When you use The Bigg Theatre services or those of The Biggleswade Arts Collective, you trust us with your information. For the purposes of the data protection laws, we are the “data controller”, meaning that we are responsible for deciding how your personal data is used and more importantly, for keeping your data safe and only using it for legitimate purposes.

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 and timely information about the work that we do - both on and off stage.

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

If you have any queries about this policy, please email us at info@thebigtheatre.co.uk

Who we are

The work of The Bigg Theatre is overseen by Biggleswade Arts Collective CIC, which is a Community Interest Company registered in England and Wales under registration number 1321664.

Information collection

The main purposes for which we collect and process the details of customers are:

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 will store personal information that you give us such as your name, email address, postal address, telephone number and card details (only the last four digits of your payment card). We will also store a record of your purchases.

· 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 direct communications, such emails, SMS or postal mail, we store a record of this. In the case of emails and SMS we keep a record of which ones you have opened, and which links you have clicked on.

· Information from third parties. We may 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.

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 will need to email you to send your tickets to you and provide you with relevant pre-show information. We may also need to contact you by email or telephone in the case of the rescheduling or cancellation of a show.

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 work that we do 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 or post. In the case of email, we will give you an opportunity to opt out of receiving them during your first purchase with us. If you do not opt out, 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. In the case of postal mailings, you may object to receiving these at any time using 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 Bigg Theatre and The Biggleswade Arts Collective 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, 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 Bigg Theatre.

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.

How we use Cookies

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.

They also enable us to identify how many people use our website.

We do not use cookies to provide us with access to your computer or any information about you, other than what you choose to share with us

Your payment card information

If you use your credit or debit card to purchase from us or to make a donation, we will ensure that this is carried out securely and in accordance with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS). For more information about this standard

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.

Job and volunteering applicants

If you apply to work or volunteer for The Bigg Theatre, we will use the information you supply to us to process your application and to monitor recruitment statistics.

Personal information about unsuccessful candidates will be held for 12 months after the recruitment exercise has been completed, after which it will be destroyed, unless you have asked us to destroy it earlier or allowed us to retain it for longer by written request.

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 (by calling 0303 123 1113, or emailing casework@ico.org.uk)

· 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 01.05.2023

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 at info@thebiggtheatre.co.uk