DATA PROTECTION TERMS AND CONDITIONS

Privacy Policy

This privacy policy sets out how Visit Colchester uses and protects any information that you give Visit Colchester when you use this website.

Visit Colchester is committed to ensuring that your privacy is protected. Should we ask you to provide certain information by which you can be identified when using this website, then you can be assured that it will only be used in accordance with this privacy statement.

Visit Colchester may change this policy from time to time by updating this page. You should check this page from time to time to ensure that you are happy with any changes. By using our website, you’re agreeing to be bound by this Policy. This policy is effective from 26^th May 2021.

Who are we?

Visit Colchester is the region’s official tourism authority on behalf of Colchester Council. Our purpose is to develop and promote Colchester – nationally and internationally – as an attractive and vibrant place to live, visit, work and do business.

For the purpose of the Data Protection Act 2018 (the Act), and the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR), from 25 May 2018, the data controller is Colchester Council email: DPO@colchester.gov.uk

How do we collect information from you?

We obtain information about you when you use our website, for example, when you contact us about products and services, or if you register to receive one of our newsletters. We will also collect information from you when you use any of our products and services or receive support from us. In most cases, you will give written consent to the processing of your personal data for one or more specific purposes. On occasions, personal data will be collected over the phone, in person or via email but always in agreement with the individual.

What information we collect

The personal information we collect might include your name, address, email address, IP address, and information regarding what website pages are accessed and when. If you make a payment for services or purchase a product from us, your card information is not held by us, it is collected by our third party payment processors, who specialise in the secure online capture and processing of credit/debit card transactions.

Information that you provide by filling in forms on our Website. This includes information provided at the time of registering to use the Website, subscribing to our service and any additional, posting material, contributions or requesting further services. We may also ask you for information when you enter a competition or promotion sponsored by us and when you report a problem with our Website.

• If you contact us, we may keep a record of that correspondence.
• We may also ask you to complete surveys that we use for research purposes, although you do not have to respond to them.
• Details of your visits to the Website including, but not limited to, traffic data, location data, weblogs and other communication data, whether this is required for our own billing purposes or otherwise and the resources that you access.

What we do with the information

We use this information to understand your needs and provide you with a better service. We may use your information for the following reasons:

• Internal record keeping.
• To improve our products and services or notify you of any changes
• To customise the website according to your interests.
• To periodically send you communications, which you have requested, and that may be of interest to you. These may include information about our associated companies goods and services, campaigns activities, and promotions.
• To carry out our obligations arising from any contracts entered into by you and us.

We will hold your personal information on our systems for as long as is necessary for the relevant activity, or as long as is set out in any relevant contract you hold with us.
We are committed to ensuring that your information is secure. In order to prevent unauthorised access or disclosure, we have put in place suitable physical, electronic and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure the information we collect online.

Marketing - Your choices

We would like to send you information about our products and services which may be of interest to you. You have a choice about whether or not you wish to receive information from us and we will not contact you for marketing purposes by email, phone or text message unless you have given your prior consent. We will not contact you for marketing purposes by post if you have indicated that you do not wish to be contacted.
If you have previously agreed to us using your personal information for direct marketing purposes, you may change your mind (opt-out) at any time.  You can also change your marketing preferences at any time by contacting us by writing to or emailing us.

How we use cookies

Like many other websites, Visit Colchester’s websites use cookies. 'Cookies' are small pieces of information sent by an organisation to your computer and stored on your hard drive to allow that website to recognise you when you visit. They collect statistical data about your browsing actions and patterns and do not identify you as an individual. This helps us to improve our website and deliver a better more personalised service.

We use cookies to customise content and advertising, to provide social media features and to analyse traffic to the site. We also share information about your use of our site with our trusted social media, advertising and analytics partners.

It is possible to switch off cookies by setting your browser preferences. For more information visit http://www.aboutcookies.org

Turning cookies off may result in a loss of functionality when using our website.

Links to other websites

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.

We may display either (or both) of the following widgets:

• Feed widgets (widgets that display a feed from our social network page). These widgets do not create a cookie.
• Sharing widgets (widgets such as Facebook Like, Twitter Share or AddThis) which enable you to share content of www.visiteastyorkshire.com to your friends or followers. By default these do not create a cookie until you have clicked on the graphic or icon representing the sharing network you would like to use. By clicking the graphic or icon you consent to transmitting data to the respective social network.
  Facebook's privacy policy on social plugins: https://www.facebook.com/about/privacy/your-info-on-other#socialplugin.
  Twitter's privacy policy on cookies and information sharing:  https://twitter.com/privacy.
  AddThis' privacy policy on cookies and information sharing: http://www.addthis.com/privacy.

16 or Under

We are concerned to protect the privacy of children aged 16 or under. If you are aged 16 or under‚ please get your parent/guardian's permission beforehand whenever you provide us with personal information.

Who has access to your information?

Your information will be used for the purposes of Visit Colchester and our sub-brands only.
We may pass your information to our third party service providers, agents subcontractors and other associated organisations for the purposes of completing tasks and providing services to you on our behalf (for example to send you mailings). However, when we use third party service providers, we disclose only the personal information that is necessary to deliver the service and we have a contract in place that requires them to keep your information secure and not to use it for their own direct marketing purposes.
We will not sell, distribute or lease your personal information to third parties unless we have your permission or are required by law to do so. We will not share your information with third parties for marketing purposes.

If we are under a duty to disclose or share your personal data in order to comply with any legal obligation, or in order to enforce or apply our Terms and Conditions and other agreements; or to protect the rights, property, confidential information or safety of our Website, customers, affiliates or others and in particular if we are required to prevent any fraud or fraudulent transactions. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organisations for the purposes of fraud protection and credit risk reduction.

Where we store your personal data

As our servers are located in the United Kingdom, the data that we collect from you is obtained, processed, stored and transmitted in compliance with data protection legislation. By submitting your personal data, you agree to this transfer, storing or processing. We will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that your data is treated securely and in accordance with this privacy policy.

All information you provide to us is stored on our secure servers. Where we have given you (or where you have chosen) a password which enables you to access certain parts of our Website, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential. We ask you not to share a password with anyone.

The transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. Although we will do our best to protect your personal data, we cannot guarantee the security of your data transmitted to our Website; any transmission is at your own risk. Once we have received your information, we will use appropriate procedures and security features to try to prevent unauthorised access.

Transferring your information outside of Europe

As part of the services offered to you through this website, the information which you provide to us may be transferred to countries outside the European Union (“EU”). By submitting your personal data, you’re agreeing to this transfer, storing or processing. If we transfer your information outside of the EU in this way, we will take steps to ensure that appropriate security measures are taken with the aim of ensuring that your privacy rights continue to be protected as outlined in this Policy.
If you use our services while you are outside the EU, your information may be transferred outside the EU in order to provide you with those services.

Purpose of the processing, legal basis for the processing and retention periods

We use information held about you in the following ways:

• To ensure that content from our Website is presented in the most effective manner for you and for your device.
• To provide you with information, products or services that you request from us or which we feel may interest you, where you have consented to be contacted for such purposes.
• To carry out our obligations arising from any contracts entered into through our Website.
• To allow you to participate in interactive features of our service, when you choose to do so.
• To notify you about changes to our service.
• To regularly update you about our services and promotions in Newsletters.

We may also use your data to provide you with information about goods and services which may be of interest to you and we may contact you about these by email, text, post or telephone.

Where we permit our affiliates to use your data, we (or they) will contact you only if you have consented to this.

Processing of personal data revealing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, or trade union membership, and the processing of genetic data, biometric data for the purpose of uniquely identifying a natural person, data concerning health or data concerning a natural person's sex life or sexual orientation shall be prohibited with the exception stated below:

You have given explicit consent to the processing of those personal data for one or more specified purposes.

We do not disclose information about identifiable individuals to our advertisers, but we may provide them with aggregate information about our users (for example, we may inform them that 500 men aged under 30 have clicked on their advertisement on any given day). We may also use such aggregate information to help advertisers reach the kind of audience they want to target (for example, women in CO1). We may make use of the personal data we have collected from you to enable us to comply with our advertisers' wishes by displaying their advertisement to that target audience.

Our lawful bases for processing personal data:

• Viewing our Website and sending us enquiries - Necessary for the public task performed in the public interest or for our official functions.
• Bookings (with review requests) and eShop orders - Necessary for the performance of a contract.
• Marketing/eNewsletters – Consent.

Our retention periods for your personal data:

• Operational Database records will be deleted after 18 months of last use, e.g. checking out of accommodation.
• eMarketing Database records will be deleted after 24 months of last use, e.g. an email being sent.

Changes to our privacy policy

Any changes we may make to our privacy policy in the future will be posted on this page and, where appropriate, notified to you by e-mail.

Business records storage and publishing:

For storing and publishing business records on this website, our lawful basis for processing this data is “Public task”. The ICO website states the following, "the processing is necessary for you to perform a task in the public interest or for your official functions".

We store accommodation, venue and other business details (Trade Data) in our database to facilitate publishing them on this website. Our legal basis for this processing is part of our public task. Business details are, by their nature, already in the public domain and we are using them in a way the businesses would reasonably expect and could benefit from.

What rights do you have

The rights that you have depend upon the grounds upon which we collected your information. All of the rights you could have outlined on the data protection page.

The right of access - You are entitled to see the information the service holds about you and can request a copy by emailing info@colchester.gov.uk   

The right to rectification - If you believe any information the service holds about you to be incorrect please email info@visiteastyorkshire.co.uk and we will amend the information accordingly. 

The right to restrict processing - Should you wish Visit Colchester to limit how we use your data please email info@visitcolchester.co.uk with the reason for your request. 

No automated decision making will take place with regard to the personal information submitted. 

How you can access and update your information

The accuracy of your information is important to us. If you change email address, or any of the other information we hold is inaccurate or out of date, please email us at: info@visitcolchester.co.uk.

You have the right to ask us not to process your personal data for marketing purposes. We operate an optional choice for receiving marketing communications and will clearly name any other organisations who may process your personal data. You can exercise your right to prevent such processing at any time by using the unsubscribe function on a received marketing email or by contacting us at Colchester Borough Council email: DPO@colchester.gov.uk

You have the right to ask for a copy of the information Visit Colchester hold about you. If you would like a copy of the information held on you please write to info@colchester.gov.uk

Questions, comments and requests regarding this privacy policy are welcomed and should be addressed to Colchester Borough Council email: DPO@colchester.gov.uk

The Act gives you the right to access information held about you. Your right of access can be exercised in accordance with the Act. From 25 May 2018, when GDPR became law, a reasonable Subject Access Request (SAR) can be made without a fee being charged. It will be carried out within one month. As part of a SAR, you may request that your personal data is corrected or deleted. The result of a deletion request may be affected by any outstanding bookings or orders in progress.

If you are not satisfied with our response you may contact the UK supervisory authority, the Information Commissioner’s Office, https://ico.org.uk to report your concern.