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Privacy Policy

PRIVACY NOTICE

This notice outlines how Newcastle Building Society and Explain Market Research use your personal data when you sign up to, and participate in, the Newcastle Building Society Online Community.

Definitions

 “Content” means everything contained in, or accessible from, the online Community which has been produced by or on behalf of Newcastle Building Society. “Content” does not include Postings made by members.

“Website” means the website which hosts the Community. These terms and conditions only apply to the website which hosts the Community.

 “You”, “your” and “yours” refers to you, the person using the Newcastle Building Society Online Community.

Newcastle Building Society has commissioned Explain Market Research (an independent market research agency http://www.explainresearch.co.uk/) to build and manage this Research Community on their behalf.

Explain only collect the minimum amount of personal information that is necessary to fulfill the purpose of managing the Research Community. Explain do not sell it to third parties, and only use it as this Privacy Notice describes. When Explain do so, Explain are subject to the General Data Protection Regulation which applies across the European Union (including the United Kingdom). Newcastle Building Society and Explain are regarded as joint data controllers of that personal information for the purposes of those laws.

If you register and create an account, Explain require some basic information at the time of account creation. You will create your own username and password, and Explain will ask you for a valid email address. Explain need this information to create your account, and to be able to identify you on the Newcastle Building Society Online Community. Explain will also ask for further profiling information such as gender, date of birth and profession, etc. this information is completely voluntary, just provide the information you are comfortable sharing. The collection of such data is used for research purposes and to simply inform Newcastle Building Society about the demographics of their members.

Only your username and self-selected photo will be shared with other users; please do not use your email address and Explain strongly recommend that you choose a username which is not linked to your own name, and that you do not include any personal information in your postings. When selecting your member profile picture, be mindful that this can be seen by all other members in the Newcastle Building Society Online Community. Please do not use a picture that is identifiable or that goes against the aforementioned standards. Community member profile pictures can be copied (via right clicking on the image and copying). Explain would recommend that when uploading a profile picture, you do not use any personal or current images from different platforms.

Explain will use your email address to communicate with you, in terms of updating you when there is new content on the Community, with opportunities to take part in market research or other topics related to the Newcastle Building Society Online Community, such as if you are one of Explain’s incentive winners.

Explain have a legitimate interest in processing such personal information for communication purposes. This means Explain do not usually need your consent to send you such information. However, where consent is required Explain will ask for this consent separately and clearly.

In running and maintaining this Community Explain may collect and process the following data which may be shared with Newcastle Building Society and sub-contractors of Newcastle Building Society:

  • Information provided voluntarily by you. For example, when you complete your user profile or participate in Community content
  • Information about your use of Explain’s website including details of your visits such as pages viewed and the resources that you access. Such information includes traffic data, location data and other communication data. For more information on Cookies please see the “Cookies section”
  • Your email address and how you use your emails - for example whether you open them and which links you click on. For more information on Cookies please see the “Cookies" section
  • Information that you provide when you communicate with Explain by any means

 

 Use of your information

Data can be viewed by authorised persons within Explain Market Research and Newcastle Building Society to:

  • Improve the website by monitoring how you use it
  • Gather feedback to improve Explain’s services
  • Respond to any feedback you send Explain, if you’ve asked Explain to
  • Send communication emails to users relating to the Newcastle Building Society Online Community, including but not exclusive to; new content, Community incentive information, changes to Community terms and conditions and privacy notice, and user account queries.

Any personal data collected by Explain when you join the Newcastle Building Society Online Community, such as the first half of your post code and email address, cannot be accessed by Newcastle Building Society. Interactions linked with your username and other profiling information may be shared with Newcastle Building Society and sub-contractors of Newcastle Building Society. Any contribution that you make to the Community, such as commenting on posts or creating discussions can be seen with your username attached by other members of the Community, including Newcastle Building Society staff members. You can use the ‘anonymous’ option to contribute to the Community without your username attached, in which case other members of the Community and Newcastle Building Society will not be able to view this linked to your username. Please see Help and frequently asked questions for how to comment and use the anonymous setting.

Please see Terms and conditions for more information on how Explain and Newcastle Building Society will use the information.

Cookies

A cookie is a small data file that’s stored on your computer. It contains the address of the Website and codes that your browser sends back to the Website each time you visit a page there. Cookies may contain limited personal information, for example to remember your username when you re-visit.

The Website uses four cookies. The first cookie is a 'session' cookie, which is essential for the activation of the page and is deleted when your browser is closed.

The second cookie is for Google Analytics. Google analytics is optional for Explain’s website, if you would like information on Google Analytics cookies and how to update your preferences, please visit:

https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/analyticsjs/cookie-usage

The third cookie is contained within the ‘cookie banner’ which appears when you visit the Explain website. This cookie is used to remember when you have clicked on the cookie banner to accept the use of cookies on the Website, so that you are not shown the cookie banner the next time you access the Explain website through the same device. This cookie remains active on your device for 12 months.

The fourth cookie is called ‘comm_login’ which becomes active when you select the “keep me logged in” checkbox on any device. The cookie stores a hashed token for 60 days after initially selecting “keep me logged in”, which will keep you logged in on that device for that period. After 60 days from the initial selection of “keep me logged in” you will be required to re-enter your password.

 

Unsubscribing

You can unsubscribe from the Newcastle Building Society Online Community or delete your user account at any time by clicking here and selecting ‘leave the Community’.

Explain will keep your personal information for as long as you are a member of Newcastle Building Society Online Community. Thereafter, Explain will keep your personal information for 3 months:

  • to respond to any questions, complaints or claims made by you or on your behalf;
  • to show you that Explain acted fairly;
  • to keep records required by law.

Explain will not retain your personal information for longer than necessary for the purposes set out in this policy.

When it is no longer to retain your personal information Explain will delete it or anonymise it.

Where your data is stored

Personal data provided by you on sign up will be stored electronically in secure servers within the UK. Your data is stored on our Microsoft SharePoint servers.

The company we use to develop and host our community platform is bound by a contract that ensures your data is managed in accordance with UK Data Protection laws and that it acts only on Explain Market Research instructions and implements all technical measures necessary on an ongoing basis to keep your personal data secure.

If you have any queries or complaints about the way your data is handled please contact Explain using the details below. You can also request a copy of the data held on you using these details.

Your rights

Under the General Data Protection Regulation, you have rights as an individual which you can exercise in relation to the information Explain and Newcastle Building Society hold about you.

You can read more about these rights here – https://ico.org.uk/for-the-public/

Access to personal information

Explain tries to be as open as it can be in terms of giving people access to their personal information. Individuals can find out if Explain hold any personal information by making a ‘subject access request’ under the General Data Protection Regulation. If Explain does hold information about you Explain will:

  • give you a description of it;
  • tell you why Explain are holding it;
  • tell you who it could be disclosed to; and
  • let you have a copy of the information in an intelligible form.

 

To make a request to Explain for any personal information Explain may hold, you need to put the request in writing addressing it to the address provided below;

Data Protection Lead

Explain Market Research Ltd

The Core

Bath Lane

Newcastle Helix

Newcastle upon Tyne

NE4 5TF

Email: info@explainresearch.co.uk

If Explain do hold information about you, you can ask Explain to correct any mistakes or erase your data by, once again, contacting the address above.

Similarly, if you would like to access personal information Newcastle Building Society hold, you can download and print a data subject access request form or contact Newcastle Building Society directly with all the information asked for on the form.

https://www.newcastle.co.uk/NewcastleBuildingSociety/media/Documents/Subject-Access-Request-Form.pdf