BACKGROUND

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Your privacy is extremely important to us.

This Privacy Policy describes how your personal information is collected, used, and shared by CONNECT. 
In opting to use one or more of the CONNECT websites [“the Sites”} and/or provide personal information to us, you agree to our collection and use of your information - as described in this Policy - until you inform us otherwise.  If you have any questions concerning your Personal Information and how we collect, use or look after it, please contact our Information Officer either by using the online CONTACT form or by email.

 

OUR PROMISE

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As well as having a legal obligation to protect your privacy, we are genuinely committed to protecting your privacy.  We treat all the information that we collect and that you give us with great care.
We make every endeavour to comply fully with the Data Protection Act 1998, the Privacy and Electronic Communications [EC Directive] Regulations 2003 and other relevant legislation, including the EU General Data Protection Regulation [GDPR].

We promise to do our utmost to:

Be clear about why we need to collect your personal information and what we use it for;

Make it as easy as possible for you to tell us how you would like us to keep in touch with you;

Only collect the information we need to make sure we deliver the best service to you.

We promise to never:

Sell, give, exchange or share your personal information to any other organisation for the purposes of marketing.

We promise to always:

Take good care of your personal information, and make sure it is up to date, safe and secure at all times;

Make sure that any suppliers or partners who carry out work on our behalf meet the same high standards that we adhere to when handling your personal information.

In short, we care for your personal data as if it were our own.
 

PERSONAL INFORMATION WE COLLECT

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When you visit the Sites, we may automatically collect certain information about your device. This includes information about your web browser, IP address, time zone, and some of the cookies that are installed on your device.

Additionally, as you browse the Sites, we may collect information about the individual web pages or products that you view, what websites or search terms referred you to the Sites, and information about how you interact with the Sites.

We refer to this automatically-collected information as “Device Information”.

We collect Device Information using the following technologies:

     “Cookies” are data files that are placed on your device or computer through your Web browser and often include an anonymous unique identifier.  They enable our systems to recognise your browser and so provide, from time to time, features that it might not otherwise be possible to offer to you.

Cookies can be disabled.  For more information about cookies and about how to disable selected cookies, visit https://www.allaboutcookies.org.

    “Log files”

track actions occurring on the Sites, and collect data including your IP address, browser type, Internet service provider, referring/exit pages, and date/time stamps.

    “Web beacons”, “tags”, and “pixels”

are electronic files used to record information about how you browse the Sites.

When you carry out certain activities – such as subscribing to receive our email newsletters [which we refer to as joining our Mailing List/s], we collect certain information from you.  This includes your first name, last name, email address, country of residence and from time to time, other information also.  The same also applies when you change or update your details or communication preferences in relation to our Mailing List/s.

When we talk about “Personal Information” in this Privacy Policy, we are talking about all the above types of information.

 

HOW DO WE COLLECT AND USE YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION?

 

Device Information

We collect Device Information by working with third parties.  These include our website provider.  Currently, the Sites are hosted on the Wix.com platform.  Additionally, we may also obtain Device Information by using Google Analytics and applications available through WIX.  Such information includes information about visits to our Sites. 

 

We collect and use this information in order to:

enable us to improve the way in we fulfil our aims, by better understanding how people use the Sites;

screen for potential risk and fraud [in particular, your IP address];

and more generally, to improve and optimize our Sites [for example, by generating analytics about how our customers browse and interact with the Sites, and to assess the success of our marketing and advertising activities].

Please note that third parties have their own policies regarding how they collect and store information. Their own specific practices are not covered by this Privacy Policy.  You are recommended to refer directly to third parties’ Privacy Policies on their own websites. 

The following links are provided to help you to do so.  Please note, we cannot accept any responsibility for any aspect of these links or the websites to which they lead.

WIX: https://www.wix.com/about/privacy

Google: https://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/privacy/. 

 

Personal information is provided to us by you either by sending a message via the Sites or by a different method, such as email.

We collect and use this information in order to:

enable you to participate in the ways you choose to, including by receiving newsletters;

carry out reasonable administration of your details;

comply with applicable national laws;

more generally, fulfil our aims;

and

in line with the preferences you share with us, provide you with information and/or marketing communications.
 

LAWFUL BASIS FOR OUR USE OF YOUR INFORMATION

 

The lawful bases for processing people’s information are set out in Article 6 of the General Data Protection Regulation [GDPR]. 

The lawful basis we rely on for processing your personal information is:

Consent: you have given clear consent for us to process your personal data for specific purposes. 
Those purposes are:
To send you email updates.

 

SHARING YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

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We do not sell, trade or rent your personal information to anyone else.  We share your Personal Information with third parties to help us to provide our service to you, in the ways that we have described above. 

We may share generic information with advertisers and other reputable parties; for example, we may tell advertisers which areas of the Sites have received the most customer traffic overall, or more specifically, how many customer types have visited certain pages. 

We do not disclose the identifying information of individual users to advertisers or other parties as above.

We may share your Personal Information:

In order to comply with applicable laws and regulations, to respond to any lawful request for information we receive, or to otherwise protect our rights; or

With a supplier or contractor engaged to carry out services on our behalf, such as the handling of financial transactions.  Any Data used by such third parties will be used only to the extent required by them to perform the services that we request. Any use for other purposes is strictly prohibited. Any Data that is processed by third parties must be processed within the terms of this Policy and in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998 and GDPR.  We only work with trusted suppliers who treat your information as respectfully as we do and in accordance with the requirements of the Data Protection Act 1998 and GDPR.

The Sites contains links to other websites. These external sites are outside our control and are not covered by this Privacy Policy. If you access other sites using the links provided, the operators of these sites may collect information from you that will be used by them in accordance with their own privacy policy.

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SECURITY OF YOUR INFORMATION

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We are committed to protecting your privacy and have security measures in place to prevent unauthorised access to and disclosure of your Personal Information.

We will only hold your Personal Information for as long as reasonably necessary to carry out the activities outlined above. Typically this is two years since your last interaction with us, unless you ask that we dispose of your information or we are required to hold it longer for legal or taxation reasons. 

If we dispose of your information, it will always be done securely.

We regularly review our measures to ensure they are as far as reasonably possible up to date and in line with latest developments.  However, data transmitted via the internet or by email cannot be 100% secure. 

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YOUR RIGHTS

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Under data protection law, you have rights including:

Your right of access - You have the right to obtain a copy of the information we hold about you. 
The easiest way to access this information is to request that we provide it.  This is called a Subject Access Request.  The Information Commissioner’s Office [ICO] provides useful information on its website about how to do this. 

You are not required to pay any charge for exercising your right in this regard. 

Please send your subject access request to our Information Officer by email or via the online contact form.

Your right to have incorrect information corrected.

Your right to request that your data be deleted from our records at any time.  The easiest way is to let us know that you no longer wish to be contacted by us.

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COOKIES

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Cookies are involved in the use of many websites and our Sites are no exception. 

You can choose to enable or disable Cookies in your web browser. By default, your browser will accept Cookies, however this can be altered. For further details please consult the help menu in your browser. Disabling Cookies may prevent you from using the full range of Services available on the Sites.

You may delete Cookies, however you may lose any information that enables you to access the Sites more quickly.

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THIRD PARTY COOKIES

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To make it easy for you to use and share our website, we may embed features from other websites such as Facebook, Twitter and certain other relevant sites. Browsing the Sites may place cookies from these third party websites on your computer. We have no control over these cookies, so it is not always possible to list them and they are liable to change without notifying us.

Please note that if we refer to companies, organisations or bodies and enable access to their websites directly from the Sites, each company, organisation or body operates its own policy regarding the use of personal data and cookies. If you have a particular concern about the way your data will be used, you are advised to read the Privacy Statement on the relevant website.

In addition to these policies your personal data is protected in the UK by the current Data Protection Act and GDPR. We will only process any data we hold about you in a lawful and fair manner. We will keep your data securely to prevent unauthorised access by third parties. Your personal data may have to be disclosed if we are required to disclose it by law, or as a result of a lawful request by a governmental or law enforcement authority.

MARKETING AND COMMUNICATIONS

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Whether or not you receive marketing information from us will always be your choice.  You can change your mind at any time, and we will keep your preferences up to date.

We will only contact you for marketing purposes by telephone or text message [SMS] if you have told us we can.

We will only contact you by email if you have told us you would like to hear from us this way, or to let you know about developments. Every email we send you will have a link to enable you unsubscribe if you wish to.

You can also stop any or all of these communications at any time by contacting our Information Officer ​by email or the online contact form.

 

THIRD PARTIES

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We work with third parties, as referred to above, including WIX and Google Analytics.  For example, we use WIX to host and enable our Website.  Additionally, to better fulfil our aims as stated on the Sites, we use applications on WIX, plus Google Analytics to collect non-identifying and aggregate information in order to help us understand how our visitors use the Sites.  
Such third-party services have their own policies regarding how they collect and store information and their practices are not covered by this Privacy Policy.  You can read about how Google uses your Personal Information here: https://www.google.com/intl/en/policies/privacy/.  You can opt-out of Google Analytics here: https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.

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HOW TO COMPLAIN

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If you are unhappy about how we have used your data, please complain to our Information using the online Contact form or by email, using Information Officer as the subject.
.If you are still unhappy about how we have used your data after we have responded to your complaint, you can complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office [ICO].

The ICO’s address is:           

Information Commissioner’s Office

Wycliffe House

Water Lane

Wilmslow

Cheshire

SK9 5AF

ICO Helpline number: 0303 123 1113

 

INTERNATIONAL PRIVACY

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The above privacy statement applies to the United Kingdom and may not be applicable in other countries of visitors or users.

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CHANGES

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We will update this privacy policy as we deem necessary from time to time or as may be required by law and in any event no less often than once per year.

Changes will be immediately posted on our website.  You are deemed to have accepted the terms of the updated Policy on your first use of the Sites following the changes.

You have the right to ask us to cease to process your personal details at any time.  If you do so, we will comply as soon as is reasonably possible. 

Please let us know if your details have changed.  

OUR CONTACT DETAILS

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If you have any questions about this policy and your rights regarding our use of your personal information, please contact our Information Officer using the online Contact form or by email, using Information Officer as the subject.

​For broader advice and guidance, please contact the data protection regulator, the Information Commissioner’s Office:

The Information Commissioner

Wycliffe House | Water Lane | Wilmslow | Cheshire | SK9 5AF

Phone Number: 01 625 545 700

 

This Policy was updated:
15 January 2025 [5033]