How We Use Personal Information

Mason Events Management Limited (t/a Mason Events) will collect, use, share and disclose or otherwise process your personal information in line with this Policy.

To provide products and services and improve experience

We will use your information to provide you with products and services you have asked for and to manage our relationship with you.

We may use your information to monitor, improve and protect our products, content, services and websites, both online and offline. We may also provide you with help and support where we believe it is required. For example, if you have provided your contact information, we may contact you when a checkout journey is not completed.

To personalise content and offers

We sometimes make assumptions about your interests based on the way you interact with our products and services and the information we hold about you.

Knowing these preferences also allows us to understand the products and services our customers like, letting us focus our efforts on developing those areas. We may also use this information to make decisions about what direct marketing to show you.

“Do Not Track” browser settings

If you choose to turn on Do Not Track setting in your browser, your browser sends a special signal to websites, analytics companies, ad networks, plug-in providers, and other web services you encounter while browsing to request that they stop tracking your activity. Currently our websites is not designed to respond to “Do Not Track” signals.

To send you direct marketing

Where we have your permission or a legitimate interest, we may send you direct marketing. This may include communications by post, telephone, email, messages to your mobile devices, through social media (such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter) and on our website, or on other websites, as you browse the internet. The communications may contain information about our products, services, events and offers. We may also send you information, offers and promotions from our commercial customers and partners where you have given your consent.

You will be able to opt-out of direct marketing by following the instructions in the communication.

To send you information about similar products and services

We will send you information, exclusive offers and promotions about similar products and services to those that you have already engaged with or purchased, where you have indicated that you are happy to receive them.

You will always be able to opt-out of these, either in the communications themselves.

To send you product-related communications

As part of the products and services you have with us, you are entitled to receive newsletters, bulletins, and other “in-life” communications that relate to those products and services, including triggered emails, such as updates you make.

You will be told about the types of communications you will receive when you sign up and you will be able to unsubscribe at any time. However, if you do, you may not get the most out of the products and services you have signed up to.

Service messages

We may send you service messages by email, SMS, social media, post, or other channels, containing important information about changes to our service or your account. These communications are a fundamental part of our products and services. For example, we may contact you to validate your payment details or to tell you about changes to the product or service.

To conduct market research and perform analytics

We may use your information to conduct market research to improve the services we offer and to develop new products and services. You will be able to opt-out of receiving market research surveys by following the instructions in the communication.

You may also be asked if you would like to join our audience panels to help us improve our products and services. We value your participation and you will always have the choice to opt-out of these panels.

To detect ad blockers

When you visit our sites we may check (using cookies, code, script or other technical means) to see if you have an ad blocker installed on your device or if your internet browser settings allow adverts or not.

If we detect that your device or internet browser is using an ad blocker, we may ask you to “whitelist”, trust or pause blocking adverts while you visit our websites. You can do this easily in your browser settings or within the ad blocker itself. If you continue to use an ad blocker this may have an impact on the content you are able to see on our website.

Information about your use of ad blockers may be stored or associated with your device (including through the use of cookies) to re-insert advertisements on our websites and to understand how our customers use ad blockers. The advertisements that are re-inserted may include those from ad blockers’ “whitelists” or that promote our own products and services.

To allow third party advertising

In some instances targeted advertising may be displayed on our websites by third parties using our platforms. These third party adverts may collect and use your personal information, which is outside of our control. This targeting may be caused by cookies already in place on your device. More general information on cookies can be found in the Cookies section of this Policy.

To provide co-branded services and features

We may offer co-branded services or features, such as competitions or other promotions, together with a third party and may share the information you provide with that third party where we have your consent. These co-branded services may be hosted by us or by the third party. In these instances the third party may also be a data controller for your information. In this case, the third party’s use of your information will be governed by their privacy policy, which you should always read.

To disclose your information as permitted by law

Your information may be disclosed where we are permitted by law to do so, for example where we get police requests or regulatory inquiries. We may also disclose your personal information where we are allowed by law to protect or enforce our rights or the rights of others and for the detection and prevention of crimes, such as fraud.

To ensure our services are used appropriately

If you post or send offensive or objectionable content, or otherwise engage in disruptive behaviour anywhere on or to any of our websites, we may use your information to stop such behaviour. This may involve informing and responding to relevant third parties such as law enforcement agencies about the content and your behaviour.

As part of the sale of our business

If we sell part or all of our business, customer information may be one of the transferred business assets. If this happens, your information may be disclosed to our advisers and any prospective purchaser’s advisers and will be passed to the new owners of the business for the purposes set out in this Policy and to ensure continuity of your selected services.

To take payments, check your identity and conduct credit checks

Customer information will be used to take payment for products and services and may be used to verify credit details related to this payment. Permission to do so is implicit in providing financial details to process payment. Direct debit or continuous payment authority information, including card details, may be retained in accordance with our regulatory requirements, by us or our payment processors for ease of renewal of services. Additionally, we may receive updated payment details from your bank or payment provider from time to time, which we will use to ensure that your details are kept up to date and to allow us to take future payments.

If you apply for credit, then to help us to make credit decisions about you, prevent fraud, check your identity and prevent money laundering, we may search the files of credit reference agencies who will record any credit searches on your file whether or not your application succeeds. We may also disclose details of how you conduct your account to such agencies. The information will be used by other credit grantors for making credit decisions about you and the people with whom you are financially associated for fraud prevention, money laundering prevention and occasionally for tracing debtors.

To ensure that our products and services conform to agreed industry standards

We may share your information with auditors for the purposes of verifying that we comply with relevant standards. For example, we may ask third party auditors to assess our compliance with information security and Privacy by Design best practice. This may require them to access your information in our systems.

Linked services

Our services may be linked to websites and apps operated by third party companies, and may carry advertisements or offer content developed and maintained by unaffiliated companies. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of these companies, and once you leave a Mason Events site you should check the applicable privacy policy of the other service.

How We Share Your Information

Sharing with Commercial Partners

We may disclose your personal information to third parties for their direct marketing purposes where we have told you about this and you have given permission or there is a legitimate interest to do so.

We may share your personal information with our partners who operate products and services using our brands where you use these services. We will only share your information where we have an appropriate agreement in place with the partner. The information we share will be used in accordance with our partner’s privacy policy, which you should read when you sign up with the partner.

These partners will also pass us the information they collect about you, including your usage and interaction with those products and services, which we will use in accordance with this Policy.

Disclosure to our processors

We may pass your information to our processors – companies that we use to provide services on our behalf. These processors can only use your information in accordance with our instructions and for no other purpose.

Data transfers

When you complete our registration forms or use our services, we may transfer your information to our group companies and processors outside the EEA to countries that may not have data protection rules that provide the same level of protection. However, we only transfer your information where there are appropriate measures and controls in place. If you would like to receive a copy of the applicable data transfer safeguards used when your information is transferred outside the EEA to non-adequate countries, please contact us at info@masonevents.com

Access & Control of Your Information

Updating your information

Please ensure you update your personal information or tell us if it changes or is inaccurate. Please email our Customer Services team at info@masonevents.com

Controlling direct marketing

You can change your mind about receiving direct marketing or other communications you receive from us, such as bulletins and other information about your chosen products and services by contacting us using the details below or by following the unsubscribe instructions in the relevant communication.

Withdrawing consent for processing

Where we may rely on your consent to process personal information, you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time. Please contact us at info@masonevents.com with details of your request. In some instances we may still have an alternative legal basis to continue to process that personal information and we will inform you of that. If you do withdraw consent we may not be able to provide the product or service you have requested.

Other rights

You can ask us to correct any inaccuracies in your personal information. In some circumstances you may be able to ask us to transfer information you have provided to us to another organisation. Similarly, you may be able to transfer your information from another organisation to us, but you should check with us first if this is possible.

You may also have the right to object, erase, or restrict our processing of your information – for example, where we process personal data because this is in our legitimate interests, you may object to this. We will need to carefully consider your request, as there may be circumstances which require us, or allow us, to continue processing your data.

To exercise any of these rights, please contact us at info@masonevents.com. These rights may be restricted by law, for example we may not be able to provide a copy of your data where the data we hold is also the data of a third party and it is not reasonable to disclose this information.

Complaining to the Regulator

If you have a comment, concern or suggestion, please contact us at info@masonevents.com. If you have a complaint and we cannot resolve the matter, you have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office in the UK https://ico.org.uk/ or the Data Protection Commissioner in the Republic of Ireland https://www.dataprotection.ie/docs/Home/4.htm. Alternatively you may contact the data protection regulator responsible for your country or region.

Retention of Personal Information

We will retain your information for as long as necessary for the uses set out in this Policy, or while there is a legitimate reason for doing so. If you ask us to delete your information before that time, we may not be able to do so due to technical, legal, regulatory or contractual constraints. For example, we would need to retain your name and contact details for suppression purposes if you do not want to receive direct marketing from us.

If you ask for your account to be closed, we will do this as soon as is reasonably possible subject to any applicable terms and conditions relating to the account. Personal information from closed accounts is retained in order to comply with legal obligations, prevent fraud, collect any fees owed and to resolve disputes.

Cookies and Similar Technologies

Introduction

This section covers our use of cookies and similar technologies.

What are Cookies?

Cookies and other online tracking technologies are small bits of data or code that are used to identify your devices when you use and interact with our websites and other services. They are often used for remembering your preferences, to identify popular news stories, to remember you’re logged in and allowing you to comment on stories.

Our legal bases for cookies and similar technologies

Placing cookies: in order to place cookies, tags and other technologies on your browser or device, we need to have your permission. We do this by providing a clear notice in the form of a cookie banner that tells you what cookies are used for, as well as providing you with useful information about the technologies we use and a link to this Policy. You’ll need to indicate your acceptance of our use of cookies. On a mobile device this might be by swiping a banner, pressing a button, or using facial recognition.

You are able to opt-out of the use of cookies. For more information, see the section on Managing Cookies.

Using information collected from cookies: where we want to use the information that cookies and similar technologies collect, we either need your consent or a legitimate interest. In practice it will not always be practical to get opt-in consent as doing so with cookie banners and pop-ups would disrupt your use and enjoyment of our sites and content. This is why we usually rely on our legitimate interests to use the data collected by cookies. To do this we conduct an assessment to make sure the purposes for which we use your data are fair and that your privacy rights are considered. We only rely on legitimate interests where your rights do not override our interests in using the data.

For more information about your rights in relation to legitimate interests, please see the section on Access & Control.

What Cookies Do We Use and Why?

Essential cookies and similar technologies

These are vital for the running of our services on our websites. Without the use of these cookies, parts of our websites would not function.

Analytics cookies and similar technologies

These collect information about your use of our websites, and enable us to improve the way they work. For example, analytics cookies show us which are the most frequently visited pages allowing us to provide the most popular content more effectively. They help us record how you interact with our websites, such as how you navigate around pages and from page to page, identifying improvements we can make to the user journey. They also help identify any difficulties you have accessing our services, so we can fix any problems. Additionally, these cookies allow us to see overall patterns of usage at an aggregated level.

Functional/preference cookies and similar technologies

These cookies collect information about your choices and preferences, and allow us to remember things like language, your username (so you can log in faster), text size, and location, so we can show you relevant content to where you are. They allow us to customise the services you have accessed. We also use these cookies to provide you with services such as video clips.

Tracking, advertising cookies and similar technologies

We may use these types of technologies to provide advertisements that we think may be more relevant to your interests. This can be done by delivering online adverts based on your previous web browsing activity, known as “online behavioural advertising” (OBA). Cookies are placed on your browser which will remember the websites you have visited. Adverts based on what you have been looking at are then displayed to you when you visit websites which use the same advertising networks.

We may also use cookies and similar technologies to provide you with adverts based on your location, offers you click on, and other similar interactions with our websites.

Web beacons and tracking pixels

These are bits of data that count the number of users who access a website or webpage and can also allow us to see if a cookie has been activated. Web beacons used on web pages or in emails allow us to see how successful an article has been, or whether an email message was successfully delivered and read in a marketing campaign. Web beacons are also used to verify any clicks through to links or advertisements contained in emails. We may use this information to help us identify which emails are more interesting to you and to inform advertisers how many customers have clicked on their adverts (the information shared with advertisers is aggregated and does not identify you individually).

Flash cookies

We may, in certain situations, use Adobe Flash Player to deliver special content, such as video clips or animation. To improve your user experience, Local Shared Objects (commonly known as Flash cookies) are used to provide functions such as remembering your settings and preferences. Flash cookies are stored on your device, but they are managed through an interface different from the one provided by your web browser.

Tracking URLs

Tracking URLs are a special web link that allows us to measure when a link is clicked on. They are used to help us measure the effectiveness of campaigns and advertising and the popularity of articles that are read.

Device fingerprinting

We may collect and analyse a device’s browser information to help identify that device, present content correctly, conduct analytics and help prevent and detect fraud.

If you access our services from a mobile device

We may collect a unique device identifier assigned to that device, geo-location data, and other transactional information for that device. We may also use the unique identifier to validate free trials, for example.

How We Use Cookies and Similar Technologies

As well as the uses already identified above, we use cookies and similar technologies to:

Protect our networks

Cookies and similar technologies help us identify and prevent threats to our sites. They are necessary to protect your information and our business from outside threats.

Allow you to access our services

Cookies and similar technologies permit your connection to our websites: our servers receive and record information about your computer, device, and browser, including potentially your IP address, browser type, other software or hardware information, and your geographic location.

Assess usage of services

We use information about your usage of our services and websites, such as pages you have visited, content you have viewed, search queries you have run, and advertisements you have seen or interacted with to assess how our services are used.

Provide relevant content

The content on our websites and in our communications with you may be adjusted depending on what we know about the content, products and services that you like. This means we can highlight content and articles that we believe will be of interest to you. We provide personalisation by using cookies, IP addresses, web beacons, URL tracking and mobile app settings.

Managing Cookies

Below you will find useful information about how to manage the use of cookies on our sites. If you have any questions, please contact info@masonevents.com

Our partners

When you visit our websites, our partners will set cookies and similar technologies on your browser in order to help us make the sites work, analyse site usage, deliver adverts and personalise your experience. Where these partners are acting on our behalf, they are called data processors and must only act on our instructions. We will have a contract with them and they must protect your information properly. They’ll use your information in accordance with this Cookie Policy and you’ll be able to opt-out.

Where other partners are placing cookies and similar technologies for their own purposes, they are called data controllers and will use your information for their own purposes.

When you visit our sites you’ll see notices about the use of cookies by us and our partners. You’ll be able to learn more about the specific cookies in use and how to control them. By using our sites, you understand that cookies and similar technologies are used and acknowledge that by continuing to use the site, you consent to their placement.

In the future we plan to release improved controls to allow you to choose which partners can collect and use your information.

Most modern browsers are set to accept cookies by default, but you can change your settings to notify you when a cookie is being set or updated, or to block cookies altogether. Please consult the “Help” section of your browser.

Controlling OBA cookies

In addition to being able to control cookies by changing the settings in your browser on your computer, or in your mobile device’s settings, you can also control which companies can set cookies and similar technologies on your devices, by visiting the following links (you’ll need to turn any cookie or ad blockers off for the control pages to show which companies you can opt-out of):

• Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) Your Online Choices website provides more information about controlling cookies. It also provides an easy way to opt-out of behavioural advertising from each (or all) of the networks represented by the European Interactive Digital Advertising Alliance http://www.youronlinechoices.com/uk/your-ad-choices.
  
• The Network Advertising Initiative (NAI) control page allows you to control behavioural advertising from each of the ad networks represented by the NAI.
  
• The Digital Advertising Alliance’s self-regulatory program for online behavioural advertising control page allows you to control behavioural advertising from the ad networks it represents.
  
• The News Connect website provides more information, and an easy way to opt-out.
  

Importantly, these ad networks set cookies to remember that you have chosen to opt-out. If you clear your cache the opt-outs will not be applied and you would need to opt-out again.

Controlling Flash cookies

You can manage the use of Flash technologies with the Flash management tools available at Adobe’s website, at http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flashplayer/articles/privacy.html.

Controlling web beacons

You can prevent web beacons from tracking your activity, although you won’t be able to decline receiving them in emails. For information about managing your cookie options, please visit http://www.allaboutcookies.org/.
Please note that by blocking any or all cookies, you may not have access to certain features, content, or personalisation available on our websites.

Changes to This Policy

From time to time, we make changes to our Privacy Policy and Cookie Policy. This may be in relation to changes in the law, best practice, changes in our services or treatment of your personal information. Where necessary, we will seek your consent to these changes. We will always display clearly when the privacy policy was last amended on the website.

Contact Us

In addition to any general data protection enquiries you may have, you can use these details to contact our Data Protection Officer.