Privacy Policy

International School of Mountaineering Ltd (ISM) is committed to protecting your privacy and handling your personal information responsibly and securely.

This Privacy Policy explains what personal information we collect, why we collect it, how we use and protect it, who we may share it with, how long we retain it and the rights you have over your personal information.

For the purposes of UK data protection law, International School of Mountaineering Ltd is the data controller responsible for the personal information described in this policy.

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or how we use your information, please contact us at:

International School of Mountaineering Limited
21 Nightingale Way
Catterall
Preston
England
PR3 1TQ
Email: ism@alpin-ism.com
Website: www.alpin-ism.com

What Information We Collect:

We may collect personal information when you:

• enquire about an ISM course, expedition or other service;
• make a booking with ISM;
• contact us by email, telephone or another communication channel;
• complete booking, medical or course information forms;
• subscribe to our newsletter or other marketing communications;
• provide feedback following a course;
• visit or use the ISM website.

Depending on your interaction with us, this information may include:

• your name;
• postal address;
• email address and telephone number;
• date of birth
• emergency contact information;
• booking and payment information;
• travel and accommodation information;
• relevant mountaineering and climbing experience;
• equipment requirements;
• dietary requirements;
• medical or health information relevant to your safe participation in an ISM activity;
• correspondence between you and ISM;
• feedback, reviews or testimonials you provide;
• marketing preferences.

If you make a booking or provide information on behalf of another person, you should ensure that they are aware that their information is being provided to ISM and how it may be used.

Medical & Health Information

Because ISM provides mountaineering, climbing and other outdoor activities, there may be occasions when we need information about your health, medical conditions, medication, allergies or other matters that could be relevant to your participation and safety.

Health information is treated as special category personal data under UK data protection law and is handled with additional care.

We only collect and use relevant health information where there is an appropriate lawful basis and special-category condition for doing so. Access to this information is restricted to people who reasonably need it for the organisation and safe delivery of your activity.

Where appropriate, relevant information may be provided to the mountain guide, instructor or other professional responsible for your activity.

We ask clients to provide accurate and relevant information and to let us know if circumstances change before their course or expedition.

Why We Use Your Information

We use personal information for purposes including:

• responding to enquiries;
• administering bookings;
• communicating with you before, during and after a course or expedition;
• arranging accommodation and other services included within your booking;
• providing relevant information to your guide or instructor;
• helping us plan and deliver your activity safely and effectively;
• processing payments and maintaining appropriate financial records;
• providing equipment or arranging equipment hire where applicable;
• dealing with emergencies or incidents;
• meeting our legal, regulatory, insurance and accounting obligations;
• requesting and responding to feedback;
• improving our courses, services, website and client experience;
• keeping in touch with previous and prospective clients where permitted;
• sending marketing communications where we have an appropriate lawful basis to do so.

Our Lawful Bases For Processing Your Information

UK data protection law requires us to have a lawful basis for processing personal information.

Depending on the circumstances, ISM may process your information because:

Contract – the processing is necessary for us to take steps at your request before a booking or to provide the course, expedition or other service you have booked.

Legal obligation – we need to process or retain certain information to comply with legal, financial, regulatory or other obligations.

Legitimate interests – we have a legitimate business reason for processing information, provided that those interests do not override your rights and interests. This may include operating and improving ISM, responding to clients, maintaining appropriate records and providing a high standard of client service.

Consent – in circumstances where consent is the appropriate lawful basis, such as certain forms of marketing communication, you may withdraw that consent at any time.

Where we process special category information, including relevant health information, we will also identify and rely upon an appropriate condition for processing that information.

Our website may contain links to other websites of interest. However, once you have used these links to leave our site, you should note that we do not have any control over that other website. Therefore, we cannot be responsible for the protection and privacy of any information which you provide whilst visiting such sites and such sites are not governed by this privacy statement. You should exercise caution and look at the privacy statement applicable to the website in question.

How long do we retain your information?

We won’t keep your data any longer than is necessary. We keep your information for as long as you remain a client. If you’ve asked to receive our newsletter, we’ll keep your details stored for as long as you remain a subscriber. If you’ve given us any other information, we’ll retain this for as long as we need it to continue providing you with a service.

About Your Payments

When you make a payment to ISM, payment information may be processed by our bank or payment service providers.

ISM does not need to retain complete payment-card details where payments are handled by an external payment provider.

Sharing Your Information

We do not sell your personal information.

To provide your course, expedition or other service, we may need to share relevant information with carefully selected third parties or individuals.

These may include:

• ISM mountain guides, instructors and staff;
• accommodation providers;
• transport providers;
• local agents or expedition partners;
• equipment providers where appropriate;
• payment and banking providers;
• website, booking, email and IT service providers;
• professional advisers, insurers, accountants or legal representatives;
• emergency services, rescue organisations or medical professionals where necessary;
• government, regulatory or law-enforcement bodies where we are legally required to provide information.

We only share information that is reasonably necessary for the relevant purpose.

For example, an ISM guide may need information relevant to your experience, equipment requirements, health or participation in the course, but they would not require unrelated personal information held by ISM.

International Courses & Expeditions

ISM operates courses and expeditions in a number of countries.

Where necessary to provide a service you have booked, relevant personal information may therefore need to be shared with guides, accommodation providers, local agents or other service providers outside the United Kingdom.

Where personal information is transferred internationally, we take appropriate steps to ensure that the transfer complies with applicable UK data protection law and that suitable safeguards are used where required.

Email newsletters and marketing

If you have asked to receive ISM newsletters or other marketing communications, we may use your contact information to keep you informed about courses, expeditions, events, educational content and other relevant ISM news.

Where consent is the basis for these communications, you can withdraw your consent at any time.

You can unsubscribe using the link provided in our marketing emails or by contacting us at ism@alpin-ism.com.

Withdrawing from marketing communications will not affect essential communications relating to a course, expedition or other service you have booked.

Feedback, photographs and testimonials

We may invite you to provide feedback following an ISM course or expedition.

If we would like to use comments you have provided as a public testimonial, or use identifiable photographs or other material for promotional purposes where permission is required, we will seek the appropriate permission before doing so.

Website information and cookies

When you visit the ISM website, certain technical information may be collected automatically.

This may include:

• your IP address;
• browser and device information;
• operating system;
• pages visited;
• approximate location derived from technical information;
• how you arrived at and interacted with our website.

We may use cookies and similar technologies to help the website operate correctly, understand how visitors use the website and improve its content and performance.

Where required, we will ask for your consent before placing non-essential cookies on your device.

Links to other websites

The ISM website may contain links to third-party websites that we believe may be useful.

Once you leave the ISM website, we do not control those websites and are not responsible for their privacy practices.

We recommend reviewing the privacy information provided by any third-party website before providing personal information to it.

How we protect your information

We take appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect personal information against loss, misuse, unauthorised access, disclosure, alteration or destruction.

These measures include appropriate access controls, password protection and restricting access to personal information to individuals who reasonably require it to perform their role.

We also expect organisations processing personal information on our behalf to provide appropriate levels of data protection and security.

How long we keep your information

We retain personal information only for as long as reasonably necessary for the purpose for which it was collected and to meet any subsequent legal, accounting, insurance or regulatory requirements.

Different categories of information may therefore be retained for different periods.

For example:

• booking and financial records may need to be retained to meet accounting and legal obligations;
• information relevant to incidents, insurance or potential claims may need to be retained for an appropriate period;
• health information will only be retained for as long as there is a legitimate and lawful reason to retain it;
• marketing information may be retained while you remain subscribed or while we otherwise have an appropriate lawful basis to contact you.

We periodically review the personal information we hold and delete or anonymise information that we no longer have a lawful reason to retain.

Your rights

Depending on the circumstances and the lawful basis on which your information is processed, UK data protection law provides you with a number of rights.

These may include:

• the right to be informed about how your information is used;
• the right to request access to personal information we hold about you;
• the right to have inaccurate or incomplete information corrected;
• the right to request deletion of your information in certain circumstances;
• the right to request restriction of processing in certain circumstances;
• the right to object to certain forms of processing;
• the right to data portability in certain circumstances;
• the right to withdraw consent where processing is based on consent.

These rights do not apply in exactly the same way in every circumstance, and there may be lawful reasons why we need to continue retaining or processing certain information.

If you would like to exercise any of these rights, please contact:

ism@alpin-ism.com

Complaints

If you have any questions or concerns about how ISM handles your personal information, we would encourage you to contact us first so that we can try to resolve the matter.

You also have the right to make a complaint to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), the UK's independent data protection regulator.

Further information about your data protection rights and how to contact the ICO is available from the Information Commissioner's Office.

Changes to this Privacy Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our services, how we use personal information or applicable legal requirements.

The latest version will always be published on the ISM website.

Last updated: October 2026