Introduction

VA Consultants Global Limited (VA) is committed to protecting your privacy and security. This policy explains how and why we use your personal data, to ensure you remain informed and in control of your information. This policy reflects the new General Date Protection Regulations which came into effect on the 25^th May 2018 which govern how we use data.

About VA

Your personal data (i.e. any information which identifies you, or which can be identified as relating to you personally) will only be collected and used with your consent by VA Consultants Global Limited (company no. 9901412). VA Consultants Global Limited is based at Lower Mill House, Staveley Mill Yard, Staveley, Kendal, Cumbria, LA8 9LR.

Information We Collect

Personal data you provide

We only collect data that you provide to us. This includes information you give when making an enquiry through the website, using our services, at business development events or communicating with us. For example:

• contact details (name, company you work for, your job title & role, email, address, telephone etc.) when you make contact with us.

Information created by your involvement with VA

Your activities and involvement with VA may result in personal data being created. This could include details of work undertaken with us, client or consultant business profiles, and areas of interest.

Information from third parties

We may collect information from social media where you have given us permission to do so, or if you post on one of our social media pages.

Sensitive personal data

We do not normally collect or store sensitive personal data (such as information relating to health, beliefs or political affiliation). However, there are some situations where this will occur (e.g. if you have an accident on one of our projects). If this does occur, we’ll take extra care to ensure your privacy rights are protected.

Accidents or incidents

If an accident or incident occurs on our property, at one of our projects or involving one of our staff (including associates) then we’ll keep a record of this (which may include personal data and sensitive personal data).

How information is used

We only ever use your personal data with your consent, or where it is necessary in order to:

• enter into, or perform, a contract with you;
• comply with a legal duty;
• protect your vital interests;
• for our own (or a third party’s) lawful interests, provided your rights don’t override the these.

In any event, we’ll only use your information for the purpose/s it was collected for (or else for closely related purposes):

Marketing

We use personal data to communicate with people, to raise the profile of VA Consultants. This includes keeping you up to date with our news and updates. For further information on this please see Section 6 (Marketing).

Administration

We use personal data for administrative purposes required to run our business and deliver excellent service effectively.

Disclosing and sharing data

We will never sell your personal data. We may share personal data with clients, associates or suppliers who provide us with services. However, these activities will be carried out under a contract which imposes strict requirements on our supplier to keep your information confidential and secure.

Occasionally, where we partner with other organisations, we may also share information with them (for example, if you register to attend an event being jointly organised by us and another consultancy). We’ll only share information when necessary.

Marketing

What does ‘marketing’ mean?

Marketing includes news and information about VA that raises awareness of our business, communicates our brand and informs people of who we are and what we do. We do this through our website, e-newsletter and social media. When you receive a communication from us, we may collect information about you, respond to or interact with that communication.

From 25th May 2018, VA will ask our contacts (you) to “opt-in” for marketing communications.

This means you’ll have the choice as to whether you want to hear from us. You can decide not to receive communications from us at any time by unsubscribing from our newsletter, or by updating your contact preferences to receive only certain communications from us. You can also email us at info@vaconsultants.co.uk, write to us at VA Consultants, Lower Mill House, Staveley Mill Yard, Staveley, Kendal, Cumbria, LA8 9LR or telephone 015395 61311. We will never sell your personal data and will only ever share it with organisations we work with where necessary, ensuring its privacy and security are guaranteed.

E-newsletter

We use a third-party provider, Mail Chimp, to deliver our e-newsletters. We gather statistics around email opening and clicks using industry standard technologies to help us monitor and improve our e-newsletter.

Visitors to our website

When someone visits www.vaconsultants.co.uk we use a third-party service, Google Analytics, to collect standard internet log information and details of visitor behaviour patterns. We do this to find out things such as the number of visitors to the various parts of the site. This information is only processed in a way which does not identify anyone. We do not make, and do not allow Google to make, any attempt to find out the identities of those visiting our website. If we do want to collect personally identifiable information through our website, we will be up front about this. We will make it clear when we collect personal information and will explain what we intend to do with it.

Website contact form

We use a contact form which collects personal information required to respond effectively to a user’s enquiry. The details collected are stored within our secure WordPress CMS and deleted once no longer needed.

Links to Other Sites

Our website contains hyperlinks to other websites. We are not responsible for the content or functionality of any of those external websites (but please let us know if a link is not working via our ‘Contact us’ page).

If an external website requests personal information from you (e.g. in connection with an order for goods or services), the information you provide will not be covered by VA’s Privacy Policy. We suggest you read the privacy policy of any website before providing any personal information.

Use of cookies

You can read more about how we use website cookies on our Cookies page.

Research and Profiling

This section explains how and why we use personal data to build profiles which enable us to understand our supporters, improve our relationship with them, and provide a better supporter experience.

Analysis and grouping

We analyse our contacts to determine common characteristics and preferences. We do this by assessing types of information including previous enquiries and projects we’ve undertaken with you.

By grouping people together on the basis of common characteristics, we can ensure that group is provided with communications, and information which is most important to them. This helps prevent your inbox from filling up, and also means we aren’t wasting resources on contacting people with information which isn’t relevant to them.

Protecting Data

We employ a variety of physical and technical measures to keep your data safe and to prevent unauthorised access to, use or disclosure of your personal information.

Electronic data is stored on secure computer systems and we control who has access to information (using both physical and electronic means). Our staff receive data protection awareness training and we have a set of detailed data protection procedures which personnel are required to follow when handling personal data.

Storage

Where we store information

VA’s operations are based in the UK and we store our data within the European Union. Some organisations which provide services to us may transfer personal data outside of the EEA, but we’ll only allow them to do so if your data is adequately protected.

For example, we use Dropbox and Microsoft products. As US companies, it may be that using their products result in personal data being transferred to or accessible from the US. However, we’ll allow this as we are certain personal data will still be adequately.

How long we store information

We will only use and store information for so long as it is required for the purposes it was collected for. How long information will be stored for depends on the information in question and what it is being used for. For example, if you ask us not to send you marketing emails, we will stop storing your emails for marketing purposes (though we’ll keep a record of your preference not to be emailed). We continually review what information we hold and delete what is no longer required.

Keeping You in Control

We want to ensure you remain in control of your personal data. Part of this is making sure you understand your legal rights, which are as follows:

• the right to confirmation as to whether or not we have your personal data and, if we do, to obtain a copy of the personal information we hold (this is known as subject access request);
• the right to have your data erased (though this will not apply where it is necessary for us to continue to use the data for a lawful reason);
• the right to have inaccurate data rectified;
• the right to object to your data being used for marketing or profiling; and
• where technically feasible, you have the right to personal data you have provided to us which we process automatically on the basis of your consent or the performance of a contract. This information will be provided in a common electronic format.

Please keep in mind that there are exceptions to the rights above and, though we will always try to respond to your satisfaction, there may be situations where we are unable to do so.

Complaints

You can complain to VA directly by contacting VA Info by using the details set out above. If you are not happy with our response, or you believe that your data protection or privacy rights have been infringed, you can complain to the UK Information Commissioner’s Office which regulates and enforces data protection law in the UK. Details of how to do this can be found at www.ico.org.uk

Changes to This Privacy Policy

We’ll amend this Privacy Policy from time to time to ensure it remains up-to-date and accurately reflects how and why we use personal data. The current version of our Privacy Policy will always be posted on our website.

Questions?

Any questions you have in relation to this policy or how we use your personal data should be sent to info@vaconsultants.co.uk or addressed to The Data Protection Officer, Info @ VA Consultants, Lower Mill House, Staveley Mill Yard, Staveley, Kendal, Cumbria, LA8 9LR.

This Privacy Policy was last updated on 25.04.2024.