Privacy Policy

Purpose Of Policy

Here at The Beacon we are committed to protecting your personal information and being transparent about what information we hold about you.

Using personal information allows us to develop a better understanding of our patrons and in turn to provide you with relevant and timely information about the work that we do.

The purpose of this policy is to give you a clear explanation about how we collect and use the information we collect from you directly and from third parties.

We use your information in accordance with all applicable laws concerning the protection of personal information. This policy explains:

  • What information we may collect about you
  • How we may use that information
  • In what situations we may disclose your details to third parties
  • Our use of cookies to improve your use of our website
  • Information about how we keep your personal information secure, how we maintain it and your rights to be able to access it

If you have any queries about this policy, please contact the Data Protection Officer data.protection@southandvale.gov.uk

Who we are

The Beacon is a Community venue owned and run by The Vale of White Horse District Council. We are VAT registered under VAT registration number 195 5053 47.

Information collection

We collect various types of information and in a number of ways:

Information you give us

For example, when you book a room or register on our website or buy tickets, we’ll store personal information you give us such as your name, email address, postal address, telephone number and card details. We will also store a record of your room hires and purchases.

Information about your interactions with us

For example, when you visit our website, we collect information about how you interact with our content. When we send you a mailing we store a record of this, and in the case of emails we keep a record of which ones you have opened, and which links you have clicked on.

Information from third parties

We might occasionally receive information about you from third parties. For example, we may use third party research companies to provide general information about you, compiled using publicly available data.

Sensitive personal data

Data Protection law recognises that certain categories of personal information are more sensitive such as health information, race, religious beliefs and political opinions. We do not usually collect this type of information about our patrons unless there is a clear reason for doing so. As an example, we collect health information about participants in our programme of classes and workshops.

Our building has CCTV coverage and this information is only retained for 30 days unless required for insurance purposes.

Legal basis

There are three legal reasons under which we may process your data:

  • Contract purposes

When you make a booking or purchase from us, you are entering into a contract with us. In order to perform this contract we need to process and store your data. For example, we may need to contact you by email or telephone in the case of cancellation of a show, or in the case of problems with your payment.

  • Legitimate business interests

In certain situations we collect and process your personal data for purposes that are in our legitimate organisational interests. However, we only do this if there is no overriding prejudice to you by using your personal information in this way. We describe below all situations where we may use this basis for processing.

  • With your explicit consent

For any situations where the two bases above are not appropriate, we will instead ask for your explicit consent before using your personal information in that specific situation.

Marketing communications

We aim to communicate with you about the work that we do in ways that you find relevant, timely and respectful. To do this we use data that we have stored about you, such as what events you have booked for in the past, as well as any preferences you may have told us about.

We use our legitimate organisational interest as the legal basis for communications by post and email. In the case of postal mailings, you may object to receiving these at any time using the contact details at the end of this policy. In the case of email, we will give you an opportunity to opt out of receiving them during your first purchase with us. If you do not opt out, we will provide you with an option to unsubscribe in every email that we subsequently send you, or you can alternatively use the contact details at the end of this policy.

We may also contact you about our work by telephone however we will always get explicit consent from you before doing this. Please bear in mind that this does not apply to telephone calls that we may need to make to you related to your bookings or purchases (as above).

Other processing activities

In addition to marketing communications, we also process personal information in the following ways that are within our legitimate organisational interests:

We may analyse data we hold about you to ensure that the content and timing of communications that we send you are as relevant to you as possible.

We may analyse data we hold about you in order to identify and prevent fraud.

In order to improve our website, we may analyse information about how you use it and the content that you interact with.

We may use profiling techniques or third party wealth screening and insight companies to provide us with information about you that will help us to communicate in a relevant way with you, in particular when we are approaching you about potential philanthropic support. Such information is compiled using publicly available data about you.

We may use your data to contact you on behalf of a young person or vulnerable adult in attendance at The Beacon where you are the named emergency contact.

In all of the above cases we will always keep your rights and interests at the forefront to ensure they are not overridden. You have the right to object to any of this processing at any time. If you wish to do this, please use the contact details at the end of this policy. Please bear in mind that if you object this may affect our ability to carry out tasks above that are for your benefit.

Third parties

There are certain circumstances under which we may disclose your personal information to third parties. These are as follows:

To our own service providers who process data on our behalf and on our instructions (for example our ticketing system software provider). In these cases we require that these third parties comply strictly with our instructions and with data protection laws, for example around security of personal data.

Where we are under a duty to disclose your personal information in order to comply with any legal obligation (for example to government bodies and law enforcement agencies).

To specific named visiting companies whose performances you have attended. In these cases we will always ask for your explicit consent before doing so.

Cookies

Cookies are small text files that are automatically placed onto your device by some websites that you visit. They are widely used to allow a website to function (for example to keep track of your basket) as well to provide website operators with information on how the site is being used.

We use cookies to keep track of your basket as well as to identify how the website is being used and what improvements we can make.

Your debit and credit card information

If you use your credit or debit card to purchase from us, we will ensure that this is carried out securely and in accordance with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS). You can find more information about this standard by visiting: www.pcisecuritystandards.org/pci_security/

We allow you to store your card details for use in a future transaction. This is carried out in compliance with PCI-DSS and in a way where none of our staff members are able to see your full card number. We never store your 3 or 4 digit security code.

Maintaining your personal information

We store your personal information indefinitely so that for any subsequent purchases you make we are able to link them back to a single unique record that we hold for you on our system.

If there are aspects of your record that are inaccurate or that you would like to remove, you can usually do this by contacting us, our details are at the end of this policy.

Any objections you make to any processing of your data will be stored against your record on our system so that we can comply with your requests.

Security of your personal information

We will put in place appropriate safeguards (both in terms of our procedures and the technology we use) to keep your personal information as secure as possible. We will ensure that any third parties we use for processing your personal information do the same.

We may need to store your data via a supplier that stores information outside of the European Economic Area. However, if we do we will have taken steps to ensure that they comply with the current legislation.

Your rights to your personal information

You have a right to request a copy of the personal information that we hold about you and to have any inaccuracies in this data corrected. Please use the contact details at the end of this policy if you would like to exercise this right.

Contact details and further information

If you believe we have not handled your personal data as we have described here, please email data.protection@southandvale.gov.uk and your concerns will be fully investigated.

For independent advice about data protection, privacy and data sharing issues, or to make a complaint about how the council has handled your personal information, you can contact the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). Please note that they will usually expect you to have already contacted the council about your concerns first. You can contact the ICO at:

Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House 
Water Lane 
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

Tel: 0303 123 1113 (local rate) or visit the ICO website

Changes to this notice

We may amend this privacy notice at any time so please review it frequently.