Privacy statement
The South West RDA (Regional Development
Agency) ("we", “us”) is committed to protecting and respecting your
privacy and personal data.
This policy sets out the basis on which any
personal data we collect from you, or that you provide to us, will
be processed by us. Please read the following carefully to
understand our views and practices regarding your personal data and
how we will treat it.
For the purposes of the Data Protection Act
1998 (the "Act"), the data controller is The South West of England
Regional Development Agency, Sterling House, Dix’s Field, Exeter,
Devon, EX1 1QA. Our entry on the
Information Commissioner's register of data
controllers is number Z8611765.
Our nominated representative for the purpose
of the Act is the Knowledge and Information Manager.
Information we may collect from you
We may collect and process the following data
about you:
- Information that you provide to us by filling
in forms on our site www.sw-ruralgateway.info (“Our
Site”). This includes information provided at the time of
registering with Our Site and when requesting and/or supplying
services or information from/to us or third parties;
- Information that you provide to us when you
write to us (including by email);
- Information that you provide to us when we
speak to you by telephone. We may make and keep a record of
the information you share with us;
- Information that you provide to us by
completing surveys or participating in or attending events.
We may 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 Our Site 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;
- Information obtained by us from third parties
in accordance with the Act; and
- Information that you provide to us as part of
any application for funding or funding agreement.
IP addresses and cookies
We may collect information about your
computer, including where available your IP address, operating
system and browser type, for the operation of the service and for
system administration. This is statistical data about our
users' browsing actions and patterns, and does not identify any
individual.
For the same reason, we may obtain information
about your general internet usage by using a cookie file which is
stored on the hard drive of your computer. Cookies contain
information that is transferred to your computer's hard
drive. They help us to improve Our Site and to deliver a
better and more personalised service. They enable us:
- To estimate our audience size and usage
pattern;
- To store information about your preferences,
and so allow us to customise Our Site according to your individual
interests;
- To speed up your searches; and
- To recognise you when you return to Our
Site.
You may refuse to accept cookies by activating
the setting on your browser which allows you to refuse the setting
of cookies. However, if you select this setting you may be
unable to access certain parts of Our Site. Unless you have
adjusted your browser setting so that it will refuse cookies, our
system may issue cookies when you log on to or visit Our
Site. Please note that our advertisers may also use cookies,
over which we have no control.
Where we store and process your personal
data
The data that we collect from you may be
transferred to, and stored at, a destination inside or outside the
European Economic Area ("EEA"). It may also be processed by
staff operating inside or outside the EEA who work for us or for
one of our suppliers. Such staff may be engaged in, among
other things, the provision of support services. By
submitting your personal data, you agree to this transfer, storing
and/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 via email or
Our Site is stored on our secure servers or the secure servers of
third parties authorised by us.
Where we have given you (or where you have
chosen) a password which enables you to access certain parts of Our
Site, you are responsible for keeping this password
confidential. We ask you not to share your password with
anyone.
Unfortunately, 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 Site; any transmission is
at your own risk. Once we have received your information, we
will use procedures and security features to try to prevent
unauthorised access.
Uses made of the information
We may use information held about you in the
following ways:
- To ensure that content from Our Site is
presented in the most effective manner for you and for your
computer;
- To allow you to participate in interactive
features of Our Site, when you choose to do so;
- To notify you about changes to Our Site
and/or to our service;
- To provide you with information, products or
services that you request from us, where you have consented to be
contacted for such purposes; and
- To carry out our obligations and policy
objectives and enforce our rights arising from any contracts
entered into between you and us.
We may from time to time be asked to pass your
personal information to Government departments or agencies to
enable them to carry out audits and/or research in respect of the
South West RDA and its activities.
We may also use your data, and/or permit
selected third parties to use your data, to provide you with
information about goods and services which may be of interest to
you and we and/or they may contact you about these. We and/or
any third party that we permit to use your data, will only contact
you by electronic means to provide you with information about goods
and services which may be of interest to you if you have consented
to this.
If you do not want us to use your data in one
or more of the ways mentioned above, or to pass your details on to
third parties for marketing purposes, please let us know.
We will not sell your data on to any third
party.
Disclosure of your information
We may disclose your personal information to
third parties:
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 other agreements; or to protect the
rights, property, or safety of us, our customers, or others.
This includes exchanging information with other companies and
organisations, such as credit reference agencies and fraud
prevention agencies, for the purposes of fraud protection and
prevention, credit risk reduction and to pursue debtors;
If we use a third party to host the servers on
which your personal information is stored; and
In any other manner mentioned elsewhere in
this policy.
Your rights
You have the right to ask us not to process
your personal data for marketing purposes. We will usually
inform you (before collecting your data) if we intend to use your
data for such purposes, or if we intend to disclose your
information to any third party for such purposes. You can
exercise your right to prevent such processing by contacting us at
any time using the contact details at the bottom of this page.
Our Site may, from time to time, contain links
to and from the websites of our partner networks, affiliates and
other third parties. If you follow a link to any of these
websites, please note that these websites should have their own
privacy policies and we do not accept any responsibility or
liability for these policies or the content or operation of these
websites. Please check these policies and the terms of the
websites before you submit any personal data to these websites.
Access to information
The Act gives you the right to access certain
information held by us about you. Your right of access can be
exercised in accordance with the Act. Any access request may
be subject to a fee of £10 to meet our costs in providing you with
details of the information we hold about you.
We want to make sure that your personal data
is accurate and up to date. You may ask us to correct or remove
information you think is inaccurate.
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,
may be notified to you by e-mail. Therefore, we advise you to
revisit this page regularly.
Contact
Questions, comments and requests regarding
this privacy policy are welcomed and should be addressed to:
Knowledge and Information Manager
South West RDA
Sterling House
Dix’s Field
Exeter
Devon
EX1 1QA
England
Tel: +44 (0)1392 214747
Fax: +44 (0)1392 214848
Email: enquiries@southwestrda.org.uk.