Last updated: 21st May 2018
Privacy & Cookie Policy
Our data protection policy and how data is used is detailed below. We will not disclose any of your personal information to any third parties (other than those listed below). For more detail please contact us on 0845 872 8575.
Privacy policy
We are committed to safeguarding the privacy of our website visitors and clients; this policy sets out how we treat your personal information. This policy covers information collected through our website, through third party sites such as Eventbrite, and from offline interaction. Please read this policy before providing us with any personal data. By using our site, you consent to the terms of our privacy policy.
Who we are
Sunderland Software City is the data controller in respect of all the personal data collected – on or in relation to this website, through event attendance and over email or in person – for the purposes of the Data Protection Act 1998 and General Data Protection Regulation 2016/679.
Our data protection registration number is Z5077507 – (registered as NE BIC Ltd).
If you have any questions about this privacy policy or our treatment of your personal information, please email us: info@www.sunderlandsoftwarecity.com
Personal Data
Information we collect
We may collect, store and use the following kinds of personal information:
(a) Information about your computer and about your visits to and use of this website (including your IP address, geographical location, browser type and version, operating system type and version, referral source, length of visit, page views, website navigation paths and service usage).
(b) Information relating to any transactions carried out between you and us on or in relation to this website.
(c) Information that you provide to us for the purpose of registering/communicating with us.
(e) Information that you send to us in order to obtain a quotation for services.
(f) Information that you provide to us for the purpose of subscribing to our website email notifications and/or newsletter.
(g) Information that you provide to us for the purpose of using our website-based and other services.
(h) With your explicit consent and where required, sensitive personal information. If we request such information we will explain why we are requesting it and how we intend to use it. Sensitive personal information includes information relating to your ethnic origin; your political opinions; your religious beliefs; whether you belong to a trade union; your physical or mental health or condition; your sexual life; and whether you have committed a criminal offence.
(i) Information we receive from external agencies, intermediaries or others who have referred you to Sunderland Software City.
(j) Information you provide during the process of registering for an event or activity hosted by Sunderland Software City; this may include information that you provide through third party sites such as Eventbrite.
(k) Any other information that you choose to send to us.
How we use your personal information
Personal information submitted to us via this website will be used for the purposes specified in this privacy policy.
We may use your personal information to:
(a) administer the website.
(b) Improve your browsing experience by personalising the website.
(c) Enable your use of the services available on the website.
(d) Supply you with services.
(e) Send statements and invoices to you, and collect payments from you.
(f) Send you general (non-marketing) commercial communications.
(g) Send you email notifications which you have requested.
(h) Send to you our newsletter and other marketing communications relating to our business or the businesses of carefully-selected third parties which we think may be of interest to you by post, by email or similar technology (you can inform us at any time if you no longer require marketing communications).
(i) Provide third parties with statistical information about our users – but this information will not be used to identify any individual user.
(j) Deal with enquiries and complaints made by or about you relating to the website.
(k) Identify you and supply you with services
(l) Detect and prevent fraud
(m) Notify you of any changes to our website or to our services that may affect you
(n) Carry out security vetting
(o) Improve our services
(p) Share with other delegates, with your permission, at certain events.
(q) Monitor and evaluate our services for the purposes of customer satisfaction or audit purposes. You may be contacted by a third party organisation to evaluate the service you received.
We may also use your information to:
i. Better understand the local, national and international business market and associated trends.
ii. Help us to service customers’ needs more effectively.
iii. Ensure we meet our targets and other contractual commitments.
Marketing
We would like to send you information by email about marketing communications relating to our business or the businesses of carefully-selected third parties which we think may be of interest to you.
We will only ask whether you would like us to send you marketing messages when you tick the relevant boxes when you use our services. Click here to see what this form looks like.
If you have consented to receive such marketing from us you can opt out at any time. See ‘Your rights’ below for further information.
Information disclosures
We may disclose information about you to any of our employees, officers, agents, suppliers or subcontractors insofar as reasonably necessary for the purposes as set out in this privacy policy.
In addition, we may disclose your personal information:
(a) To the extent that we are required to do so by law.
(b) In connection with any legal proceedings or prospective legal proceedings.
(c) In order to establish, exercise or defend our legal rights (including providing information to others for the purposes of fraud prevention and reducing credit risk).
(d) To the purchaser (or prospective purchaser) of any business or asset that we are (or are contemplating) selling.
(e) To any person who we reasonably believe may apply to a court or other competent authority for disclosure of that personal information where, in our reasonable opinion, such court or authority would be reasonably likely to order disclosure of that personal information.
(f) to our business partners in accordance with the ‘marketing’ section above.
(g) to Funders, auditors, advisers and authorities; Sunderland Software City is funded by a number of external organisations (Funders) including the European Regional Development Fund and Sunderland City Council. Your Information may be passed to those Funders, their auditors and advisers for their own purposes such as Audit and monitoring, including but not limited to: Detection and prevention of fraud and irregularity; Production of case studies to demonstrate of best practice. Our Funders may be required to disclose information in response to a request under the Freedom of Information Act 2000.
(h) We may share your information to our own auditors for auditing purposes.
Other support structures
We may need to share your information, both details about your business and details of our interactions with you, with other business support institutions or funders involved in your project. We will only share your information if you consent to receiving information regarding services from other organisations.
Organisations referring customers to Sunderland Software City
We reserve the right to share your information, both details about your business and details of our interactions with you, with any organisation which referred you to us, for monitoring and feedback purposes.
How long we hold your information
We will store your information at least for the duration of any customer relationship we have with you, and the period thereafter as required by our Funders.
International data transfers
Information that we collect may be stored and processed in and transferred between any of the countries located outside the European Economic Area in order to enable us to use the information in accordance with this privacy policy.
Information which you provide may be transferred to countries which do not have data protection laws equivalent to those in force in the European Economic Area.
You expressly agree to such transfers of personal information. We will always ensure any transfer is subject to appropriate security measures to safeguard your personal data.
Security of your personal information
We will take reasonable technical and organisational precautions to prevent the loss, misuse or alteration of your personal information.
We will store all the personal information you provide on our secure (password- and firewall- protected) servers. All electronic transaction data associated with transactions you make on or in relation to our website will be encrypted.
Data transmission over the internet is inherently insecure, and we cannot guarantee the security of data sent over the internet.
Policy amendments
We may update this privacy policy from time-to-time by posting a new version on our website. You should check this page occasionally to ensure you are happy with any changes.
We may from time to time also notify you of changes to our policy by email.
Your Rights
Right of Access
You may instruct us to provide you with any personal information we hold about you. Please email, call or write to us and let us know the information you want a copy of, including any account or reference numbers, if you have them. Provision of such information will be subject to the supply of appropriate evidence of your identity (for this purpose, we will usually accept a photocopy of your passport certified by a solicitor or bank plus an original copy of a utility bill showing your current address).
The company may refuse a subject access request or raise a fee for processing the request if the request is manifestly unfounded or excessive. Should a subject access request be refused by us you will be given a reason for the refusal and information on your right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office. The company will provide a copy of the personal information held in the first instance and shall charge a reasonable administration fee for requests for further copies of personal information.
We may withhold such personal information to the extent permitted by law.
Right to Rectification
Where you identify that incorrect information is held you may instruct us to amend that information free of charge. If you would like us to do this please email, call or write to us. Please also supply us with enough information to identify you (eg a photocopy of your passport certified by a solicitor or bank plus an original copy of a utility bill showing your current address), and let us know the information that is incorrect and what it should be replaced with.
Right to Erasure
Individuals have a right to have personal data erased and to prevent processing in specific circumstances:
• Where the personal data is no longer necessary in relation to the purpose for which it was originally collected/processed.
• When the individual withdraws consent.
• When the individual objects to the processing and there is no overriding legitimate interest for continuing the processing.
• The personal data was unlawfully processed (ie otherwise in breach of the GDPR).
• The personal data has to be erased in order to comply with a legal obligation.
There are specific circumstances where the company can refuse to erase personal data;
• To exercise the right of freedom of expression and information;
• To comply with a legal obligation or for the performance of a public interest task or exercise of official authority. An example may be where we are required by court order to retain the personal information;
• For public health purposes in the public interest;
• Archiving purposes in the public interest, scientific research historical research or statistical purposes; or
• The exercise or defence of legal claims.
Generally Sunderland Software City will not process a request to erase information where there is an ongoing legal obligation on the company to retain the information, for example for taxation and social security purposes.
Right to Data Portability
The right to data portability allows individuals to obtain and reuse their personal data for their own purposes across different services. It allows them to move, copy or transfer personal data easily from one IT environment to another in a safe and secure way, without hindrance to usability.
The right to data portability only applies in certain circumstances. Please email, call or write to us, if you would like to discuss this further.
Right to Object
Individuals have the right to object to the processing of their personal data, including direct marketing (including profiling);
Objections to processing, other than for marketing purposes must be made in writing to the Controller and must outline the grounds for objection.
You may instruct us not to process your personal information for marketing purposes by sending an email to us. In practice, we will provide you with continuing opportunities to opt-out of the use of your personal information for marketing purposes throughout our contact with you.
Right to Restrict Processing
In certain circumstances an individual may request that processing of their personal data is restricted. This means that the information can be stored, but not used, except in restricted circumstances.
Right to make a complaint to the Information Commissioner
Individuals have the right to raise a complaint about any aspect of the way Sunderland Software City collects, processes, stores or deals with personal data, including complaints.
Contact the Information Commissioner (ICO) for further information on how to do make a complaint.
Third party websites
Where the website contains links to third party websites. We are not responsible for the privacy policies or practices of those third party websites.
Cookies
Our website uses cookies. Where you consent to accepting cookies, you agree to our use of cookies in accordance with the terms of this policy. If you visit our website when your browser is set to accept cookies, we will interpret this as an indication that you consent to our use of cookies and other similar technologies as described in this privacy and cookie policy.
Cookies consist of small files, often including unique identifiers, that are sent by web servers to web browsers, and which may then be sent back to the server each time the browser requests a page from the server.
Cookies can be used by web servers to identity and track users as they navigate different pages on a website and to identify users returning to a website.
Cookies may be either “persistent” cookies or “session” cookies. A persistent cookie consists of a text file sent by a web server to a web browser, which will be stored by the browser and will remain valid until its set expiry date (unless deleted by the user before the expiry date). A session cookie, on the other hand, will expire at the end of the user session, when the web browser is closed.
We use both session cookies and persistent cookies on this website.
How we use cookies
Cookies do not contain any information that personally identifies you, but personal information that we store about you may be linked, by us, to the information stored in and obtained from cookies.
We may use the information we obtain from your use of our cookies for the following purposes:
(1) To recognise your computer when you visit our website.
(2) To obtain information about your preferences, online movements and use of the internet.
(2) To track you as you navigate our website, and to enable the use of the some of the features on our website.
(3) To improve the website’s usability.
(4) To carry out research and statistical analysis to help improve our content and to help us better understand our visitor requirements and interests and analyse the use of our website.
(5) In the administration of this website.
(6) To personalise our website for you, including targeting advertisements which may be of particular interest to you.
Third party cookies
When you use our website, you may also be sent third party cookies.
We use Analytics tools to analyse the use of this website. Analytics tools generate statistical and other information about website use by means of cookies, which are stored on users’ computers. The information generated relating to our website is used to create reports about the use of the website.
Blocking cookies
Most browsers allow you to refuse to accept cookies. For example:
(1) In Internet Explorer you can refuse all cookies by clicking “Tools”, “Internet Options”, “Privacy”, and selecting “Block all cookies” using the sliding selector;
(2) In Firefox you can block all cookies by clicking “Tools”, “Options”, and un-checking “Accept cookies from sites” in the “Privacy” box.
Blocking all cookies will, however, have a negative impact upon the usability of many websites. If you block cookies, you will not be able to use many of the features of this website.
Deleting cookies
You can also delete cookies already stored on your computer. The method of doing so will depend upon your web browser. Instructions are available on the relevant web browser.
For further information about cookies and how to disable them please go to the Information Commissioner’s webpage on cookies: https://ico.org.uk/for-the-public/online/cookies/.
