Privacy Policy
Somerset Chamber of Commerce take protecting your privacy extremely seriously. It’s important to us that you trust us with your personal information, so we want to make you aware of what information we hold about you and how we collect, store and process it to provide our services to you.
Please read this privacy policy carefully. If you have any questions about this policy or what we do with your personal information, please contact us and we’ll be happy to advise further.
What personal information do we collect?
The information we collect from you will depend on the service you have requested from us. This information may include your full name, business email address, business telephone number, business name, physical business address and website address.
What do we use your personal information for?
We will process the information that you provide to us in the following ways for the purpose of (and on the basis of) providing the services we have been engaged to deliver to you:
- to contact you about events we are organising
- to send you a copy of Somerset Voice magazine by post
- to provide you with regular updates on topics relevant to the services we are providing
- where you have consented to us doing so, to provide you with further information about Somerset Chamber of Commerce and other services.
How do we protect your personal information?
We aim to protect your personal information in the following ways:
- keeping information up to date, primarily through regular contact with you
- storing information in secure locations, including information stored electronically
- destroying information which is no longer relevant, unless we have a legitimate reason or statutory obligation to retain it
- minimising, wherever practicable, the number of staff or third parties who have access to your information.
How long do we keep your personal information?
Wherever practicable, we will retain your personal information for no longer than is necessary; however, there are circumstances in which we will keep your information for longer, including;
- where we have a statutory or regulatory obligation to retain the information (we are required to keep certain information for specified minimum periods, and in some cases indefinitely, depending on the services we provide)
- to ensure our business is properly run in an efficient and compliant manner.
Who else has access to your personal information?
In order to provide you with the services that you have requested from us, there are a number of third parties who may also need to process your personal information:
- Brook Financial Management
- Quest
- Character Graphics
- Growth Zone (Chamber Master)
- MailChimp
- The British Chambers of Commerce. The Chamber is part of a network of 53 Chambers of Commerce across the UK accredited by the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC). One purpose of the Chamber is to “influence the function of …any governmental body”. This objective is stated in the Chamber’s ‘Articles of Association’. We will provide BCC with your company’s email address in order for BCC to conduct research into the impact of policies on your business.
- What does the BCC do with your data? BCC will not contact your business for any other purpose other than to notify you of an opportunity to respond to a national policy survey. Each year, BCC conducts around five surveys which directly help us develop and shape Government policy across a range of areas, including business taxation, international trade, and employment conditions. The data from these surveys are completely anonymised and aggregated so that individual responses cannot be identified. The anonymised data are then presented in closed briefings with stakeholders across UK Government, and shared publicly through BCC’s press team.
- The purpose of carrying out the surveys is to produce reports, which BCC and the Chambers can then use in their activities in promoting and protecting the interests of UK businesses; in other words, they are part and parcel of the function and purpose of BCC and the Chamber.
- You can contact us if you do not wish to be contacted by BCC, and you will have the opportunity to unsubscribe from BCC’s research mailing list at any point. If your or your parent company’s membership of a local Chamber has lapsed, the BCC may continue to contact you about opportunities to respond to business surveys. You can choose to opt in or out of further contact with the BCC.
As the requirements of Somerset Chamber of Commerce change, we may need to change the third parties who process your information to meet those requirements.
In some cases, third parties may be based outside of the European Economic Area (EEA); however, Somerset Chamber will always ensure these third parties operate as if they were based inside the EEA in terms of data protection as part of our due diligence.
Accessing your personal information
You have the following rights regarding your personal information:
- to make a request to see the personal information we hold about you
- to change/update the personal information we hold about you
- to ask us to erase the personal information we hold about you, unless there is a statutory, regulatory or otherwise legitimate reason for us not to comply (we will always provide you with more details about your rights in our response to your request)
- to ask us to provide you or a third party with the personal information we hold about you.
If you wish to exercise any of your rights regarding your personal information we hold about you, contact us by email on manager@somerset-chamber.co.uk
IP addresses and server logs
This site records IP addresses and produces server logs. This information is used solely for monitoring the volume of traffic the site receives and measuring the number of visitors. We do not use the information for tracking the activities of individual visitors to this site.
Use of cookies by this website
Cookies are small text files that are placed on your computer by websites that you visit. They are widely used in order to make websites work, or work more efficiently, as well as to provide information to the owners of the site. Any cookies that may be used by this website are used either solely on a per session basis or to maintain user preferences. Cookies are not shared with any third parties.
PHPSESSID
This is an essential temporary cookie used to store data about your visit and any choices you make or data you enter. This cookie is deleted when you close your browser.
Google Analytics cookies ( _utma, _utmb, _utmv, _utmz)
These cookies are used to collect information about how visitors use our site. We use the information to compile reports and to help us improve the site. The cookies collect information in an anonymous form, including the number of visitors to the site, where visitors have come to the site from and the pages they visit. Read the Google Analytics privacy policy
Applicable law
This website and the use of it is governed by English law and English courts shall have exclusive jurisdiction over any related disputes.
Terms and Conditions can be found here: https://www.somerset-chamber.co.uk/terms-conditions/
Details of our full Data Protection Policy can be found here: https://www.somerset-chamber.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/Data-Protection-Policy.pdf
