Privacy Policy

When you use The Forum Music Centre services, you trust us with your information. We will use the information that we collect about you in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulation 2018 and the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003.

This Privacy Policy is meant to help you understand what data we collect, why we collect it, and what we do with it.

Purpose of policy
We are committed to protecting your personal information and being transparent about what information we hold about you.
Using personal information allows us to develop a better understanding of our customers and in turn to provide you with relevant information about what’s happening at The Forum.

We use your information in accordance with all applicable laws concerning the protection of personal information. This policy explains:

• What information we may collect about you
• How we may use that information
• In what situations we may disclose your details to third parties
• Our use of cookies to improve your use of our website
• Information about how we keep your personal information secure, how we maintain it for and your rights to be able to access it.

Who we are
The Forum Music Centre is operated by The Forum Music Studios.
The Forum Music Studios is a not for profit social enterprise that aims to provide trusted environments with strong infrastructure and a vibrant atmosphere where people will be inspired and encouraged to engage with music and the arts through participation in a range of social, education, enterprise or entertainment activities. It operates a sustainable business model based on the provision of services, activities and events. As a Social Enterprise it is guided by a strong social responsibility and purpose.

Information collection
We collect various types of information and in a number of ways:

• Information you give us For example when you register on our website or buy tickets we’ll store personal information you give us such as your name, email address, postal address and telephone number. We will also store a record of your ticket purchases too.
• Information about your interactions with us For example, when you visit our website, we collect information about how you interact with our content. When we send you a mailing we store a record of this, and in the case of emails we keep a record of which ones you have opened and which links you have clicked on.
• Information from third parties We occasionally receive information about you from third parties. For example, we may use third party research companies to provide general information about you, compiled using publicly available data.
• Sensitive personal data Data Protection law recognises that certain categories of personal information are more sensitive such as health information, race, religious beliefs and political opinions. We do not collect this type of information about our patrons unless there is a clear reason for doing so.

Legal basis
There are three bases under which we may process your data:
• Contract purposes When you make a purchase from us you are entering into a contract with us. In order to perform this contract we need to process and store your data. For example we may need to contact you by email or telephone in the case of cancellation of a show, or in the case of problems with your payment.
• Legitimate business interests In certain situations we collect and process your personal data for purposes that we consider to be in our legitimate organisational interests and we think may be of interest to you. However we only do this if there is no overriding prejudice to you by using your personal information in this way. We describe below all situations where we may use this basis for processing.
• With your explicit consent For any situations where the two bases above are not appropriate, we will instead ask for your explicit consent before using your personal information in that specific situation.

Marketing Communications
We aim to communicate with you about the events that we host in ways that you find relevant, timely and respectful. To do this we use data that we have stored about you, such as which events you have booked for in the past, as well as any preferences you may have told us about.
We use our legitimate organisational interest as the legal basis for communications by email. For email marketing we will ask you to opt in of receiving them during your first purchase with us. If you already receive email marketing from us then we will provide you with an option to unsubscribe in every email that we subsequently send you, or you can alternatively use the contact details at the end of this policy.

Other processing activities
In addition to marketing communications, we also process personal information in the following ways that are within our legitimate organisational interests:

• We may analyse data we hold about you to ensure that the content and timing of communications that we send you are as relevant to you as possible.
• We may analyse data we hold about you in order to identify and prevent fraud.
• In order to improve our website we may analyse information about how you use it and the content that you interact with.

In all of the above cases we will always keep your rights and interests at the forefront to ensure they are not overridden by your own interests or fundamental rights and freedoms. You have the right to object to any of this processing at any time. If you wish to do this, please use the contact details at the end of this policy. Please bear in mind that if you object this may affect our ability to carry out tasks above that are for your benefit.

Third parties
The Forum Music Studios does not sell, trade, lease or rent your personal information to others.
There are certain circumstances under which we may disclose your personal information to third parties. These are as follows:
• To our own service providers who process data on our behalf and on our instructions (for example our ticketing system software provider). In these cases we require that these third parties comply strictly with our instructions and with data protection laws, for example around security of personal data.
• Where we are under a duty to disclose your personal information in order to comply with any legal obligation (for example to government bodies and law enforcement agencies).
• To funding bodies, particularly Arts Council England, who may use anonymised personal information to analyse our audience development programmes, ticket sales and self-generated funding to understand the impact of the public investment made in The Forum Music Centre
• To specific named visiting companies whose performances you have attended. In these cases we will always ask for your explicit consent before doing so.

Our website may contain links to and from the websites of other organisations. If you follow a link to any of these websites, please note that these websites have their own privacy policies and that we do not accept any responsibility or liability for these policies. Please check these policies before you submit any personal data to these websites.

Cookies
Cookies are small text files that are automatically placed onto your device by some websites that you visit. They are widely used to allow a website to function (for example to keep track of your basket) as well to provide website operators with information on how the site is being used.
We use cookies to keep track of your basket as well as to identify how the website is being used and what improvements we can make.

Your payment card information
If you use your credit or debit card to purchase from us we will ensure that this is carried out securely and in accordance with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS).

Maintaining your personal information
We store your personal information indefinitely such that for any subsequent purchases you make we are able to link them back to a single unique record that we hold for you on our system. Any objections you make to any processing of your data will be stored against your record on our system so that we can comply with your requests.

Security of your personal information
We will put in place appropriate safeguards (both in terms of our procedures and the technology we use) to keep your personal information as secure as possible. We will ensure that any third parties we use for processing your personal information do the same.

Your rights to your personal information
You have a right to request a copy of the personal information that we hold about you and to have any inaccuracies in this data corrected. Please use the contact details at the end of this policy if you would like to exercise this right.

How long do we keep your information?
We may retain information for a period of seven years after your association with us has come to an end. Some information may be retained indefinitely for historical, statistical or research purposes. As stated below, you have the right to require us to erase personal data.

Your rights
You have the following rights related to your personal data:

• The right to request a copy of personal information held about you (which we will provide within one month of the date of request, free of charge, unless the request is repetitive, unfounded or excessive)
• The right to request that inaccuracies be corrected
• The right to request us to stop processing your personal data
• The right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office
• The right to have your data erased (which we will do within one month of the date of request)

Changes to Our Privacy Policy
We may update review and update this policy. This version was adopted on 19/5/2018.

How to contact us
If you have any questions about any aspect of this privacy policy, and in particular if you would wish to be removed from any communications or data processing activities that we carry out for our legitimate organisational interests, please get in touch with us either:

• By email using the Contact Us Form
• By post at: The Forum Music Centre, Borough Road, Darlington, DL1 1SG
• By calling the box office on 01325 363135