Updated 17th August 2018
This is our Privacy Policy, which sets out how we handle your personal information if you’re a Midthatch guest or visitor to our website, in accordance with the General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR), effective from 25th May 2018.
These regulations aim to increase the accountability of organisations who handle personal data. Individuals are granted specific rights regarding their personal information, and how it is collected, stored, used, shared and protected. You can read more about the GDPR requirements on the Information Commissioner’s Office website.
We’ve tried to make this policy as transparent and ‘readable’ as possible. If you don’t understand any part of it, think that something in this policy is wrong or missing, or have any questions regarding your personal data, please contact us.
Definitions
We, us or Mid Thatch Cottage – this business and the people directly involved in running it.
Policy – this Privacy Policy.
Our website or site – this website
Client – any person or people who stay/have stayed in our holiday accommodation.
Visitors – any person who visits our website or social media profiles.
Our services – Holiday accommodation.
The type of personal information we collect
The basic contact details of the person making the booking or general enquiry – usually their full name and email address or phone number.
IP addresses, location (by country), browser type and other web analytics data when someone visits our website.
How we collect personal information
We collect personal information directly when you provide it to us – as described above or automatically as you navigate through the website.
Personal information we collect about you from others
Although we generally collect personal information directly from you, on occasion, we also collect certain categories of personal information about you from other sources.
In particular:
Third party service providers (like Google) who are located in the US, who may provide basic browsing information as you navigate through our site, or other information when you interact with our social media profiles, or leave a review. This information varies and is controlled by that service provider or as authorized by you via your privacy settings at that service provider.
Why we collect your personal information
We need to collect and use your personal information:
To fulfil our contractual obligations to our clients and to carry out our services.
To monitor visitor traffic to our site and secure our site against malicious human and automated visitors.
We also need to collect personal information where this is necessary for purposes which are in our legitimate interests.
These interests include:
- Operating our website.
- Protecting our website.
- Providing you with services described on the website.
- Responding to enquiries.
- Monitoring activity on this website, in order to identify potential fraudulent activity and prevent spam and ‘hacking’.
- To ensure compliance with our website Terms of Use.
- Managing our relationship with you, e.g. by responding to your comments or queries submitted to us on our website or asking for your feedback.
- Managing our legal and operational affairs.
- Improving our services.
- We may be required by law to collect personal information when responding to requests by government, a court of law, or law enforcement authorities conducting an investigation.
When we disclose your personal information
We do not usually need to disclose your personal information to any third party in order to deliver our services.
There may be certain circumstances in which we need to disclose your personal information, for example:
- To regulators and government authorities in connection with our compliance procedures and obligations.
- A purchaser or prospective purchaser of all or part of our assets or our business, and their professional advisers, in connection with the purchase.
- A third party to respond to requests relating to a criminal investigation or alleged or suspected illegal activity.
- A third party, in order to enforce or defend our rights, or to address financial or reputational risks.
- A rights holder in relation to an allegation of intellectual property infringement or any other infringement.
- Other recipients where we are authorised or required by law to do so.
- Where we transfer and/or store your personal information
- We are based in the United Kingdom, and your data is processed and stored in a single location (a private office) in the United Kingdom.
How we keep your personal information secure
We do our best to keep all information secure, especially any personal data. All digital personal information (including names, telephone numbers and email addresses) is stored on a protected server. Hard copy data is stored in a locked cabinet, in a private office to which only the business owner has access. We do not store or back up data to any cloud services.
Our website is secured by an SSL Certificate which uses end to end encryption on every page. We have a website security package which includes a firewall, ‘brute force’ attack protection, file system and database enhanced security and an instant alert system which notifies us of any unexpected changes to our website files and database.
Our host provider is UK-based company with a UK-based data centre with biometric passkeys and 24/7 security.
Third Party Services
We occasionally use third party services as part of providing services to our clients. Some of these have access to your personal information – either provided by us or by you. These third parties include:
AwStats – website analytics application. AwStats is an ‘open source’ log file analyser, which operates on the website server, collecting and logging website traffic information. It does not use cookies, or any kind of tracking code, and collects anonymous data which helps us to monitor visitor traffic to our website.
Baloogi Studio – our web developer. Baloogi Studio has access to our website files and database. The only personal data stored on the database are names and email addresses of website visitors who have made an enquiry via the website contact form. We deal with only one person at the business, who has created and maintained the website for us. Personal data is never viewed unless strictly necessary, and never used by the devloper or shared with any other party. You can read the Baloogi Studio Privacy Policy here.
Communications regarding your personal information
Where we have your consent to do so (e.g. if you have subscribed to our email newsletter), we send you communications by email about products and services that we feel may be of interest to you. You can ‘opt-out’ of such communications if you would prefer not to receive them in the future by using the “unsubscribe” facility provided at the bottom of the communication itself.
You also have choices about cookies. By modifying your browser preferences, you have the choice to accept all cookies, to be notified when a cookie is set, or to reject all cookies. If you choose to reject cookies some parts of our sites may not work properly in your case. You can find out more about what cookies are at the All About Cookies website.
Cookies and web analytics
We use AwStats (which does not use cookies or tracking codes) to collect anonymous web traffic data, such as:
- Your IP address or proxy server IP address
- The domain name you requested
- The name of your internet service provider is sometimes captured depending on the configuration of your ISP connection
- The date and time of your visit to the website
- The length of your session
- The pages which you have accessed
- The number of times you access our site within any month
- The file URL you look at and information relating to it
- The website which referred you to our site
- The operating system which your computer uses.
How you can access your personal information
Under the GDPR guidelines, you have the right to:
- Request access to the personal data we hold about you.
- Request corrections of any errors in that data.
- Request erasure of the personal data we hold about you.
To make any of these requests, please contact us.
Information about children
Our website and services are not suitable for children under the age of 16 years, so if you are under 16 we ask that you do not use our website or give us your personal information.
If you are from 16 to 18 years, you can browse our site but you’ll need the supervision of a parent or guardian to make an enquiry, and you cannot become a client. It’s the responsibility of parents or guardians to monitor their children’s use of our website.
Information you make public or give to others
If you make your personal information available to other people, we can’t control or accept responsibility for the way they will use or manage that data. There are lots of ways that you can find yourself providing information to other people, like when you post a public message on a forum thread, share information via social media, or make contact with another via a website or directly by email. Before making your information publicly available or giving your information to anyone else, think carefully. If you’re sharing information via another website, check the privacy policy for that site to understand its information management practices.
How long we keep your personal information
We retain your personal information for as long as is necessary to provide the services to you and others, and to comply with our legal obligations. If you no longer want us to use your personal information or to provide you with our services, you can request that we erase your personal information. Please note that if you request the erasure of your personal information we may retain some information from deleted accounts (in a static, archived form) as necessary to comply with the law, prevent fraud, collect fees, resolve disputes, troubleshoot problems, assist with investigations, enforce the Terms of Use and take other actions permitted by law. The information we retain will be handled in accordance with this Privacy Policy.
When we need to update this policy
We will need to change this policy from time to time in order to make sure it stays up to date with the latest legal requirements and any changes to our privacy management practices. When we do change the policy, we’ll notify you about the changes here on this page. A copy of the latest version of this policy will always be available on this page.
How you can contact us
If you have any questions about our privacy practices or the way in which we have been managing your personal information, please contact us via our contact form.
Reporting Concerns
If you have unresolved concerns you also have the right to complain to data protection authorities. In the UK, the relevant authority is the Information Commissioner’s Office.