Privacy

Data Protection — Privacy Policy

The website www.ichoosebirmingham.com is operated by Birmingham Publishing Group Limited (company number 08652579) (“we” or "us") and we are a "data controller" for the purposes of the Data Protection Act 1998 and the EU General Data Protection Regulation 2016/679. This means that we are responsible for, and control the processing of, your personal information.  

This privacy policy relates to your use of our website and emails sent from us to you. 

We take your privacy very seriously and we ask that you read this Policy carefully as it contains important information on: 

• the personal information we collect about you; 
• what we do with your information; and 
• who your information might be shared with. 

How we use your information

We collect your personal information for the following purposes:

1. to identify you and manage your subscription with us;
2. to conduct research, statistical analysis and behavioural analysis;
3. customise our website and its content to your particular preferences;
4. notify you of any changes to our website or to our services that may affect you; and
5. improve our services. 

Marketing

Our regular weekly emails contain marketing paid for by third parties.

We may periodically send you emails paid for by a third party (a partnership email), which we think you may find interesting using the email address which you have provided. These will be identified as a partnership email in the header.

Information which we may collect

We collect personal information about you when you register with us.

We may collect the following personal information:

1. full name; 
2. postal address;
3. email address; 
4. work sector; and
5. editorial preferences.

Please note that we do not collect any information in relation to your payment information, such as credit/debit card details. 

Competitions

From time to time, we run competitions which require you to provide your email address to a third party. Please review the terms and conditions and the privacy policy of any such third party before entering that competition.

Our website hosts

Our website is hosted by Siteground. Here's their privacy policy and how you can contact them in case you have any queries: https://www.siteground.com/privacy.htm

Links and Third Parties

Our website contains links to other websites, but this Privacy Policy applies only to personal data collected via websites operated by us. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of other sites. We encourage our visitors to be aware when they leave our website, and to read the privacy policy of other sites that collect or use personal data.

Security

Unfortunately, no data transmission over the Internet or any other network can be guaranteed as 100% secure, but we take appropriate steps to try to protect the security of your personal data.

How long we will keep your personal information

We shall retain your information for as long as you remain a subscriber to I Choose Birmingham. When you unsubscribe, we will delete the information you provided us with, other than your email address, which the company that hosts our weekly email keeps on a list we can access, to ensure you are not resubscribed.  Please contact Mailchimp if you have any queries about this.

Your rights

In order to process any of the requests listed below, we may need to verify your identity for your security. In such cases your response will be necessary for you to exercise this right.

The right to access the information we hold about you

At any point you can contact us to request that the information we hold about you as well as why we have that information, who has access to the information and where we got the information. Once we have received your request we will respond within 30 days. 

The right to correct and update the information we hold about you

If the data we hold about you is out of date, incomplete or incorrect, you can inform us and we will ensure that it is updated.

The right to have your information erased

If you feel that we should no longer be using your data or that we are illegally using your data, you can request that we erase the data we hold. When we receive your request, we will confirm whether the data has been deleted or tell you the reason why it cannot be deleted. 

The right to object to processing of your data

You have the right to request that I Choose Birmingham Limited stops processing your data. Upon receiving the request, we will contact you to tell you if we are able to comply or if we have legitimate grounds to continue. If data is no longer processed, we may continue to hold your data to comply with your other rights. 

The right to ask us to stop contacting you with direct marketing

You have the right to request that we stop contacting you with direct marketing. In order to process your request, we may need to verify your identity for your security. 

The right to data portability

You have the right to request that we transfer your data to another controller. Once we have received your request, we will comply where it is feasible to do so. 

Consent

In those cases where we need your consent to hold your information, we will ask you to take an active step, such as entering your email address. By taking that active step, you are stating that you have been informed as to why Birmingham Publishing Group Limited is collecting the information, how it will be used, for how long it will be kept, who else will have access to it and what your rights are as a data subject. 

Sharing your information

Where necessary to fulfil our obligations to you, Birmingham Publishing Group Limited may pass your details to third parties where this is necessary for the functioning of our product. 

Cookies & tracking

A cookie is a small piece of data or message that is sent from a web server to your browser and is stored on your hard drive. A cookie can’t read data off your hard disk or read cookie files created by other sites. Cookies do not damage your system. You can reset your browser so as to refuse any cookie or to alert you when a cookie is being sent.

We only use cookies for the purposes of system administration of our website and give us information about the number of visitors to different parts of our website.

If you have any more questions about the use of cookies on our website, please contact the website hosts, at abuse@siteground.com.

How to turn off cookies

If you do not want to accept cookies, you can change your browser settings so that cookies are not accepted. If you do this, please be aware that you may lose some of the functionality of this website. 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/.

Enquiries

When contacted with an enquiry, Birmingham Publishing Group Limited will hold the entity name and contact details only for the purposes of handling the enquiry.

The online forms are subject to the same cookies and tracking as the rest of the website (see the above section “Cookies and Tracking” for more information).

Contact details

If you have any queries about this Policy, need further information or wish to lodge a complaint you can use the details below to contact the relevant party.

Tom Cullen

Data Protection Officer

tom@ichoosebirmingham.com

Changes to this Privacy Policy

We may change this Policy from time to time. You should check this policy occasionally to ensure that you are aware of the most recent version that will apply each time you access the website.