Privacy policy

Adam Matthew Digital Limited (“AM”) values our relationship with you and recognises the importance of respecting and protecting your personal information and privacy.

This policy (together with any other resources referred to in it) sets out the basis on which any personal information you provide to us (or data we collect about you from other sources) will be processed (meaning collected, stored, and otherwise used) by us.  This website is not intended for children and we do not knowingly collect data relating to children.

Please read this policy carefully as it sets out what you can expect from us and gives you our contact details if you wish to ask any questions or raise concerns about how we are processing your personal information.

For the purposes of the Data Protection Act 2018 and the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) (together, Data Protection Law), the data controller is Adam Matthew Digital Limited, whose trading address is at Pelham House, Pelham Court, London Road, Marlborough, SN8 2AG.

This privacy policy is provided in a layered format so you can click through to the specific areas set out below. We have included a glossary at the end of this privacy policy to explain the meaning of some of the wording we use in this privacy policy.

The different types of personal information that we collect

Personal data, or personal information, means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified. It does not include information where the identity has been removed (anonymous information).

AM is an academic publisher of primary source collections for teaching and research. Our digital resources are used for educational purposes and our customers are academic institutions and libraries.

We process the following different types of personal information: licensed material personal data, copyright personal data and user personal data. More information on each is set out below.

Licensed material personal data

To produce our digital resources, we license primary source material from libraries and archives around the world for inclusion in our digital resources. This primary source material sometimes contains personal information, such as names, images, as well as special category personal information. Special category personal information includes information such as details about your ethnicity, religious beliefs, political opinions. We call all of this information licensed material personal data.

Licensed material personal data is processed in the following ways:

1. we create digital copies of the material for inclusion in our published, digital resources
2. we view digital copies for quality assurance purposes, to ensure they are appropriate and functional in the published resource.
3. we index the primary source material to make it searchable (capturing e.g. names, keywords, places)
4. we create transcripts and databases of the text to make it searchable
5. we may create searchable databases within our resources for data analysis purposes
6. we use a limited number of primary sources in our marketing material
7. we may redact or remove personal data, including special category personal data, from our primary sources to protect an individual’s personal data using a third-party supplier in a third country.

As a data controller, the law imposes certain obligations on us in relation to the use, storage and processing of personal information.

However, under Data Protection Law an exemption applies to processing personal information for journalistic purposes and academic, artistic or literary expression (the academic exemption). This exemption means that the majority of the obligations under Data Protection Law do not apply to our processing of Licensed Material Personal Data. 

In particular, for personal information (including special category personal information) and relying on the academic exemption, we can process Licensed Material Personal Data without your consent and transfer it to countries outside the UK, including to third party service providers who provide services to us. However, we put in place appropriate security measures in respect of licensed material personal data.

Copyright personal data and user personal data

Sometimes we obtain personal information, such as names and addresses and other contact details, from libraries and other archive holders. This information is used by us for researching and contacting copyright holders to request permission to include primary source material in our resources. We call this copyright personal data.

We collect, store and process personal information from employees of our customers and of our prospective customers, as well as personal information of users (such as students) accessing our digital publications. We call this user personal data and it includes:

• Identity and contact data: user names and email addresses of users accessing our digital publications, in particular when using the MyArchive and MyAccount functionality; names, email addresses, telephone number, academic institution, affiliation, job title and subject specialism of employees of our customers and prospective customers;
• Financial data: financial or credit card details, details about payments from our customers and what has been purchased;
• Technical data: internet protocol (IP) address, login data, browser type and version, time zone setting and location, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform, and other technology on the devices our customers employees and users use to access our publications and our websites;
• Usage data: information about how our customers employees or users and prospective customers employees or users use our website, products and services, including information about what searches our users have done;
• Marketing data: our customers’ employees and prospective customers’ employees preferences in receiving marketing from us and their communication preferences.

Our obligations and your rights in relation to copyright personal data and user personal data

The law imposes certain obligations on us in relation to copyright personal data and user personal data.

Data protection Law also gives you a number of rights to protect you against an organisation mishandling this type of personal information. It is important that you understand your rights and in this document, we have set out what those rights are and how you can exercise your rights in respect of AM processing those types of personal information.

How we collect copyright personal data and user personal data

Information you provide to us. You may provide us with user personal data when you are:

• Accessing our websites. This includes information that you provide when you register to use any of our websites, products or services, subscribe to one of our services, search for a product, place an order, participate in a discussion group, request a complimentary copy of a book, or report a problem with our site or request content or other information from us.
• Corresponding with us by post, telephone, email or otherwise.

Information we collect about you. We may also process certain personal information about you which you have not provided to us yourself, for example, information we collect from archives or libraries to research and contact copyright holders.

In limited circumstances, we may collect User Personal Data that you have made available in the public domain, such as your contact details, research interests, courses that you teach and the institution that you are based at. When we do this, we carefully consider whether do so is in your interest and any impact on your rights.

Information from other sources. We also work with third parties and may receive user personal data about you from them.  These third parties include web hosting providers, email service providers and list brokers, as they help us in delivering our products, services and communications.  They may provide us with additional information about you. This could include details of content that you have viewed or requested through their websites, or details of which email communications from us you viewed or clicked on.

Cookies/Automated technologies or interactions. As you interact with our website, we will obtain user personal data about your equipment, browsing actions and patterns. We collect this personal data by using cookies and other similar technologies. More information is set out in our Cookie Policy.

How we use copyright personal data and user personal data and the lawful bases for that processing

The law requires us to have a legal basis for collecting and using your personal data. We use user personal data in the following ways and our legal basis for that use is in brackets:

(a) To deliver our products and services to you – we may use this information to:

• Carry out our obligations arising from any contracts entered into between you and us and to provide you with the information, products and services that you request from us (as is necessary for the performance of those contracts.)
• Notify you about changes to our service (as is necessary for the performance of a contract to which you are a party and/or as is necessary for our legitimate interests.)
• Allow you to access restricted areas of our websites, when you choose to do so (which may rely on your consent for the processing of your personal information which is necessary for giving you access to those restricted areas.)

(b) To improve the effectiveness of our products, services and marketing communications – we may use this information (in each case as is necessary for our legitimate interests) to:

• Administer our websites and for internal operations, including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, research, statistical and survey purposes;
• Improve our websites to ensure that content is presented in the most effective manner for you and for your computer or device;
• Keep our websites safe and secure;
• Measure or understand the effectiveness of advertising we deliver to you and others, and to deliver relevant advertising to you;
• Provide you with information about other goods and services we offer that are similar to those that you have already purchased or enquired about, provided that you have not told us that you do not wish to receive this information;
• Make suggestions and recommendations to you about goods or services that we believe may interest you, based on your previous transactions, behaviour, subject interests and other information that we may hold about you and your institution or organisation.

We use Copyright Personal Data to contact you if you are, or you might know, a copyright holder (as is necessary for our legitimate interests) and in particular to research copyright holders and request permission from copyright holders to include primary source material, as is necessary for our legitimate interests to ensure our published materials are copyright cleared, or as is necessary for us to comply with the law.

References to our "legitimate interests" in this policy include our commercial interests in operating our business (and the business of AM more generally) in an efficient and sustainable manner, in accordance with all applicable legal and regulatory requirements.  In relying on our legitimate interests, we make sure we consider and balance any potential impact on you and your rights (both positive and negative) before we process your personal data for our legitimate interests. We do not use your personal data for activities where our interests are overridden by the impact on you (unless we have your consent or are otherwise required or permitted to by law).

Your marketing preferences and opting out

You will receive marketing communications from us if you have requested information from us or purchased goods or services from us and you have not opted out of receiving the marketing.  If you would like to update your User Personal Data details, including details of how you prefer to be contacted for marketing purposes, you can do this by:

• Sending an email to support@amdigital.co.uk and indicating your new preferences (including if you wish to unsubscribe).

You can ask us to stop sending you marketing messages at any time by following the opt-out links on any marketing message sent to you.

If you decide to change your Marketing preferences you will still receive service-related communications that are essential for administrative or customer service purposes (for example relating to order confirmations, updates to our Terms and Conditions and checking that your contact details are correct).

Please note that it may take up to one week for unsubscribes to be processed.

Sharing copyright personal data and user personal data with third parties  

For the purposes referred to in this policy and relying on the bases for lawful processing as set out above, we may share User Personal Data with our group companies, namely:

• SAGE Publications, Ltd in the United Kingdom, for global business management purposes;
• SAGE Publications, Inc in the United States, for global business management purposes;
• SAGE Publications, PVT Ltd in India, which provides publishing support services, including invoice processing and customer support functions;
• SAGE Publications, Pte Ltd in Singapore, which provides marketing support for the Asia Pacific region.

AM may also share copyright personal data and user personal data with our business partners for the purposes referred to in this policy and relying on the bases for lawful processing as set out above, where those business partners are providing a service to us, for example:

• A platform for AM’s web-based product.
• A provider of web analytics services; or
• For the purposes of fulfilling an order that you have placed with us, delivering a product or otherwise carrying out a contract that we have with you.

In addition, where the products or services that you have accessed via AM are provided by us on behalf of a third party such as an academic society or association, we may share your User Personal Data with them, unless you ask us not to.

If you register for a sponsored event, then we may share your User Personal Data with event sponsors, where we have informed you that we will do this at the point at which you register for the event.

Finally, we may share Copyright Personal Data and User Personal Data with third parties to whom we may choose to sell, transfer or merge parts of our business or our assets. Alternatively, we may seek to acquire other businesses or merge with them. If a change happens to our business, then the new owners may use your personal data in the same way as set out in this privacy policy.

We require all third parties to respect the security of your personal data and to treat it in accordance with the law. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes and only permit them to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.

Transfer of copyright personal data and user personal data outside the UK

AM is a global company and our systems and management team are integrated throughout the organisation. Copyright Personal Data and User Personal Data will be accessible to AM employees based outside the UK. We have an agreement in place across the organisation to safeguard this personal information and to ensure the same high standards of data protection exist across AM.

Whenever we use third parties outside the UK to process personal information on our behalf, we ensure a similar degree of protection is afforded to it by ensuring at least one of the following safeguards is implemented:

• We will only transfer your personal data to countries that have been deemed to provide an adequate level of protection for personal data.   This includes all countries in the EEA;
• Where we use certain service providers, we may use specific contracts approved for use in the UK which give personal data the same protection it has in the UK, such as the UK (derived from the European Commission) approved model clauses.

Data security

This section applies to all types of personal information that we refer to in this policy, namely licensed material personal data, as well as copyright personal data and user personal data.

We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent personal information from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to personal information to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process personal information on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

However, if you are a user of our digital publications, it is important that you keep any log in information confidential and do not pass it to a third party. 

We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected personal data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so.

However, the internet is not totally secure so security cannot be guaranteed.

How long do we keep copyright personal data and user personal data

We will only retain your personal information for as long as reasonably necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, regulatory, tax, accounting or reporting requirements. We may retain your personal information for a longer period in the event of a complaint or if we reasonably believe there is a prospect of litigation in respect to our relationship with you.

To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature and sensitivity of the personal information, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal information and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal, regulatory, tax, accounting or other requirements.

In respect of user personal data on customers, we will normally retain this information for seven (7) years after the last recorded interaction with AM.

Your rights in respect of copyright personal data and user personal data

Under Data Protection Law you have the following rights in relation to copyright personal data and user personal data:

• To obtain access to, and copies of, the personal information that we hold about you;
• To require us to correct the personal information we hold about you if it is incorrect;
• To require us to erase your personal information;
• To require us to restrict our data processing activities: this enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your personal data in one of the following scenarios:
  • If you want us to establish the data's accuracy;
  • Where our use of the data is unlawful but you do not want us to erase it;
  • Where you need us to hold the data even if we no longer require it as you need it to establish, exercise or defend legal claims; or
  • You have objected to our use of your data but we need to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to use it;
• To object to us processing your personal data where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) as the legal basis for that particular use of your data (including carrying out profiling based on our legitimate interests). In some cases, we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process your information which override your right to object;
• To object at any time to the processing of your personal data for direct marketing purposes (see Your marketing preferences and opting out for details of how to object to receiving direct marketing communications);
• Where our processing is based on your consent, the right to withdraw that consent (without affecting the lawfulness of our processing based on consent before its withdrawal);
• Where the processing is carried out by automated means, to receive from us the personal information we hold about you which you have provided to us, in a reasonable format specified by you (including for the purpose of you transmitting that personal information to another data controller).

Please note that these rights are not absolute, and we may be entitled to refuse requests where exceptions apply. If you wish to exercise any of these rights, please contact us using the contact details set out below.

No fee usually required: You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal data (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request is clearly unfounded, repetitive or excessive. Alternatively, we could refuse to comply with your request in these circumstances.

What we may need from you: We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your personal data (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is a security measure to ensure that personal data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it. We may also contact you to ask you for further information in relation to your request to speed up our response.

Time limit to respond: We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month. Occasionally it could take us longer than a month if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests. In this case, we will notify you and keep you updated.

Third-party links

Note that our site may include links to third-party websites, plug-ins and applications. Clicking on those links or enabling those connections may allow third parties to collect or share data about you. We do not control these third-party websites and are not responsible for their privacy statements. When you leave our website, we encourage you to read the privacy policy of every website you visit.

Contact us

If you have any comments, questions or concerns about anything you have read on this page or you are concerned how your personal information has been handled by AM, you can contact us at  gdprcommittee@amdigital.co.uk or for marketing-specific queries pelase see marketing preferences section above.

Referral to the UK Information Commissioner

If you are an UK Citizen and are not satisfied with how we are processing your personal information, you can refer us to the Information Commissioner. However, before doing so please make sure you have first made your complaint to us or asked us for clarification if there is something you do not understand. The ICO will expect you to have done this before reviewing your complaint.  You can find out more about your rights under Data Protection Law from the Information Commissioner's Office website available at www.ico.org.uk.

EEA citizens: If you are an EEA citizen (not a UK citizen), you can contact our EU representative in relation to data protection matters via this form.

Changes in our privacy policy

If we make changes to this policy, we will detail them on this page. If it is appropriate, we may provide you with details by email; we suggest that you regularly visit this page to see any changes or updates to this policy.

This policy was last updated in December 2025.

Glossary

Compliance with law or with a legal obligation: means processing your user personal data or copyright personal data where it is necessary for us to comply with the law.

Copyright personal data: means personal information, such as names and addresses and other contact details, from libraries and other archive holders, to enable us to research and contact copyright holders.

Legitimate interest: means the interest of our business in conducting and managing our business. We make sure we consider and balance any potential impact on you (both positive and negative) and your rights before we process your user personal data or copyright personal data for our legitimate interests. We do not use your user personal data or copyright personal data for activities where our interests are overridden by the impact on you (unless we are relying on a different lawful basis).

Licensed material personal data: means personal information, such as names, images, as well as special category personal information, in our digital resources.

Performance of a contract: means processing your user personal data where it is necessary for the performance of a contract to which you are a party or to take steps at your request before entering into such a contract.

Personal data or personal information: means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified. It does not include information where the identity has been removed (anonymous information).

Special category personal information: this includes details about your race or ethnicity, religious or philosophical beliefs, sex life, sexual orientation, political opinions, trade union membership, information about your health, and genetic and biometric information).

User personal data: means personal information from employees and contractors of our customers and of our prospective customers, as well as personal information of users (such as students) accessing our digital publications.