DMWF LTD Privacy Policy
Last updated 6 July 2023
This policy explains how we collect, handle, use and share personal data about:
- Visitors to our website and subscribers to our newsletters
- Attendees at our DMWF conferences
- Attendees at our DMWF online events
- Individuals who work for our exhibitors, sponsors and other service providers
We appreciate that there is a lot of detail in this policy, but it is important that you read this policy to ensure you are fully informed about how we process your personal data and your rights.
We may need to make changes to this policy occasionally, to reflect any changes to the nature of our business, how we process your personal data or legal requirements. You should check this page regularly to take notice of such changes.
If you have any questions arising from this policy, or wish to exercise any of your rights as described in it, please email us at hello@digitalmarketingwf.com.
- Who we are
We are DMWF LTD (trading as DMWF, DMWF Online, DMWF World Series and Digital Marketing World Forum) a company registered in England and Wales under company number 10860786 with our registered office at Armada House, Telephone Avenue, City Centre, Bristol, BS1 4BQ.
As required by UK data protection law, we are registered as a ‘controller’ with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) under number ZA378108
Our affiliate companies include:
- Encore Media Group Limited (trading as ‘TechEx’) registered in England and Wales under company number 09784800 with its registered office at Armada House, Telephone Avenue, City Centre, Bristol, BS1 4BQ (ICO registration number ZA378090)
- Tech Forge Media Limited (trading as TechForge and including the brands listed in the TechForge portfolio) registered in England and Wales under company number 09194965 with its registered office at Armada House, Telephone Avenue, City Centre, Bristol, BS1 4BQ (ICO registration number ZA377147)
- What personal data we collect
Personal data means any data that identifies or can be used to identify you. It does not include data where your identity has been removed (anonymous data). Depending on how you interact with us, you may provide, or we may collect, and use the following categories of personal data about you:
- Biographic data: Name, job title, organisation name and identity data (where required to provide visa invitation letters to speakers)
- Contact data: Email address, telephone number, postal address and social media handles
- Communications data: Emails and other correspondence with you, interactions with you on social media channels
- Demographic data: Age, educational background, nationality and professional information
- Marketing data: Event registrations, industry interests, newsletter subscriptions and content accessed or downloaded after registration
- Media data: Photographs and audiovisual media including your image (except where you are within a large group of people)
- Technical data: IP address assigned to you or someone who provides you with Internet access, device information (including type, operating system, browser, resolution and time zone setting), which pages of our websites you viewed, how often you viewed them and for how long, your location (if you grant us access to it, though the IP address assigned to you or to someone who provides you with Internet access may indicate the country from which you have visited our website)
- Transaction data: Credit or debit card details (though we do not store or have access to such data), account number and sort code, invoices and receipts
Unless you specifically inform us (or it may be implied, for example, from any access or dietary requirements), we do not collect any details about your race or ethnicity, religious or philosophical beliefs, sex life, sexual orientation, political opinions, trade union membership, information about your health or information about criminal convictions and offences.
- How we use your personal data
We will only use your personal data where we have a legal basis for doing so under data protection law. We will generally rely on one of four legal grounds for using your personal data:
- Consent: where you have given your consent to the use of your personal data, for example, when you register for any of our newsletters or tick a box to confirm that you consent to your personal data being shared with any of our partners
- Legal obligation: where necessary to comply with a legal or regulatory obligation
- Legitimate interests: where necessary for our legitimate interests, or those of a third party, provided those interests would reasonably be expected by you and do not outweigh your fundamental rights and interests
- Performance of contract: where necessary to take steps to enter into, and perform our obligations under, any contract we have entered into with you personally (and not your organisation)
Very rarely, we may use your personal data to protect your vital interests, for example, if you take ill at any of our conferences or events.
The purposes that we use your personal data for and our legal grounds for doing so are as follows:
| Purpose | Types of data | Legal ground |
| Administering bookings for our events | Biographic data; contact data; communications data; demographic data; transaction data | Performance of contract; legitimate interests (for example, using optional demographic data to segment our audiences for marketing purposes) |
| Planning, coordinating and running our events | Biographic data; contact data; communications data | Performance of contract; legitimate interests (performing our rights and obligations with exhibitors, speakers, sponsors, partners and service providers) |
| Documenting and recording our events | Biographic data; media data | Legitimate interests (generating interest in future events) (note: where any digital events are recorded, you will be informed of this beforehand and you should let us know if you object to this) |
| Direct marketing by us, our affiliates and partners, including email, SMS and social media marketing | Biographic data; contact data; marketing data | Consent (according to your specific content, communications and sender preferences) |
| Responding to enquiries by email and on social media | Biographic data; contact data; communications data | Legitimate interests (conducting our business as usual, understanding your needs and concerns and engaging with ou audiences) |
| Market research and feedback | Biographic data; contact data; communications data; survey responses | Consent (for surveys); legitimate interests (for informal feedback or feedback recorded at our events) |
| Improving our website and content | Marketing data; technical data | Consent (for cookies and similar technologies); legitimate interests (optimising our content and user experience) |
| Comply with accounting and reporting obligations | Transaction data | Legal obligation |
We may use your personal data for purposes which are closely related to the purposes described above. However if we want to use your data for an unrelated purpose, we will let you know in advance.
- Who we share your personal data with
We do not sell your personal data to any third parties. However, we do work with a number of partners to develop and publish content on our website and those of our affiliates named above and you will often be asked to consent to your personal data being shared with them for marketing purposes. In such circumstances, you should review the privacy policies of those third parties as we do not accept any responsibility for how they use your personal data.
We may also share your personal data with:
- our affiliates named above, whether as publishers of content that you have accessed through our website or any form on our website, or for business administration purposes
- our contributors, partners and sponsors (where you have consented to this)
- technical service providers including our hosting provider, accounts management platform, customer relationship management platform, email marketing platform, marketing automation platform, survey platform, payment processors, analytics and lead generation platforms
- regulatory authorities including HM Revenue & Customs, the tax authority in the UK
- any actual or prospective buyer of our business or its assets
- any other third parties as may be required by law or any order of a court or other competent authority
We will ensure that our arrangements with these third parties comply with data protection law and protect your rights and interests.
- Where your data are stored
Many of the service providers we use in connection with our website and the services provided through it are based outside the United Kingdom and the European Economic Area (EEA), which means that certain personal data will be transferred outside the UK and EEA. Whenever we transfer your personal data outside the EEA, we ensure that a similar degree of protection applies to your personal data in one or more of the following ways:
- the country to which your personal data is transferred is deemed by the European Commission to provide a similar degree of protection for your personal data
- we have entered into a specific contract with our service providers that has been approved by the European Commission as providing a similar degree of protection for your personal data
- where any service provider is based in the US and they have self-certified under the EU-US Privacy Shield Framework which requires them to provide a similar degree of protection for your personal data
- How we keep your data secure
We have put in place appropriate security measures (for example, access to our website is secured using ‘https’ technology and access to payment card details is encrypted) to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. We also limit access to your personal data to those within our organisation that have a need to access it. They will only process your personal data on our instructions and they are required to keep your personal data confidential.
We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected personal data breach and will notify you and the Information Commissioner’s Office or any other relevant regulator where we are legally required to do so.
- How long we keep your data for
We will only keep your personal data for as long as necessary in connection with the purposes we collected it for and to comply with any legal, accounting or reporting requirements. To determine how long we keep your personal data for, we consider the amount, nature and sensitivity of the personal data, the purposes for which it was collected and the potential risk of harm from us continuing to keep it.
If you have paid to attend an event, we will retain details of your order for a period of six years from the date of your order for tax purposes.
We will retain personal data relating to email marketing data until you unsubscribe or your email address has become permanently unavailable.
We will retain any analytical data collected about your use of our website which identifies you for a period of 12 months.
We may retain any data that does not identify you indefinitely.
- Marketing
Like most businesses, we try to automate our marketing activities as much as we can using platforms that trigger marketing communications based on how you have engaged with us, our website and our content. We rely on your consent when sending your marketing communications, and our legitimate interests in managing our marketing activities efficiently when using these platforms.
Where you have consented to receive marketing communications from a third party, such as one of our partners, we may be engaged by them to communicate with you on their behalf. In this case, they will be the ‘controller’, or the party responsible for how your personal data are used, and we will be a ‘processor’ that processes your personal data on their behalf. Such marketing communications will clearly identify which company we are sending emails on behalf of and when you unsubscribe, you will be unsubscribing from receiving emails sent directly by them or us on their behalf.
You have the right to withdraw your consent to the use of your personal data for direct marketing purposes at any time either by clicking the unsubscribe link in any email or emailing hello@digitalmarketingwf.com.
- Cookies
Our website uses small text files, called cookies, and other similar technologies which are stored on your device when you access and use certain features of our website. As cookies are unique, they can be used to distinguish you from other users (although we have configured our analytics tools to anonymise your IP address so we cannot identify you personally). To find out more about cookies, how to refuse them and how to change your device’s cookie settings, you should visit All About Cookies. Please note that if you refuse to accept cookies or change your device’s cookie settings, you may not be able to use all of our website’s features.
Our website uses the following types of cookies:
- Strictly necessary cookies: these cookies are required for the operation of our website
- Analytical/performance cookies: these cookies allow us to recognise new and returning visitors to our website and see how they move around our website to help us improve it
- Functionality cookies: the cookies enable us to recognise you when you return to our website so that we can personalise our content and remember any preferences set by you
- Advertising/(re)-targeting cookies: these cookies are used by third-party advertisers to deliver and (re-)target adverts that are more relevant to you and your interests as well as limiting the number of times you see an advert and measure their effectiveness. They are placed on your device by third party advertising networks. These adverts may appear on our website and those of our affiliates as well as other websites visited by you and we have no control over the delivery or placement of these adverts (although we may be provided with anonymised statistical data by advertisers). For further information on how advertising and tracking cookies work and how to disable them (where you have consented to these), visit Your Online Choices.
We are required to obtain your consent to all cookies except those that are strictly necessary. You will be asked to confirm your consent when you first visit our website. You can clear cookies after you visit our website, use a tracking blocker such as Privacy Badger or, for analytical cookies stored by Google, install the Google Analytics opt-out extension.
- Your rights
You have a number of rights in relation to the personal data we hold about you:
- Access: You have the right to be informed if your personal data is being used and the right to request a copy of the personal data held about you together with certain information about the processing of such personal data to check that are holding it lawfully
- Correction: You have the right to ask us to correct any inaccurate or incomplete personal data held about you
- Deletion: You have the right to ask us to delete or remove any personal data held about you where there is no good reason for us to continue holding it or where you have exercised your right to object
- Restriction: You have the right to ask us to restrict how we hold your personal data, for example, to confirm its accuracy or our reasons for holding it
- Objection: You have the right to object to our holding of any personal data about you which is based on our legitimate interests or those of a third party based on your particular circumstances. You also have the right to object to our holding your personal data for direct marketing purposes
- Portability: You have the right to receive or request that we transfer a copy of the personal data we hold about you in an electronic format where the basis of our holding such information is your consent or the performance of a contract and the information is processed by automated means
- Complaints: You have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) or any other EU supervisory authority in relation to how we collect and use your personal data
You will not have to pay any fee to exercise any of the above rights though we may charge a reasonable fee or refuse to comply with your request if any request is clearly unfounded or excessive. Where this is the case, we will let you know.
To protect the confidentiality of your personal data we may need to ask you to verify your identity before fulfilling any request in relation to your personal data.