Who are we?
We are a digital publisher, known as Dorset Online.
In this Privacy Notice, when we refer to any of our Sites we mean any website or app, including e-editions, published by our various subsidiary companies and brands, listed here (“Dorset Online” or “we”), regardless of how you access it.
About this notice
This is the main privacy notice for Dorset Online. It applies to all our Sites, and brands, but some of them may publish additional or alternative notices, in which case those take precedence.
In summary, depending on your relationship with us, we’ll use your personal information:
- As needed to provide our products and services, for example to administer subscriptions, take orders and ad placements and handle customer service queries
- To provide the interactive features of our Sites, such as commenting, discussion forums and competitions
- To display advertising on our websites that is more likely to be relevant to you, and to participate in online advertising networks by sharing information about the kinds of people who visit our Sites, in order to help us to fund those Sites and keep the majority of them free to access. Information gathered in this way does not identify you by name.
- To manage our business and to comply with the law.
This Privacy Notice, which covers all of your personal information whether collected online or offline, including by telephone or where you write to us, together with our Cookie Notice and any Site-specific notice, provides more detail on those activities and explains your rights and how to exercise them.
For all of our Sites, and brands, either Dorset Online or one of its subsidiary companies is the data controller of the personal information that we gather about you. Regardless of which Dorset Online company is the controller, you can always contact us with questions or concerns about your privacy by emailing us at [email protected].
Types of information we process
Information that we collect and process about you includes:
- Personal and contact details you have provided to us, such as your name, email address or postal address, for example when you register on a Site or to receive a newsletter, enter a sales promotion or competition, or at an event, or where you have agreed to receive marketing materials from us or third parties;
- Information you have provided when you obtain products or services from us or enquire about those products or services;
- Information included in any communications between us or which you provide in any post on any Site or any information collected when you participate in any poll or quiz or obtained via social media or which is publicly available;
- Information about your use of third party products or services or from third parties who we may use to operate certain aspects of our business;
- Information obtained if we carry out a credit search at a credit search referencing agency;
- Information we buy or obtain from third parties, including marketing lists; and
- We also collect information from cookies on your devices and this includes information about your IP address, MAC address and other identifying information, information about your devices, including your location, from third party advertising networks and how you use our products and services.
Use of your information
We want to offer you products and services which you want to use. We may use and permit others to use your personal data as set out below.
We may use information about you to provide and manage the products and services you have subscribed to or purchased, to help us customise our products or services for you, to personalise your visits to our Sites, to help us to choose products and services we think will interest you, for market research and to improve the usefulness of our Sites, products and services.
We also use your personal data to contact you, including to notify you about changes and updates to products or services, to evaluate the performance of our products and services and to develop new products and services.
We may use your information for the management of our business and improving the operation of our business and that of our business partners, to assess our internal processes and carry out financial checks.
We may monitor, record and store records of calls, email, text messages, social media messages, in person meetings and other communications where permitted by law and we’ll do this where the law requires it, or to comply with regulatory rules, to prevent or detect crime, for evidential purposes, in the interests of protecting the security of our communications systems and procedures and for quality control and staff training purposes.
We may use your data to comply with legal and regulatory obligations.
We may make use of your personal information for direct marketing activities, or supply this information to third parties for their direct marketing activities, with your consent or as permitted by law. By direct marketing activities, we mean the communication directly to particular individuals (by e-mail, post or telephone) of any advertising or marketing material.
Where we’re relying upon your consent to process personal data, you can withdraw this at any time by contacting us at [email protected]
Information about you helps us sell advertising to businesses of products and services relevant to you so that we can continue to fund these through advertising and you can continue to use the majority of our websites for free.
We may analyse your data, including whether or not you open a newsletter or click on links, and analyse data, gathered through our websites and advertising partners, including by analysing your data in aggregated form into categories (known as segments), to help target offers to you that we think are of interest or relevance to you.
If you log-in to our sites using social media, for example, Facebook, Google+, Twitter or similar social media platforms, you are granting permission to the social media platform to share your user details with us. This will include your name and email address which will then be used to form a user identity.
If you send us a picture, or video, for publication you confirm that you have the consent of all of the people in the picture or video. If the picture, or video, features a child, or children, you confirm that you are the the parent or guardian of the child, or children, and have the legal right to grant consent (or the parent or guardian of the child, or children, has granted such consent).
If you enter a competition, any personal information that you share with us will be kept secure and only used in line with the relevant terms and conditions of the competition unless you have opted-in to future marketing from Dorset Online and/or the supplier.
Who we share your data with
We share information as needed with our third party service providers as part of providing and administering our products and services or operating our business or as set out below.
We will disclose your information and co-operate with appropriate bodies and authorities in good faith where we are required to by law, a court order, a regulatory authority, or otherwise, including with the police, trading standards, regulatory authorities or other relevant authorities.
We may share information about you with credit reference agencies.
We may also share information to facilitate the sale of one or more parts of our business, including if we are approached by a potential buyer or the restructuring of one or more parts of our business.
Cookies
We collect information about you automatically when you visit our Sites by using cookies (small text files) and other tracking technology.
Cookies are small data files sent from a website to your web browser. They are stored in your web browser’s cache and allow a website or a third party to recognise your browser or mobile device. Mobile devices and browsers can be shared by a number of people, so cookies are not always wholly related to individuals.
Most web browsers will allow you to turn off cookies. You should look at your web browsers Settings or Help menu to find out how this is done. However, please be aware that switching off cookies may affect the way the Site operates and adversely affect the quality of your experience on the website.
You can also click on the AdChoices logo that you will see in the corner of advertisements that carry behavioural targeting cookies (see Advertising Cookies above) and click on the link to control the settings Google uses to show you adverts https://adssettings.google.com/authenticated.
When using a mobile device, you can opt-out of receiving interest based advertising by selecting ‘Limit Ad Tracking’ in the Settings of your Apple iPhone or iPad, or the “Opt out of Ads Personalisation” in the Google Settings on your Android device. You may also be able to reset the unique identifier that Google uses for online behaviour based advertising (referred to as an “Advertising ID”) in the Settings on your Apple or Android device.
Transfers outside of Europe
We’re based in the UK but sometimes your personal information may be transferred outside the European Economic Area. If we do so we’ll make sure that suitable safeguards are in place, for example by using approved contractual agreements, unless certain exceptions apply. We can provide more information about this on request.
How long do we keep data for
In general, we keep your personal information for as long as we need it for the purpose for which it was collected, plus a short additional period in case of problems. How long we keep it therefore varies according to the type of information it is and why we have it, and will range from a few days or weeks to, in some cases, several years. We have established a full data retention policy, and can provide further information on request.
Changes to this notice
Any changes to this Privacy Notice will be posted here and such changes will become effective as soon as they are posted. Your continued use of the relevant Site constitutes notice to you of all these changes.
If you have any questions about this privacy notice, or if you wish to exercise your rights you email us at [email protected].
