Who are we?
We are Smart Grid Forums Ltd, registered in England under company number 11493690.
We are an independent conference producer, specialised in the smart grid sector. We work hand in hand with engineering professionals to create innovative event concepts and high-quality programmes that inform technical decision makers and enable them to deliver exceptional results.
In connection with our business, we collect and use personal data as explained in this Privacy Policy. (This policy does not cover our handling of employee / prospective employee data. This is covered separately in our Employee Privacy Notice.)
We will be the “controller” of the personal data described below.
What personal data do we collect?
We will collect certain personal data about you in the course of your relationship with us. The precise data we collect will vary depending on the nature of our relationship with you but may include:
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your name, job title, company name, work email address and telephone number;
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details of your subject matter interests (e.g. in relation to the types of conference you are interested in);
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details of any queries you have submitted to us about our business or our conferences; • your delivery and invoice address details; and
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details relating to your website browsing activity.
Where do we get this personal data?
We will collect personal data about you from the following sources:
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Directly from you. Much of the personal data we hold is information that you give to us directly – when you buy tickets for our conferences, ask to receive our programme updates or contact us with queries (either via phone, email or post). We will also use cookies to collect personal data about you when you browse our website. Please see our cookies policy (here) for more information on our use of cookies and how you can decline them or turn them off.
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Through publicly available sources. We also collect personal data about you from publicly available sources. We use social media sites (such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter) and internet search engines to find details of people whose employment suggests they may be interested in our conferences – as attendees, speakers etc.
How do we use this personal data?
We use your personal data for the following purposes and in reliance on the following lawful bases:
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Where it is necessary for the performance of our contract with you or to take steps at your request prior to entering into such a contract. We rely on this lawful basis to:
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sell you conference tickets that you have ordered via our website and to send you information about those conferences (in relation to programme timings, venue locations, changes etc.); and
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to administer our contract(s) with you – if, for example, you are a speaker at one of our conferences.
Where it is necessary in pursuit of legitimate interests. We rely on this lawful basis to:
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telephone you at work to ask if you want to receive our programme update e-mails containing details of our conferences. We only do this where publicly available information about your employment suggests that our conferences may be of interest to you. To minimise our intrusion, we will only contact you at work and if you tell us you are not interested, we will not contact you again;
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send you our programme update emails. We will only send you these emails if you have purchased tickets for one of our conferences, purchased one of our products or have asked us to send them to you (either in response to one of our phone calls or by subscribing for updates via our website), or where we believe there is a match between your role and the conference subject matter. You have the right to object to us processing your personal data for direct marketing purposes at any time (see the “Your Rights” section of this Privacy Policy for more information). You can also unsubscribe by clicking on the unsubscribe link in any of our emails;
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give conference attendees a list of all other attendees in order to facilitate networking amongst them. The list only contains each attendee’s name, job title and employer; is only provided in hard copy; and is only made available at the conference – not in advance. If you do not want your details included in this list, please contact us using the details set out at the end of this Privacy Policy;
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contact you if you work for one of our suppliers, business partners, conference sponsors or conference exhibitors. We will only process your personal data to the extent that this is necessary to manage our relationship with your employer; and monitor, develop and improve our website.
We only rely on legitimate interests where we have balanced the interest being pursued against your interests, rights and freedoms and have concluded that the processing is not unwarranted. You have the right to object, on grounds relating to your particular situation, at any time to processing of personal data concerning you which is based on legitimate interests. More information on this right and how to exercise it is set out below under the heading “Your rights.”
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Where we have your consent. We rely on this lawful basis to:
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use cookies to collect personal data about you when you browse our website. Please see our cookies policy (here) for more information on our use of cookies and how you can decline them or turn them off.
We will not use your personal data for any other purposes unless we are required to do so by law.
How long do we keep this personal data?
How long we keep your personal data will depend on the purpose for which we use it. We only keep your information for as long as is reasonably necessary for the purposes set out in this Privacy Policy and to fulfil our legal obligations.
If you tell us you do not / no longer wish to receive our programme update emails, we will remove your details from our database and add them to our suppression list to ensure we do not contact you in future. This is done on a weekly basis. Additionally, every three years we review all of the contacts in our database and may remove your details if we have not had recent engagement with you and/or if publicly available information suggests that our emails are no longer likely to be of interest (because, for example, you have changed jobs and are working in a different sector).
Who do we share this personal data with?
Your personal data will be shared as follows.
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Where we have collected your details from publicly available sources because your employment suggests you may be interested in our conferences, we share the details we have collected with our service provider, microLabz Research Services Pvt Ltd. They will telephone you – on your work phone number – to ask whether you would like to receive our programme update e-mails and then send us details regarding the outcome of the call so that we can update our database. microLabz also assists us in reviewing our database every three years as described in the “How long do we keep this personal data” section above. microLabz acts as our processor and will only process your personal data in accordance with our instructions.
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Where you order conference tickets via our website, the sale of the ticket is concluded using online registration and ticketing software provided by Xing SE. Xing SE and us will both be “controllers” of the information collected here. To understand how Xing SE will process your personal data you should review their privacy policy, available here: https://privacy.xing.com/en/privacy-policy.
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As we continue to develop our business, we may sell or purchase assets. If another entity acquires us or merges with us your personal information will be disclosed to such entity.
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If any bankruptcy or reorganisation proceeding is brought by or against us, all such information will be considered an asset of ours and as such it is possible they will be sold or transferred to third parties.
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Where required we share your personal information with third parties to comply with a legal obligation; when we believe in good faith that an applicable law requires it; at the request of governmental authorities conducting an investigation; to detect and protect against fraud, or any technical or security vulnerabilities; to respond to an emergency; or otherwise to protect the rights, property, safety, or security of third parties, visitors to the our website, our business or the public.
No other third parties have access to your information unless we specifically say so in this Privacy Policy, or the law requires this.
Where do we store this personal data?
All information you provide to us is stored in our database, provided by Hubspot. Hubspot stores all your personal data on servers based in the USA and Germany.
Our processor, microLabz Research Services Pvt Ltd, is based in India – a country with different data protection rules to the UK. We have appropriate safeguards in place to ensure that where microLabz processes your personal data on our behalf, they continue to handle and protect it to a high standard. If you would like further information about these safeguards, please contact us using the details set out at the end of this Privacy Policy.
Your rights
By law, you have a number of rights when it comes to your personal data – these are summarised below.
To exercise any of these rights, or to ask a question, please contact us using the details set out at the end of this Privacy Policy.
Rights What does this mean?
1. The right to be informed
You have the right to be provided with clear, transparent and easily understandable information about how we use your information and your rights. This is why we’re providing you with the information in this Privacy Policy.
2. The right of access
You have the right to obtain access to your information (if we’re processing it), and certain other information (similar to that provided in this Privacy Policy). This is so you’re aware and can check that we’re using your information in accordance with data protection law.
3. The right to rectification
You are entitled to have your information corrected if it’s inaccurate or incomplete.
4. The right to erasure
This is also known as ‘the right to be forgotten’ and, in simple terms, enables you to request the deletion or removal of your information where there’s no compelling reason for us to keep using it. This is not a general right to erasure; there are exceptions
6. The right to data portability
You have rights to obtain and reuse your personal data for your own purposes across different services. For example, if you decide to switch to a new provider, this enables you to move, copy or transfer your information easily between our IT systems and theirs safely and securely, without affecting its usability.
7. The right to object to processing
You have the right to object to certain types of processing, including processing based on our legitimate interests and processing for direct marketing (i.e. if you no longer want to be contacted with potential opportunities).
8. The right to lodge a complaint
You have the right to lodge a complaint about the way we handle or process your personal data with your national data protection regulator (e.g. the Information Commissioner’s Office in England).
9. The right to withdraw consent
If you have given your consent to anything we do with your personal data, you have the right to withdraw your consent at any time (although if you do so, it does not mean that anything we have done with your personal data with your consent up to that point is unlawful). This includes your right to withdraw consent to us using your personal data for marketing purposes.
How can you contact us?
If you have questions on the processing of your personal data, would like to exercise any of your rights, or are unhappy with how we have handled your information, please contact us here:
Telephone: +44 (0)20 8057 1700
Address: 8 Duncannon St, London, WC2N 4JF
Email address: database@smartgrid-forums.com
If you are not satisfied with our response to any complaint or believe our processing of your personal data does not comply with data protection law, you can make a complaint to the data protection regulator in your country e.g. the Information Commissioner’s Office in England whose contact details are:
Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe house,
Water Lane, Wilmslow,
Cheshire SK9 5AF
Telephone: 0303 123 1113
www.ico.org.uk
