The British Balloon And Airship Club (BBAC) is a membership club for lighter-than-air pilots, crew and enthusiasts. It is affiliated to the FAI and represents balloonists in dealings with the UK CAA and EASA.
The BBAC holds and processes the following information:
Essential Site Cookies
Our main site at https://www.bbac.org, our members’ only site at https://members.bbac.org, and our shop site at https://techshop.bbac.org use essential first-party cookies to track your settings and preferences on the site. Our sites track IP addresses to prevent abuse.
- Google Inc uses cookies for the “captcha” functionality on any contact forms.
- Facebook may set cookies as part of our social media integration on our members’ site.
Content Management System (Members’ website) and Forum
For members who have an account on the BBAC Members’ Website at https://members.bbac.org
- Name, email address, date registered, membership number, one-way hashed and encrypted password, list of pages visited, IP addresses
- Forum posts made, messages to other members of the forum system, and other metrics required to operate the forum system
If you wish to delete your account, or find out what info is held on you, please contact the webmasters by using the contact form
Online Shop
The BBAC runs an online shopping system at https://techshop.bbac.org. For members who have used the online shop, the information held will include:
- Name, Address, email address, telephone number
- username and encrypted password (if an account was set up)
- Products bought and options selected, amount paid
- Connection metrics (date/time, IP address)
If you wish to delete your account, or find out what info is held on you, please contact the webmasters by using the contact form. If you have an account, you can see this information, and edit your own account details, by logging in and visiting “Your Account”.
The information is accessible by relevant club officers as required for their duties and for administration of the club. These officers include the treasurer, membership secretary, webmaster, training officer and technical officer.
The legal basis for holding this information is that it is required for administration and accounting purposes. We are required to hold this for six years to comply with UK tax laws.
Insurance Scheme
The BBAC/NFU Mutual insurance scheme has ended and all personal information relating to its administration has been deleted. Financial information (payments etc) will be deleted after six years as required by law.
Membership Management System
The BBAC Member Management System is used by the officials of the club for the following purposes:
- Processing membership information
- Renewing memberships and checking for current membership status
- Providing lists of subscribers to our magazine printing company
- Monitoring membership levels
- Tracking and reporting financial income by amount and category
- Producing lists and maps of members of the club who can provide services to the members, specifically inspectors and instructors/examiners
- Producing lists of members to enable contact by other members
The following information is stored:
- Name, address, telephone numbers, email address, membership status, date of joining, main member ID (if an associate), pilot status, examiner/instructor status, inspector status
- Payment information – amount, method, purpose (no bank account details or credit/debit card details are stored by the BBAC, except for those members paying by standing order, where account number and sort code are stored.)
- Lookups done for other members’ info (to prevent abuse)
- Lists of officers of the club – membership number and position held
All the information held can be seen, and edited if indicated by an Ⓔ, by a limited number of club officers as required for their duties. These may include the following officers:
- Members of the membership department Ⓔ
- Treasurer/s
- Webmaster/s Ⓔ
- Training Officer/s Ⓔ and members of the (externally-appointed) Examiners’ panel
- Technical Officer/s Ⓔ
- Landowner Liaison Officers
- Committee Members
If you wish to see the information held on you, please either log in to your website account and select “Edit Account Details” then “Membership Details”, or contact the membership secretary by using the contact form. Information can only be added, changed or deleted by those officers listed with an Ⓔ in the list above. In addition, the latest information held on each full member is sent to that member at renewal time, around September to October each year. Associate members’ information is also sent to the associated full member at the same time, as that member is responsible for paying for, and updating the details of, their associates.
A limited subset of a member’s membership record is made available to other members if that member has permitted it. Members can opt out or in to this by contacting the membership secretary by using the contact form or the links in the emails sent to all members in May 2018 at the start of our GDPR policy implementation. The information shown, if you choose to allow it, is as follows:
- Membership number
- Name
- Address
- Telephone number(s)
- email address
- Joining date
- Pilot qualifications
- Inspector ratings
- Instructor ratings
The legal basis for holding this information is that it is necessary to administer the club. Information about lapsed or deceased members will be removed six years after their membership has ended, with the exception of their membership number, their name and their country of residence.
The BBAC membership management system is hosted by Circle Interactive based in Bristol, England. Please see their privacy policy here.
BBAC Technical Office
The BBAC Technical Office holds information about BBAC Members and their aircraft. The information held includes:
- Details about the member (name, email address, postal address, telephone numbers)
- Details about aircraft (manufacturer, type, components etc)
- Information linking members with the aircraft. This may also include a history of the ownership of the aircraft, and details about those who are not BBAC members but are associated with the aircraft
The BBAC Technical Office also manages the BBAC Inspector system. Information is held about BBAC Inspectors, including:
- Details of the inspector (name, email address, postal address, telephone numbers)
- Qualifications on the inspectors
- History of the inspector’s inspections, and training courses attended
The BBAC Technical Office also issues invoices to members and inspectors for the provision of services. The accounting system holds the following information:
- Names, contact details, company name and VAT number, of customers
- Invoiced items and amounts for invoices to those customers
The legal basis for holding the information above is to enable the operation of the BBAC Technical Office, to comply with aviation laws (ANO and EASA Part M regulations), and to comply with UK legal and tax laws.
If you wish to find out what information is held on you by the BBAC Technical office, you can do so by using the contact form.
In addition, the BBAC Technical Office holds details on its staff, including Name, contact details, Date of Birth, residency status and so on and so on. This information is required to pay the BBAC Technical Officer. For information on what information is held, the BBAC Technical officer should contact himself and ask to see his records. He can then ask himself to correct his information.
BBAC Treasurer
The BBAC Treasurer is responsible for keeping the BBAC’s books, as required by law. They have access to the membership data shown above in “BBAC Membership System” and create legally-required accounts (usually, anonymised) derived from this information. It is held for at least six years, as required by law.
In addition, the BBAC Treasuerer holds details on everyone they need to pay, including suppliers and employees.
If you wish to find out what information is held on you by the BBAC Treasurer, you can do so by using the contact form.
Examiners
The following information about BBAC Examiners is held by the Chief Examiner
- Name, status (including qualifications and “level” of examiner), contact details (including address, email address and telephone numbers)
This is necessary to administer the examiners’ system. Please contact the Chief Examiner if you wish to find out what information is held on you, how to correct it, and how it is used.
FAI Licensing
The BBAC FAI licensing officer is responsible for issuing FAI Sporting Licences to BBAC Members.
Information held includes:
- Full name, address, date of birth, nationality and country of residence
This information is shared with the Royal Aero Club and the FAI in order to allow BBAC Members to take part in competitions.
Sporting Records
The BBAC encourages pilots to challenge themselves by breaking sporting records set by others.
In order to validate and lodge the record, various pieices of information are collected and held, including details about the pilot, the flight, the aircraft, observers and witnesses. The data is held in a database operated by the records officer.
A subset of the data is published for all to see on the BBAC website, including pilot name, date and record set.
This information can be corrected by using the contact form, and will be held indefinately for historical reasons.
Sensitive Area Database
The BBAC holds a database of “Sensitive Areas”, listing areas around the UK where the landowner or occupier has requested that aerostats do not land, or keep a certain height above their property to avoid incidents. The following information is held in this database:
- Name and contact details of the landowner, tenant or occupier
- Name of the person reporting the issue, and perhaps that of the person who caused the issue, with details
- Geospatial information about the location
- Date reported, details about the issue, and other internal comments necessary for administering the system
A subset of the information is available to all BBAC members, both via the members’ website (after applying for an approved account and logging in) or via certain mapping apps.
It is notoriously difficult to keep this information up to date, but all corrections should be submitted to the Sensitive Areas update coordinator by using the contact form.
Data sharing with other Organisations
- The BBAC has partnered with Circle Interactive to operate our membership system. Members’ information will be stored by Circle Interactive on their private servers. See their privacy policy for further details.
- The BBAC websites contain links to Twitter and Facebook. There is no tracking by Google Analytics on any of our pages. Please contact Twitter or Facebook if you wish to know what information they hold on you
- Members who have elected to pay by Direct Debit will have registered with our payment provider GoCardless, who will hold information on them. Please see GoCardless’ GDPR policy here
- Members who have paid by debit or credit card will use or will have used our payment provider Stripe. Please contact them if you wish to know what information is held about you by them.
- Members who have paid by PayPal should contact PayPal if you wish to know what information is held about you by them (the BBAC no longer uses Paypal)
- Subscribers to Aerostat (Full members) will have their name and address passed to our magazine distributor. The legal basis for this is that it is required to fulfil the requirements of your membership subscription. It is not possible to prevent this information being transferred to our printing contractor.
- All the BBAC databases are stored on servers in the UK, hosted by Krystal Hosting.
- Email relating to BBAC matters may be transferred outside the control of the BBAC when it is forwarded by the BBAC server to officers” private email addresses. The Membership Secretary’s email is the only email that is stored on the BBAC server. All other email is forwarded to the officers’ private email addresses. The servers for these officers’ emails may be in the UK or overseas. Information of a personal nature should not be transmitted by email if this is of concern to you.
- Members’ information is not knowingly transferred outside the EU.
- The BBAC does not share members’ information with any outside organisations for marketing purposes. Information is not shared with any other organisations, except those listed above, except as required by law.
If I’ve forgotten anything, please let me know, and I’ll add it as soon as possible. BBAC Webmaster.
Last updated: 17th May 2023