How we use your data

1. Introduction

This document outlines how your personal information is collected, used and treated as part of the terms and conditions of your IWM membership.

You should read it in conjunction with IWM’s Main Privacy Policy, which provides further details. You can find the full policy on IWM's Privacy Policies page.

This policy is effective from 13 September 2024.

2. Who we are

We are Imperial War Museums and the IWM Trading Company Limited.  When you see ‘IWM’ in this document we mean both entities. 

3. The information we collect and where we collect it from

  • As part of your membership, we will collect the following information directly from you when you sign up to become a member or when you use membership services:
  • Name(s) and address, email, phone number(s) and other relevant contact details.
  • Information when you interact with the membership team directly in person, by phone, post or by email
  • Records of transactions with IWM when using your membership to access branches, purchase event tickets and access member discounts.
  • Records of interactions with IWM through attendance at IWM branches and events.

4. How we use your information for Membership and how long we keep it for

We use the information we collect from you to manage your membership in order to fulfil the contract we have with you and to comply with legal obligations relating to financial management and auditing. We will do this by:

  • Sending you information about your membership renewal.
  • Sharing regular updates via Member e-News emails. These will include information about IWM, your membership, how to access your benefits and how to get further involved in supporting IWM. All membership emails will include an option for you to unsubscribe at any time.
  • Processing your membership payments and ensuring transactions are recorded.
  • Scanning membership cards to check entitlement to free entry and discounts.
  • We will also use the information we collect to exclude you from being targeted with IWM digital advertising. Please see Section 4 of our main Privacy Policy for further information.

In addition, we may use the information we collect to encourage you to renew your membership within the year that it has lapsed or to contact you for feedback on your membership experience in order to develop our offer.

We may also use the information collected when scanning membership cards to help us understand how and when our members visit, whether you access our offers and to help us send you more relevant communications. 

On occasion we might use the information we have about you to invite you to take part in relevant fundraising initiatives. You can opt out of this at any time.

We believe that using your data in these ways meets our legitimate interests and is reasonable, proportional, not unexpected or unnecessarily intrusive and does not override your basic rights. We may use third parties to process your data for specific purposes (such as processing payments). Where we do, this will always be protected by a contract.  

We keep your information for as long as it necessary to fulfil the purpose for which is was collected or to comply with a legal obligation 

5. Marketing

When joining, renewing or redeeming your IWM membership or booking a ticket, we may also ask if you would like to opt-in to email and digital communications.

If you consent to this, IWM will use your email address to create Custom Audiences on Facebook’s (Meta) platforms and other digital advertising platforms to find more people like you, who would like to support IWM and the important work we do by becoming a member, as well as show you IWM advertisements on these platforms. You can opt out at any time. 

To find out more about how IWM uses email data to create custom audiences, please read the marketing section of IWM’s Privacy Policy: Section: 4. Marketing.

6. Family Membership

Children under 16 are included in family memberships and are members of IWM. We collect their names and dates of birth to ensure their right to free admission at our sites. Email addresses for children under 13 are only collected with the consent of a parent or guardian.

Children on family memberships are excluded from all membership communications. Member e-News emails will be sent to the adult members of the family membership only.

7. Who to contact

If you have any questions about how we use your information you can contact:

8. Policy updates

  • This policy was agreed on 25 May 2018.
  • Revisions were made in October 2021 to provide further information on digital marketing.
  • The policy was summarised, updated to a new template and had further information about marketing and Custom Audiences in August 2024.