim.co.uk

You also have the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority. In the UK, this is the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). Contact details for the ICO are available here.

EU Representation

CIM provides goods and services to individuals based in the EEA. However, the processing of data for these activities is occasional, does not involve large-scale use of special category data, and poses a low risk to the rights and freedoms of the data subjects involved. As such, we do not require an EU representative under current legislation.