Privacy and Cookies Policy

The Customs House is committed to protecting your privacy. The information you provide will be handling in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998, Privacy and Electronic Community Regulations 2003 and General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Who are we?

The Customs House offers arts and entertainment for all, serving the residents of South Tyneside and beyond with a varied programme of live performance, cinema, visual arts and projects for children and young people.

The Customs House is an independent Charity Registered in England and Wales number 1032846, and a company limited by guarantee registered in England and Wales number 2848282.

We aim to be clear when we collect your data and not do anything you wouldn’t reasonably expect. Developing a better understanding of our customers and supporters through their personal data allows us to make better decisions about shows and programming, fundraise more efficiently and ultimately, helps us to reach our goal of bringing entertainment and inspiration to South Tyneside and the North East by providing a diverse programme of the highest quality live events, art, cinema, and workshops.

This privacy policy sets out the ways in which we use your data and how you can hold us answerable for that.

What information do we collect?

You give us your information when you buy a ticket via our website, by phone or over the counter, by signing up for one of our other events, by updating your preferences on our website, by making a donation, or by communicating with us. We also keep your details when you sign up to receive emails from us. The information we hold about you may include:

• Name, title, date of birth and gender
• Information about race and ethnicity
• Contact information including postal address, email address and phone numbers
• Access requirements (for example if you require BSL interpretation or wheelchair access) and whether you have a disability
• Other background personal information relevant to particular projects that we are organising.

We maintain a record of your transaction history, but we never store your payment card number (although we keep a note of the last four digits to help us identify transactions). We keep a record of the emails we send you, and we may track whether you receive or open them so we can make sure we are sending you the most relevant information. We may then track any subsequent actions online, such as buying a ticket.

How do we collect data?

You provide us with your personal information to:

• Provide you with the show tickets or respond to information you have asked for
• Contact you if there are any important changes to your booking
• Administer your ticket sale or donation, including processing gift aid
• Keep a record of your relationship with us – such as Friend, Custodian
• Ensure we know how you prefer to be contacted

We occasionally undertake customer research to help:

• When you attend one of our shows
• When signing up for our electronic newsletter via our website
• When you sign up for an activity via our booking email address or via our booking telephone line

We maintain a record of emails we send you and may track whether you receive or open them.

When visiting our website we use ‘cookies’ to help make our website better. Cookies means that a website can remember you and your preferences. It also helps us understand how visitors to the website move through the site enabling us to make improvements. We also receive information from external sources which enables us to better understand our audiences (i.e. Audience Agency).

How Do We Use Your Data

If there is any important change to your booking we will contact you. This information, alongside your purchase and/or donation history, is used to select and inform you of other relevant events or activities we think may be of interest to you, as well as opportunities to support our work as an arts charity.

We also use the information we collect to:

• Keep and maintain internal records
• Improve our projects and activities
• Contact you with details of activities and projects you might be interested (if consented).

On occasion we may record film, photographs and audio for use on our website, social media accounts and other formats. When your images are being used in a prominent way we will obtain specific consent for this purpose, but not for group shots, background inclusion or internal use.

How long do we keep your personal data?

We store your personal information indefinitely. This enables us to ensure that you have a single unique record with us. This information is used for historical, statistical or research purposes. Consent to hold the data can be withdrawn at any time. You have the right to request us to erase personal data.

Is my personal data safe?

We are committed to ensuring that the information you provide is safe and secure. We have appropriate physical and electronic systems and procedures in place to keep your personal data secure. We maintain a customer relationship management (CRM) system to hold contact details and a record of your involvement in our activities.

We ensure that everyone managing and handling your personal data understands good data protection procedures and is appropriate trained and supervised. Your data will only be accessed by people who need it to do their job.

Do you share my personal data?

We will not share any of your personal details with any other third parties without your agreement, unless required in order to fulfil our contract with you, or allowed by law. In general, the third-party providers used by us to fulfil our contract with you will only collect, use and disclose your  information to the extent necessary to allow them to perform the services they provide to us. These providers include our Ticketing System provider, email distribution service and mailing house. We have agreements in place with each to ensure that your data is secure at all times, and cannot be accessed or used for any other purpose. We may disclose your details to a third party under the following circumstances:

• If we deliver an event in partnership with another named organisation so that they can help us run the event (in these instance we will ensure that these providers comply with our instructions and data protection laws)
• To service providers who process data on our behalf and on our instructions i.e. our external evaluators (in these instance we will ensure that these providers comply with our instructions and data protection laws)
• In order to comply with a legal obligation to do so.
• To funding bodies, including Arts Council England, this information is anonymised and does not identify you as an individual

When booking a ticket you may be given the choice to also hear from the artistic company you have booked to see. Under these circumstances and only with your consent we will pass your data to the relevant company and they will be in touch with you to communicate their own Privacy and Data Policy. Should you then wish not to hear from them, please get in touch with them direct.

How do I change my marketing preferences?

If you decide you no longer want to receive communications from us letting you know about upcoming activities and developments, you can contact us and change your preferences.

Changes to this policy

We may change this Privacy Policy from time to time. If we make any significant changes in the way we treat your personal information we will make this clear on our website or by contacting you directly.

What rights do I have?

Under the Data Protection Act you have the following rights:

• To obtain access to, and copies of, the personal data that we hold about you
• To ask that we cease processing your personal data if the processing is causing you damage or distress
• To ask that we do not to send you marketing communications
• Once the GDPR takes effect in May 2018, you will also have the following additional rights:
• To ask us to correct the personal data we hold about you if it is incorrect
• To request a copy of personal information held about you
• To ask us to erase your personal data
• To ask us to restrict our data processing activities (and, where our processing is based on your consent, you may withdraw that consent, without affecting the lawfulness of our processing based on consent before its withdrawal)
• To request us to stop processing your personal data
• To receive from us the personal data we hold about you which you have provided to us, in a reasonable format specified by you, including for the purpose of you transmitting that personal data to another data controller
• The right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office or Fundraising Regulator

Please note that the above rights are not absolute, and we may be entitled to refuse requests where exceptions apply.

Cookies

Our website uses cookies which are small text files that originate from us and are stored on your computer or website server. They do not retrieve information about you that is stored on your hard drive and do not corrupt or damage your computer or computer files. They help us identify website visitor behaviour and visitors’ particular preferences. The below explains the cookies we use and why.

Google Analytics: 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 visited.

Most web browsers allow some control of most cookies through the browser settings. To find out more about cookies, including how to see what cookies have been set and how to manage and delete them, visit www.allaboutcookies.org. To opt out of being tracked by Google Analytics across all websites visit http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.

Credit / Debit Card details

The Customs House will never ask for card details and request that you do not enter it on any of the forms on the The Customs House.

External Sites

The Customs House is not responsible for the content of external internet sites. You are advised to read the privacy policy of external sites before disclosing any personal information.

Remember The Risks Whenever You Use The Internet

While we do our best to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee the security of any information that you transmit to The Customs House and you are solely responsible for maintaining the secrecy of any passwords or other account information. In addition other Internet sites or services that may be accessible through The Customs House have separate data and privacy practices independent of us, and therefore we disclaim any responsibility or liability for their policies or actions. Please contact those vendors and others directly if you have any questions about their privacy policies.

Contact Us

Please contact us if you have any questions about your data promise, or wish to be removed from any communications or data processing activities:

Email us on: [email protected]

Or write to us at:

Marketing Department, The Customs House, Mill Dam, South Shields. NE33 1ES