Who are we?
We are Rethinking Economics International (“Rethinking Economics”) (Registered UK Charity Number 1158972), an international membership-led movement of young people working to change economics so that it serves people and the planet. Through a mixture of campaigning, events and engaging projects, we connect people globally to discuss and enact the change needed for the future of economics, and to propel the vital debate on what economics is today.
This Privacy Notice (“Notice”) sets out our data collection and processing practices and your options regarding how your personal information is used.
We may change this Notice from time to time so please check this page occasionally to ensure that you’re happy with any changes. Where we have made material changes, we will notify you by email or through our website.
The provision of your personal data to us is voluntary. However, without providing us with your personal data, you will be unable to stay informed or have the opportunity to get involved with our work to rethink economics.
1. How we use your information to help us run our charity effectively
We may use your information to:
- process your membership application and manage your membership account;
- carry out our obligations arising from any transactions entered into between you and us, including processing payments;
- notify you of changes to our organisation, governance, or membership terms;
- send you communications which you have requested, or information about our projects, events, campaigns, or other activities which we think might interest you, where you have consented to receive these;
- conduct research into the impact of our campaigns and the composition of our membership network;
- process a job application or volunteer enquiry;
- work collaboratively with third-party organisations where you have made an enquiry and the third party in question works in partnership with Rethinking Economics.
2. What information do we collect?
The type and amount of information we collect depends on why you are providing it. As a membership-based organisation, in order to function we ask members to provide a range of information about themselves. This usually includes:
- your name and email address
- your phone number
- your date of birth
- your country of residence and, where applicable, your city or region
- your university or institution and expected graduation year, if you are a student
- whether you are a current student
- your local group or community of practice affiliation, if applicable
- how you found out about Rethinking Economics and what motivated you to join
- your membership type and payment details, processed via our payment provider Stripe
We may also collect the following information where it is relevant and appropriate:
- details of the Rethinking Economics activity in which you were involved
- information about the services you use and any marketing or communication preferences you give us
- if you are a job applicant, the information you are asked to provide as set out in the application
People also come into contact with Rethinking Economics through routes other than direct membership sign-up. If you take an action hosted by one of our groups (such as attending an event or signing a petition) through Action Network, or if you subscribe to our newsletter, your basic contact details will be added to our records. You will always be informed of this at the point of data collection.
Do we process sensitive personal information?
Applicable law recognises certain categories of personal information as sensitive and therefore requiring more protection, including health information, ethnicity and political opinions. In limited cases, we may collect sensitive personal data about you. We would only collect sensitive personal data if there is a clear reason for doing so, and will only do so with your explicit consent.
Data Controller
Rethinking Economics International is the Data Controller for the personal information we hold about you. We are registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) under registration reference ZA490116.
For all data-related requests and queries, please contact our nominated Data Protection Officer at dataprivacy@rethinkeconomics.org.
3. Communications and marketing
Where you have given your consent, we may contact you by email or telephone with targeted communications to let you know about our events and activities that we consider may be of particular interest, about the work of Rethinking Economics, and to ask for support.
Please note that our email communications platform, Action Network, operates an all-or-nothing unsubscribe at the group level. This means that if you unsubscribe from a group’s communications, you will stop receiving all emails from that group.
You can unsubscribe from marketing communications by contacting us at dataprivacy@rethinkeconomics.org.
4. The third-party services we use
In order to provide our membership services, we work with a number of trusted third-party providers. These providers act as data processors on our behalf and are only permitted to process your personal data in accordance with our instructions and applicable data protection law. They are not permitted to use your data for their own purposes.
The services we currently use are:
Action Network (Action Squared, Inc., USA)
Our campaigning and communications platform, used to manage email communications, events, petitions, and group membership. Personal data including your name, email address, group affiliation, and membership status is stored and processed by Action Network.
Airtable (Formagrid Inc., USA)
Our primary membership database, which acts as our central record of all member, group, and activity data. A Data Processing Addendum covering UK GDPR is in place.
Make.com (Celonis, Inc., EU)
The automation platform that connects our systems and routes data between Action Network, Airtable, and our website. A Data Processing Addendum covering UK GDPR is in place.
Stripe (Stripe Payments Europe, Limited, Ireland)
Our payment processor. Payment details are handled directly by Stripe and are not stored by Rethinking Economics. Stripe processes your payment information, subscription status, and related financial data in order to manage your membership subscription. A Data Processing Addendum covering UK GDPR is in place.
WordPress and JoinFlow
Our membership portal and sign-up system, through which you submit your membership application.
Slack (Slack Technologies Limited, Ireland)
Our internal staff communications platform. Member data may pass through Slack in the course of staff operations. A Data Processing Addendum covering UK GDPR is in place.
We do not use your personal data for any purpose beyond those described in this notice without your prior consent, and we will never sell your data to third parties.
5. International transfers of data
Some of the third-party providers we work with are based outside the United Kingdom, in particular in the United States. Where your personal data is transferred from the UK to a country that does not provide an equivalent level of data protection, we ensure that appropriate safeguards are in place. For our US-based providers, these transfers are covered by UK Standard Contractual Clauses or the UK International Data Transfer Addendum, as required under UK GDPR.
In the event that any dispute arises in relation to the international transfer of data, the courts of England and Wales shall have jurisdiction over the matter.
6. Children’s data
Membership of Rethinking Economics is open to adults only. We do not knowingly process personal data of anyone under the age of 18. If we come to discover, or have reason to believe, that we are holding personal information belonging to someone under 18, we will delete that information within a reasonable period and will not process it further.
7. Other disclosures
We will disclose your personal information where required to do so by law or in accordance with an order of a court of competent jurisdiction, or if we believe that such action is necessary to comply with the law and the reasonable requests of law enforcement, or to protect the security or integrity of the work of Rethinking Economics.
8. Security of and access to your personal data
We endeavour to ensure that there are appropriate and proportionate technical and organisational measures in place to prevent the loss, destruction, misuse, alteration, unauthorised disclosure of, or access to, your personal information. Our databases and documents holding personal data are securely stored, and your information is only accessible by appropriately trained staff, volunteers, trustees, and contractors.
Unauthorised personnel are never given access to this information.
The security of your personal information is important to us, but please remember that no method of transmission over the internet or method of electronic storage is 100% secure. While we strive to use commercially acceptable means to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee its absolute security. We will always act in accordance with the relevant UK data protection legislation.
9. Your rights and how consent works
You have a choice about whether or not you wish to receive information from us. You can withdraw consent for marketing communications at any time. You also have the following rights under UK GDPR:
(1) Right to be informed — you have the right to be told how your personal information will be used. This Notice and other policies and statements used on our website and in our communications are intended to provide you with a clear and transparent description of how your personal information may be used.
(2) Right of access — you can write to us to ask for confirmation of what information we hold on you and to request a copy of that information. Provided we are satisfied that you are entitled to see the information requested and we have successfully confirmed your identity, we will respond within 30 days.
(3) Right of erasure — you can ask us for your personal information to be deleted from our records. Where your membership is active, we may not be able to fulfil this request in full while we have a legitimate reason to retain certain data (for example, financial records). Where deletion is not possible in full, we will explain why and what we can do instead.
(4) Right of rectification — if you believe our records of your personal information are inaccurate, you have the right to ask for those records to be updated.
(5) Right to restrict processing — you have the right to ask for processing of your personal data to be restricted if there is disagreement about its accuracy or legitimate usage.
(6) Right to data portability — where we are processing your personal information under your consent or because such processing is necessary for the performance of a contract to which you are party, you may ask us to provide it to you — or another service provider — in a machine-readable format.
(7) Right to object — you have the right to object to processing carried out on the basis of our legitimate interests. We will consider your objection and, unless we have compelling grounds to continue, will cease the relevant processing.
To exercise any of these rights, please contact us at dataprivacy@rethinkeconomics.org, including a description of the personal information in question. We may ask for proof of identity before responding.
Please note that some of these rights only apply in limited circumstances. For more information, please consult ICO guidance at https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/guide-to-the-general-data-protection-regulation-gdpr/individual-rights/
You also have the right to make a complaint about us or the way we have processed your data to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). Further information can be found at https://ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint/.
The ICO can be contacted at ico.org.uk/global/contact-us.
10. Lawful processing
We are required to have one or more lawful grounds to process your personal information. The grounds relevant to us are:
(1) Contract Where you have become a member of Rethinking Economics, we process your personal information as necessary to deliver your membership, manage your account, and process your subscription payments.
(2) Consent We will ask for your consent to send you electronic marketing communications such as newsletters, campaign updates, and event invitations. You can withdraw your consent at any time.
(3) Legal obligations Sometimes we will be obliged to process your personal information due to legal obligations which are binding on us — for example, retaining financial records for the purposes of accounting and tax compliance. We will only ever do so when strictly necessary.
(4) Legitimate interests Applicable law allows personal information to be collected and processed if it is reasonably necessary for our legitimate activities, as long as its use is fair, balanced and does not unduly impact individuals’ rights.
We rely on this ground for processing that is necessary to run our organisation and membership network, including governance, network management, understanding our membership composition, and maintaining records of group activity. When we use your personal information on this basis, we will consider whether it is fair and balanced to do so and whether it is within your reasonable expectations.
11. Data retention
We retain your personal information for as long as it is needed for the purposes for which it was collected.
Active members: we retain your personal data for the duration of your membership.
Lapsed or departed members: where your membership lapses or you choose to leave, we will anonymise your personal data within one year of your departure, unless we have a specific reason to retain contact details (for example, an unresolved financial matter). Anonymisation means we remove all identifying information: name, email, phone, address, but retain non-identifying demographic data (such as membership type, country, and year of joining) for the purposes of understanding our network over time.
Financial records: where payment has been made, we retain the financial record for as long as required to complete financial reporting obligations, typically until the completion of the annual accounts for the relevant period, and in any case for no longer than seven years, in line with UK accounting requirements. Note that payment card details are never stored by Rethinking Economics, these are handled directly by Stripe.
Action takers and newsletter subscribers (non-members): where you have taken an action hosted by one of our groups or subscribed to our newsletter but have not become a member, your data is retained until you unsubscribe. You can unsubscribe at any time using the link in any email we send you, or by contacting us at dataprivacy@rethinkeconomics.org.
We review our retention periods for personal information on a regular basis.
12. Policy amendments
We keep this Privacy Notice under regular review and reserve the right to update it from time to time by posting an updated version on our website, not least because of changes in applicable law. We will notify you of any material changes by email or through our website. We recommend that you check this Notice occasionally to ensure you remain happy with it.
13. Third-party websites
We link our website directly to other sites. This Privacy Notice does not cover external websites and we are not responsible for the privacy practices or content of those sites. We encourage you to read the privacy policies of any external websites you visit via links on our website.
14. Updating your information
You can check the personal data we hold about you, and ask us to update it where necessary, by emailing us at dataprivacy@rethinkeconomics.org.
15. Contact
Please let us know if you have any queries or concerns about the way in which your data is being processed by emailing our Data Officer at: dataprivacy@rethinkeconomics.org.
Or by writing to us at:
Data Protection Officer Rethinking Economics International
Spaces, Peter House
Oxford Street
Manchester
M1 5AN
Rethinking Economics International is registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office under reference ZA490116. This registration is valid until 23 January 2027.
16. Glossary of terms
Data Controller — the organisation (or person) that decides what personal information Rethinking Economics will hold and how it will be held or used. For the purposes of this Notice, Rethinking Economics International is the Data Controller.
Data Processor — a third-party organisation that processes personal data on behalf of the Data Controller, in accordance with the Data Controller’s instructions.
Data Protection Officer — the person responsible for ensuring that Rethinking Economics follows its data protection obligations and complies with UK GDPR.
Processing — means collecting, amending, handling, storing or disclosing personal information.
Personal Information — information about living individuals that enables them to be identified, for example name, email address, or date of birth.
Sensitive data — refers to data about: racial or ethnic origin; political affiliations; religion or similar beliefs; trade union membership; physical or mental health; sexuality; criminal record or proceedings. We only collect sensitive data with explicit consent and where there is a clear need.
UK GDPR — the UK General Data Protection Regulation, as retained in UK law following the UK’s departure from the European Union, and as supplemented by the Data Protection Act 2018.