Portal Terms & Conditions
The BALPA website, including the BALPA Portal, Terms & Conditions and Privacy statement can be found HERE.
Portal rules
These rules are disclosed to clarify the various responsibilities of all community members here on the BALPA Portal. They shall be adhered to by everyone to ensure the portal is inclusive to all members and provides a fun and productive experience for all of our community members.
BALPA looks to promote discussion between members within the portal however this should be done with respect for others and discussions that are overly argumentative will be removed.
You agree not to post any lengthy articles, or post anything of an overtly political or religious nature.
Spam, flooding, advertisements, chain letters, pyramid schemes, repetitive self-post replies, and solicitations, or any posts which could reasonably be considered to place BALPA at legal, reputational, financial or other risk are also inappropriate to the portal.
You also agree not to post any material which is prejudicial to BALPA’s objectives or policy or that would bring BALPA into disrepute (to do so would potentially subject you to action under Rule 10 of BALPA’s Rules, ‘Discipline and Obligations of Membership’). Postings that seek to undermine BALPA membership such as promoting an alternative organisation would fall into this category.
Posts or comments related to ongoing legal cases and/or live litigation are prohibited on this Portal. Please note that some cases result in settlement out of court which can attract strict confidentiality clauses. It is important that we exercise our collective responsibility not to breach any member’s terms of agreement. Similarly, BALPA will not discuss individual cases on the portal nor should any member.
Further, you agree not to post any copyrighted material unless the copyright is owned by you or you have consent from the owner of the copyrighted material. You also agree not to infringe any intellectual property rights whatsoever, including in relation to trademarks, passing off, or patents.
All of the terms and conditions outlined above apply equally to member profile information including profile images.
Disclaimer
Note that it is impossible for BALPA to confirm the validity of postings on BALPA Portal and that BALPA is not responsible for their content. We do not warrant the accuracy or completeness of any information presented. The messages express only the views of the author, not the views of BALPA. Where there is evidence that content within a post is incorrect or misleading, this may be removed under these rules.
Reporting posts process
Objectionable content should be notified to the administrator of the portal immediately by using the “Report This Post” button or by email to [email protected].
BALPA has the right to remove any content which is believed to contravene any of these terms of use, or for any other reasonable purpose. This is, however, a manual process, so BALPA may not be able to remove or edit particular messages immediately.
Moderation
Please note that with each posting, your IP address and membership number are recorded.
Moderation of the all members sections (including open groups) of the Portal is the responsibility of the NEC who may choose to delegate responsibility to BALPA staff members or other BALPA members as it requires.
Moderation of the various Airline Groups is delegated by the NEC to the respective CCs. The NEC may from time-to-time need to also moderate these boards as it determines such as on larger BALPA issues, legal cases and during potential industrial disputes.
The NEC may take action to moderate any post as it sees fit and may also delegate this responsibility as it sees fit. Moderators will exercise their judgement in applying these Terms.
Moderators may remove any post which, in their view, contravenes any of these terms or for any other reason. Reported content will be removed in its entirety, even if only a section of the post breaches the rules.
Moderators may contact members to discuss posts and advise where rules have been breached but this is not always possible. Moderators may also issue alerts and or warnings to members in cases of serious, egregious or repetitive breaches of these Terms of Use.
A failure to comply with these Terms may result in access to the Portal under the terms of this licence being restricted without notice.
BALPA Rulebook
A breach of these Terms may also lead to your being reported for a breach of BALPA rules and the potential for a disciplinary investigation and hearing from which various sanctions may follow in accordance with Rule 10 and Appendix 3.
Indemnity
You remain solely responsible for the content of your messages and you agree to indemnify BALPA against any claims by third parties, liabilities or costs that may arise from messages posted by you on BALPA Portal.
Your data
Although BALPA will not voluntarily disclose any of your personal data, including your name and email address to a third party, BALPA reserves the right to do so if legally required.
Your details
By using the BALPA Portal you agree to include your real name, rank, fleet and base within your profile which is attached to each post. You can check your details within your user profile and you must update your rank, fleet or base as and when changes occur by contacting [email protected] or via 020 8476 4000.
Except for by administrators, members cannot be openly searched on the Portal. However, if you comment, post, or interact with an article or post then your profile, including your name, will be identifiable to other members. Posting under an alias or anonymously is not allowed on the portal.
You agree to be contactable via the private messaging function of the BALPA Portal for all communications with you in respect of the use of the BALPA Portal.
TERMS OF USE TRANSGRESSION - PROCEDURE
The escalating ladder of procedure steps is detailed below. It is recognised that mistakes and errors of judgment can be made and as above moderators will use their discretion when following this procedure. Where moderators have previously attempted to engage in a softer manner and the behaviour persists, or for sufficiently serious breaches of the rules, this process can be entered at any stage.
Occurrence: 1st Transgression
Action: Removal of post. At discretion of moderator possible engagement with member and opportunity offered to amend post as mutually agreed depending on circumstances.
Procedure Step: 1 week restriction on posting (suspended)
Responsibility: Moderators
Occurrence: 2nd Transgression
Action: Removal of post. Engagement with member.
Procedure Step: 1 week restriction on posting.
Responsibility: CERC Subcommittee of NEC
Occurrence: 3rd Transgression
Action: Removal of post. Engagement with member.
Procedure Step: 1 month restriction on posting.
Responsibility: CERC Subcommittee of NEC
Occurrence: 4th Transgression
Action: Removal of post.
Procedure Step: Permanent restrictions on posting
Responsibility: CERC Subcommittee of NEC
In all cases where Licence holders wish to make a case outlining mitigating factors, at any step on the above ladder, such case will be made to General Secretary who will liaise with CERC and/or the NEC.
At BALPA we are committed to protecting your privacy and promise to respect your personal information and do all we can to keep it safe. We aim to be clear about how we process your personal details and only process them in ways we believe you would reasonably expect.
We always aim to communicate with you respectfully, effectively and efficiently. As a member of BALPA you will receive our quarterly publication, digital communications and general newsletters plus there is a forum for you to express your views on a range of issues subject to the rules in force from time to time. As a legitimate aim of BALPA we shall communicate with you in ways that are most convenient using email, SMS, phone or post to further the aims and objectives of BALPA as captured in the rulebook. This will include being involved in communications with a legitimate interest including company newsletters, ballots, elections and surveys related to the core industrial relations issues that affect you and your colleagues in the workplace.
We store your personal details on the BALPA secure database; it is a legitimate aim of a trade union to provide you with information about furthering the aims and objectives of BALPA covering themes that are technical, flight safety oriented and industrial relations related. Therefore, we need to keep your personal contact details as up to date as possible.
When you participate in our surveys or when you apply for assistance with technical or legal matters relating to your professional duties we will carefully and securely store your personal information.
If you are involved in a BALPA disciplinary matter relating to a breach of the BALPA rulebook the outcome of a disciplinary hearing including your name may be released to the BALPA membership. On each occasion BALPA’s NEC will conduct a balancing exercise to consider the legitimate interest in favour of publication set against the rights and freedoms of those whose names and sanctions will be published. There will be an evaluation of the balance between the benefits to BALPA and the wider BALPA membership from publication, such as openness, democratic transparency, and improving behaviour as against the impact of publication on the individuals concerned. This process will consider the specific (and separate) ground for processing which is available to BALPA as a trade union. The relevant ground for processing sensitive personal data within trade unions is as follows:
“processing is carried out in the course of its legitimate activities with appropriate safeguards by a foundation, association or any other not-for-profit body with a political, philosophical, religious or trade union aim and on condition that the processing relates solely to the members or to former members of the body or to persons who have regular contact with it in connection with its purpose and the personal data are not disclosed outside that body without consent of the data subjects”.
We do not share any of your personal details with third parties external to BALPA without your consent. For example, we would need your consent to share your personal information with an appointed lawyer if BALPA recommends that the legal profession should be approached for advice about an incident that involves you.
When you give it to us indirectly, for example, when we undertake membership mapping in the workplace we will check that our database is up to date from information gleaned from your elected representatives in the workplace to ensure that our membership data is up to date. You will appreciate that taking industrial action, albeit always a last resort, requires BALPA under current legislation to declare the strength of the membership. Therefore, keeping our database up to date is an important legitimate aim, which is facilitated through regular membership mapping by comparing and contrasting pilot lists from your employer.
In addition to the data you give us on joining the association and participating in our legitimate trade union activities, we may seek further information about you that is publicly available from external sources. We use this information to enable us to update you about our work and how you can get involved in the most appropriate ways to support our aims and objectives:
Depending on your settings or the privacy policies for social media and messaging services like Facebook, Whatsapp or Twitter, we might have permission to access information from those sources to show you our own social media feeds.
This may include information found in publicly available sources such as Companies House, LinkedIn, Government websites, biographical directories and information that has been published in reputable media.
What personal information might we collect from you?
In supporting BALPA through your membership with us, we will usually collect:
In supporting BALPA through your membership with us, we will usually
collect:
The information we gather helps us to send you what you want to keep you apprised of industrial relations issues and technical developments relating to the aviation industry where BALPA conducts lobbying and campaigning on your behalf as a respected professional body.
It also helps us to shape our trade union activities to ensure that our communication is relevant and timely, and to provide you with a good experience of being a supporter of BALPA.
Importantly, having accurate information that we can analyse enables us to tailor approaches and to be wise stewards of the resources entrusted to us, ensuring that we maximise the return on our efforts to improve flight safety in the industry and enhance terms and conditions of employment over time.
We will use your personal information to:
BALPA does not sell or share personal details with third parties for the purposes of their marketing.
We will process your personal data based on you being a member of the association and the consent you provide. The data will be processed in accordance with the data protection principles captured in the Data Protection Act.
BALPA members have a legitimate interest reason to continue receiving information about the aims and objectives of the professional association and trade union. If you have unsubscribed from any of our routine communications, we will continue to respect your wishes. However, for the purpose of furthering BALPA’s legitimate trade union activities we shall continue to contact you to participate in important ballots, elections and industrial relations activities related to your own employer and the functioning of BALPA.
We rely on legitimate interest to correspond with former and potential future members in the workplace to encourage the maximum number of members to further the collective bargaining agenda. We use information we gather to help us plan an appropriate approach, such as a meeting or an event invitation, where we could share further information about BALPA and explore your interest and opportunities for joining BALPA.
The security of your information is very important to us. We ensure that there are appropriate controls and procedures in place to protect your personal details. For example, information you submit on a physical form is securely stored or when filling out online forms they are stored on a secure server.
However, despite all the security and protection we put in place, the Internet cannot be guaranteed to be 100% secure. Therefore, you submit data at your own risk.
We undertake regular reviews of who has access to information we hold to ensure that your details are only accessible by appropriately trained and authorised staff and representatives.
Your information may be passed to service providers that perform functions on our behalf, such as sending postal mail, for example, the quarterly publication, The Log, formal member surveys or elections and ballots that have to be legally overseen by an independent scrutineer in accordance with the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Consolidated) Act. These companies may only use your information to perform these functions and may not use it for any other purposes. We carry out comprehensive checks on these companies before we work with them and put a contract in place that sets out our expectations and requirements, especially regarding how they manage the personal data to which they have access. They are required to destroy this information once the function for which it has been transferred has been carried out.
If required, we may need to disclose your details to the police, regulatory bodies or legal advisors.
Due to the nature of servers and cloud-based storage, it may mean that during the processing of your data it leaves the European Economic Area. We will take steps to make sure they provide an adequate level of protection in accordance with UK data protection law. By submitting your personal data to BALPA you are agreeing to this potential transfer, storing and processing at a location outside the EEA.
We will only ever share your data in other circumstances if we have your explicit, informed and unambiguous consent. We shall only use your data for the purpose for which it was given.
Please keep your personal contact details up to date. We would really appreciate it if you let us know if your contact or personal details change as this gives us consent to use the updated information and continue to communicate with you.
You have the right to ask for a copy of the information we hold about you. If there are any discrepancies in the details we provide, please let us know and we will correct them.
If you want to access your information, send a description of the information you want to see and proof of your identity by post to BALPA, 1 Heathrow Boulevard, 278 Bath Road, West Drayton, Middlesex, UB7 0DQ. We do not accept these requests by email, so that we can ensure that we only provide personal information to the right person.
For further information on your rights to information please see the Information Commissioner’s guidance at www.ico.org.uk
Changes to this notice
We may change this Privacy Notice from time to time. If we make any significant changes in the way we treat your personal information, we will make this clear on the BALPA website, through our official publications and/or by contacting you directly.
If you have any questions, comments or suggestions about this notice, please contact the Data Protection Officer, BALPA, 1 Heathrow Boulevard, 278 Bath Road, West Drayton, Middlesex, UB7 0DQ or phone 020 8476 4000 or email [email protected]