MIR Online is committed to protecting users’ privacy. We will not share your information with others without your prior consent. We have also established the following principles:

1. We will respect your email privacy. You will not receive unsolicited marketing emails from Birkbeck, University of London and/or from third parties screened by us unless you have agreed to this. We will, however, email you occasionally with information or queries about your submissions or posts, for example, with reminders, warnings or copyright requests.

2. We will not pass on any individual user details (including your email address) for third party use unless we have your prior consent.

3. We always ensure that contractors we use in connection with the running of the website and services (for example hosting providers) are subject to strict contractual obligations. They are only able to process data on our behalf and in accordance with our principles and instructions and not for any other independent purpose.

4. Our site is accessible via the Internet and so may potentially be accessed by anyone around the world. Other users may access the site from outside the European Economic Area. This means that, where you choose to post your data on the site, this could be accessed from anywhere around the world and therefore a transfer of your data outside of the European Economic Area may be deemed to have occurred. You consent to such transfer of your data for and by way of this purpose. Where we or our contractors transfer data outside of the European Economic Area this is only ever done with the relevant protections required by law in place.

Changes to privacy policy

Should we elect to change our privacy policy we will post the changes here. Where the changes are significant, we may also choose to email all our registered users with the new details.

What information do we collect?

We collect information on our users through submissions. The minimum information we need to submit work to the site is an email address and a postcode. When you submit work to the site you will have the option to provide information which helps us to measure the impact of The Mechanics’ Institute Review. This information is stored for three months before being deleted. Information is stored separately from anything that may identify individuals. After the three month period, anonymous aggregate statistics about our users, sales and traffic patterns may be shared with third parties, for example, The Arts Council England.

The minimum information required to subscribe to our newsletter is an email address. Users may unsubscribe from the newsletter at anytime and their email address will be deleted from our system.

How do we protect customer information?

UK Data Protection Legislation means we follow strict security procedures in the storage and disclosure of information which you have given us, to prevent unauthorised access.

Will we disclose the information we collect to third parties?

We will not sell, trade or rent your personal information to others. Information gathered by MIROnline is used solely for monitoring purposes.

We may provide aggregate statistics about our users, traffic patterns and related site information to third-parties such as The Arts Council England and The Research Excellence Framework at Birkbeck University. MIR Online follows the relevant legal requirements and uses all reasonable precautions to ensure only responsible third parties see the information.

Please note that we reserve the right to access and disclose individually identifiable information to comply with applicable laws and lawful government requests, to operate our systems properly and to protect both ourselves and our users.

Any data processors with access to your data in providing services on our behalf are subject to contractual restrictions to ensure that your data is protected, and not used independently by such third party.

Advertising and affiliate links

Our editorial content is not influenced by advertisers or affiliates, nor is it produced for the purpose of promoting goods or services, except where clearly branded as a ’sponsored feature’.

Legal information under the General Data Protection Regulations 2018

For the purposes of the General Data Protection Act Regulations 2018, the Data Controller for MIR Online is Julia Bell, Birkbeck, University of London, Malet Street, Bloomsbury, London WC1E 7HX.