Privacy Policy

Last updated: November 2022

What is this policy for?

Whenever we need to collect any of your data, we will let you at that point why we need to do so and what it will be used for, but this policy provides a useful overview of all of those situations and provides more detail on how we keep your data secure and up to date, how long we might hold it for, and what your rights are in relation to it.

London City Singers is committed to protecting your personal data and will use any personal or sensitive data we collect from you in line with the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR).

Who's responsible for the data the group collects?

London City Singers is a Data Controller under the GDPR. London City Singers’ Data Protection Officer is Julia Blyth who can be contacted at hello[at]londoncitysingers.co.uk.

What data do we collect and what do we use it for?

London City Singers collects data from individuals to help us plan, organise and run the day-to-day operations of the group (e.g. coordinating rehearsals or collecting subscription payments) and to promote and market the group’s activities (e.g. marketing mailing lists and photography/video capture).

Members: for administering membership

When you join London City Singers as a member, or during your membership with us, we may need to collect some of the following information on you:

• Name 
• Email address
• Phone number
• Address
• Emergency contact details
• Medical information
• Gift Aid declarations
• Age/gender
• Photos/video footage

This data will be used by committee members to manage your membership with London City Singers, and to organise and run our activities.

If you give us your consent to do so, we may also use your contact details to send you marketing/promotional communications from the group.

Any marketing/promotional communication we send you will include a clear option to withdraw your consent (e.g. to ‘opt out’ of future emails) and you can also withdraw consent at any point by contacting the Data Protection Officer.

Prospective members: for administering potential membership

When you express your interest in joining London City Singers, we may need to collect some of the following information on you:

• Name
• Email address
• Phone number

This data will be used by committee members to facilitate your audition and entry to London City Singers membership.

If you give us your consent to do so, we may also use your contact details to send you marketing/promotional communications from the group.

Any marketing/promotional communication we send you will include a clear option to withdraw your consent (e.g. to ‘opt out’ of future emails) and you can also withdraw consent at any point by contacting the Data Protection Officer.

Event attendees: for processing and managing tickets for events

Where our events are ticketed, we need to collect data on the person booking (name and email) in order to allow you access to the event and to send you a confirmation of your reservation/purchase. This data will only be used for administering your access to the event(s) for which you have booked and will not be used to send you marketing/promotional messages from the group unless you have also provided your consent to receive these (see below).

Volunteers and contractors: for administration and legal/regulatory purposes

We may need (for administration or for legal/regulatory reasons) to collect personal or sensitive data on volunteers or contractors of the group. Where this is the case, we will explain what this is for at the point of collection.

Merchandise purchase and donations

If you purchase any of our merchandise or make a donation, we need to collect data on the person making the purchase or donation. This data will only be used for administering your purchase/donation, and will not be used to send you marketing/promotional messages from the group unless you have also provided your consent to receive these (see below).

Mailing list subscribers: for marketing and promotion

We offer everybody the opportunity to sign up (consent) to receive marketing and promotional information on the group’s activities (e.g. emails about forthcoming events).

When you sign-up for our marketing mailing list we will ask for your name and email, and will use this data to send you information about our events and activities (e.g. forthcoming performances, social events and fundraising events).

We will only send you information that is related to the group (e.g. we will not use your data to send you marketing messages from third parties).

Anything we send you will include a clear option to withdraw your consent (e.g. to ‘opt out’ of future emails) and you can also do so at any time by contacting the Data Protection Officer.

Website visitors: for running and improving our website

We use cookie technology when a person visits our website to collect and analyse anonymised data on how many people have visited, what pages they have looked at and other statistical information. We also use cookies to allow members to log in and out in order to view our members-only section.

We use a pop-up banner to let users know about this on their first visit, and they can at any time disable cookies in their browser if they do not wish their (anonymised) data to be tracked.

Do you share your data with anyone else?

If (and only if) you give consent we may pass your details to related third parties so they can contact you about their activities.

We use third-party services to process your data. We will always make sure any third parties we use are reputable, secure, and process your data in accordance with your rights under GDPR.

These are the third-party services that we currently use with links to their respective policies:

• HarmonySite processes data stored in our members-only portal. HarmonySite Data Protection Policy
• Slack processes members and prospective members data. Slack privacy policy
• Ko-fi Labs Limited processes donor data. Ko-fi privacy policy
• Teemill Tech Ltd processes purchaser data. Teemill privacy policy
• Linktree processes subscriber data. Linktree privacy policy

How can you update your data?

You can contact us at any time at hello[at]londoncitysingers.co.uk to update or correct the data we hold on you.

How long will we hold your data?

The London City Singers Data Retention Policy is to review all data held on individuals at least every two years and remove data where we no longer have a legitimate reason to keep it.

Where you have withdrawn your consent for us to use your data for a particular purpose (e.g. unsubscribed from a mailing list) we may retain some of your data for up to two years in order to preserve a record of your consent having been withdrawn.

What rights do you have?

Under the GDPR, you have the following rights over your data and its use:

• The right to be informed about what data we are collecting on you and how we will use it
• The right of access - you can ask to see the data we hold on you
• The right to rectification - you can ask that we update or correct your data
• The right to object - you can ask that we stop using your data for a particular purpose
• The right to erasure - you can ask us to delete the data we hold on you
• The right to restrict processing - you can ask that we temporarily stop using your data while the reason for its use or its accuracy are investigated
• Though unlikely to apply to the data we hold and process on you, you also have rights related to portability and automated decision making (including profiling)

All requests related to your rights should be made to the Data Protection Officer at hello[at]londoncitysingers.co.uk. We will respond within one month. 

You can find out more about your rights on the Information Commission’s Office website 

What will we do if anything changes?

If we make changes to our privacy policy or processes we will post the changes here. Where the changes are significant, we may also choose to email individuals affected with the new details. Where required by law, will we ask for your consent to continue processing your data after these changes are made.

Use of cookies

What are 'cookies'?

'Cookies' are small text files that are stored by the browser (for example, Google Chrome) on your computer or electronic device. They allow websites to 'remember' you for a period of time so that they can store things like user preferences and make the website quicker and easier for you to use.

Without cookies, some things on websites would not be able to work: for example, without cookies it might not be possible to know whether or not you are logged in on a website, which would prevent you from being able to see content restricted to logged-in users.

How does the London City Singers website use cookies?

A visit to a page on London City Singers websites (public and members-only) may create the following types of cookie:

• Registration and preferences cookies
• Anonymous analytics cookies

Registration and preferences cookies

When you register with London City Singers, we generate cookies that let us know whether you are signed in or not. Our servers use these cookies to work out which account you are signed in with, and if you are allowed access to a particular service. It also allows us to associate any comments you post with your username. If you have not selected 'keep me signed in', your cookies get deleted when you either close your browser or shut down your computer.

Anonymous analytics cookies

Every time someone visits our website, software provided by other organisations (Google Analytics, Wordpress, Harmony Site) generates an 'anonymous analytics cookie'.

These cookies can tell us whether or not you have visited the site before and what pages you visit. Your browser will tell us if you have these cookies and, if you don't, we generate new ones. This allows us to track how many individual users we have, and how often they visit the site. We use them to gather statistics, for example, the number of visits to a page, to help us identify if visitors would benefit from more information on a particular area.

How do you turn cookies off?

It is usually possible to stop your browser accepting cookies, or to stop accepting cookies from a particular website.

All modern browsers allow you to change your cookie settings. You can usually find these settings in the 'options' or 'preferences' menu of your browser. To understand these settings, the following links may be helpful, or you can use the 'Help' option in your browser for more details.

• Cookie settings in Internet Explorer
• Cookie settings in Firefox
• Cookie settings in Chrome
• Cookie settings in Safari

Please note: switching off cookies may prevent some aspects of our websites from working fully (e.g. you may not be able to access our members-only portal).

Useful links

You can find out more about cookies and their use on the internet from www.allaboutcookies.org