Privacy Policy and Cookie Usage

The Society of Merchant Venturers (SMV) is committed to protecting any personal data you share with us, or that we receive from other organisations, and keeping it safe. This policy explains when and why we collect personal information, how we use it, the conditions under which we may disclose it to others and how we keep it secure.

This policy governs all pages hosted by www.merchantventurers.com. It does not apply to pages hosted by other organisations to which we may link and whose privacy policies may differ.

For the purpose of the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA) and the General Data Protection Regulation 2018 (GDPR), the data controller is The Society of Merchant Venturers.

Any questions regarding this policy should be sent to enquiries@merchantventurers.com or in writing to The Society of Merchant Venturers, Merchants’ Hall, The Promenade, Bristol BS8 3NH.

SMV may occasionally change this policy by updating this page. You should check this page from time to time to ensure that you are happy with any changes. This policy is effective from May 2018. By using our website, you are agreeing to be bound by this policy.

How do we collect information from you?
We obtain information about you when you use our website or liaise directly with the executive office, for example when you:
• Enquire about our activities
• Enquire about Hall hire
• Apply online for a grant, including any follow-up related communications
• Apply for a job vacancy
• Attend events organised by SMV

We may collect information in the public domain. Examples include information gathered from a news article or online media, including social media such as LinkedIn or Twitter. We may also use publicly available directories and similar information such as Companies House. We may also receive information about you from third parties.

What type of information is collected from you?
The personal information we collect might include your name, address, email address, telephone number, IP address and information regarding which website pages are accessed and when.

We process your information when you:
• Complete an online enquiry form
• Apply for a grant
• Complete a grant monitoring form
• Apply for a job vacancy

We will keep the data for as long as it is needed to complete the task for which it was collected.

How is your information used?
We may use your information to:
• Send you communications which you have requested that may be of interest to you
• Process a grant or job application
• Provide you with the Hall hire services or information that you have requested
• Keep a record of your relationship with us
• Provide you with information on grant applications

We collect the information described below in order to solicit and process applications for grants from the Charity Sub-Committee:
• Name and address, email, phone number and other relevant contact details and preferences
• Purpose and details about an application for a grant
• Any other information needed for the assessment, and if successful, processing of a grant which may include financial, education and employment information
• Details about any grant which was made
• Information about our relationship with you, correspondence, meeting notes, attendance at events etc.

Who has access?
You have the right to ask for a copy of the information we hold about you and to have inaccuracies in your information corrected.

We will not sell or rent your information to third parties.

We will not share your information with third parties for marketing purposes.

We will only disclose your information should we be required to do so by law.

Security of your data
Non-sensitive details (your email address etc.) when transmitted normally over the internet cannot be guaranteed to be 100% secure. Whilst we take all possible means to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee the security of any information you transmit electronically to us and you do so at your own risk.

We keep your data secure in our database with appropriate security mechanisms in place.

In principle, we do not share your data with anyone else or any other organisation unless it is necessary for the purpose for which you have given us the data. Examples are given below:
• We will share information on grant applicants with the Charity Sub-Committee members. These are members of SMV.
• We may share basic information on the attendees at an event, function or meeting with the host or other person who is a member of SMV

Our responsibilities
The law requires us to tell you the basis on which we process your data.

Some activities (e.g. sending you emails) require your consent. If the law requires your consent to process data in a certain way then we will obtain it before carrying out that activity.

Other activities are carried out to fulfil a contract or agreement.

In all other cases the law allows us to process your data if it is in our legitimate interest to do so, but only so long as we need to and your “interests or your fundamental rights and freedoms are not overriding”. Practically speaking, this means we carry out an exercise to check that we will not cause you harm by processing your data, that the data is not overly intrusive and that we will only do so in a way which is described in this privacy notice.

Your rights
The law requires us to tell you that you have a variety of rights about the way we process your data. These are as follows:
• Where our use of your data requires your consent, you may withdraw this consent at any time
• Where we rely on our legitimate interest to process data, you may ask us to stop doing so
• You may request a copy of the data we hold about you
• You may change or stop the way in which we communicate with you or process data about you

If you are not satisfied with the way we have processed your data then you can complain to the Office of the Information Commissioner.

Links to other websites
Our website may contain links to other websites of interest. However, once you have used these links to leave our site, you should note that we do not have any control over that other website. Therefore, we cannot be responsible for the protection and privacy of any information which you provide whilst visiting such sites which are not governed by this privacy statement. You should exercise caution and look at the privacy statement applicable to the website in question.

Use of ‘cookies’
Like many other websites, the SMV website uses cookies. ‘Cookies’ are small pieces of information sent by an organisation to your computer and stored on your hard drive to allow that website to recognise you when you visit. They collect statistical data about your browsing actions and patterns and do not identify you as an individual.

It is possible to switch off cookies by setting your browser preferences. Turning cookies off may result in a loss of functionality when using our website.

Contacting us
If you have any questions about this privacy notice, about the way in which we process your data, or if you wish to change the way we use your data including, how we communicate with you, then please contact us:

The Society of Merchant Venturers, Merchants’ Hall, The Promenade, Bristol BS8 3NH
T: 0117 973 8058
E: enquiries@merchantventurers.com

Review of this policy
We keep this policy under regular review. This policy was last updated in May 2018.