Privacy policy

Sift Limited ("we") are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy.

This policy (together with our terms of use and any other documents referred to in it) sets out the basis on which any personal data we collect from you, or that you provide to us, will be processed by us.

Please read the following carefully to understand our views and practices regarding your personal data and how we will treat it. By visiting any of our sites, physical events and/or participating in any of our surveys (as set out in our terms of use) you are accepting and consenting to the practices described in this policy.

For the purpose of the Data Protection Act 2018, and any subsequent UK data protection legislation (the Legislation), the data controller is Sift Limited (company no. 03230061) of Charlotte Place, Queen Charlotte Street, Bristol, BS1 4EX.

Information about us

We are AccountingWEB a trading division of Sift Media Limited (company registration number 05923499) a subsidiary of Sift Limited (company registration number 03230061) who provide some of the information which is on this Website. This Website may have links to another website hosted by Sift Limited (“Sift Website“) which enables you to access third party services.

In these terms and conditions: “Sift Limited” means Sift Limited (company registration number 03230061) whose registered office is Charlotte Place, Queen Charlotte Street, Bristol BS1 4EX and any company which is at the relevant time a subsidiary or holding company of Sift Limited and any subsidiary of any such holding company (and “subsidiary” and “holding company” shall have the meanings set out in sections 736 and 736A of the Companies Act 1985).

Information we may collect

We may collect and process the following data about you:

  • Information you give us
    You may give us information about you by filling in forms on our site, using social media logins and/or other plugins, participating in our surveys which may be sent to you from time to time or by corresponding with us by phone, email or otherwise. This includes information you provide when you register to use our site or attend an event, subscribe to a newsletter or service, order products or services, upload or download content, and/or participate in discussion boards or other social media functions on our site. The information you give us may include (but is not necessarily limited to):

    • your personal name and address;

    • your business name and address;

    • your email address;

    • your phone number;

    • your financial and credit card information; and/or

    • your photograph

  • Information we collect about you
    Each time you visit our site or interact with the emails we send to you, we may automatically collect the following information:

    • technical information, including the Internet protocol (IP) address used to connect your computer to the internet, your login information, browser type and version, operating system and platform;

    • information about your visit, including the URL clickstream to, through and from our site (including date and time); pages, resources and/or products you viewed or searched for; page response times, errors, length of visits to certain pages, page interaction, and methods used to browse away from the page;

    • information about your interaction with our emails, including whether you have opened the email, the number of times the email is accessed, and your interaction with email content including the links you have clicked.

    • At the main entrance to the AccountingWeb Live event your badge will be scanned for health & safety and analytical purposes.

    We may also build a picture of your digital data profile, by taking information on you from public sources, such as your publicly available social media information and other third party sources such as Companies House. We do this to help us direct more targeted information and content to you.

    Information we receive from other sources
    We may receive information about you if you use any of the other websites we or any of our group companies operate or the other services we provide. We are also working closely with third parties (including, for example, business partners, sub-contractors in technical, payment and delivery services, advertising networks, analytics providers, search information providers, credit reference agencies) and may receive information about you from them.

    We may also receive information about you from third party telemarketing companies. We or our partners will only contact you where you have given the telemarketing companies your consent for us to do so.

Legal basis for processing your data

We may process your data because:

  • we are legally obliged to e.g. to confirm your identity;
  • the processing is necessary for the performance of the contract with you to provide our services; or
  • it is in ours or a third party's legitimate interests to do so.

In some instances, we will rely on your consent to process Personal Data and where we do this, it will be flagged to you at the time.

Uses made of the information

We use information held about you in the following ways:

  • Information you give to us. We will use this information:

    • to enable you to access the content and functions available via the site, provide you with any products and services you request, and carry out our obligations arising from any contracts entered into between you and us;

    • to provide you with information about other resources, materials, goods and services we offer that are similar to those that you have already accessed, purchased or enquired about;

    • to provide you, or permit selected third parties to provide you, with information about goods or services we feel may interest you. If you are a new user, and where we permit selected third parties to use your data, we (or they) will contact you. Consent is given by ticking the relevant box situated on the form on which we collect your data, or you have given your consent to a third party telemarketing company, or;  you will have consented to sharing your name and contact details with exhibitors or sponsors at AccountingWEB Live Expo, when you: sign up in advance to a sponsored session, allow your badge to be scanned at a stand or on entry to a sponsored session. If you do not want your details shared, please decline to have your badge scanned, and refrain from pre-booking sponsored sessions. Once your details have been shared you can contact these companies directly to unsubscribe.;

    • to notify you about changes to our service;

    • to ensure that content from our site is presented in the most effective manner for you and for your computer.

    • to give you access to our events and keep you up to date with news, information and updates before and after the event.

  • Information we collect about you. We will use this information:

    • to administer our site and for internal operations, including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, research, statistical and survey purposes;

    • to improve our site;

    • to allow you to participate in interactive features, when you choose to do so;

    • to measure or understand the effectiveness of advertising we serve to you and others, and to deliver relevant advertising to you;

    • to make suggestions and recommendations to you and other users of our site about content, goods or services, or events that may interest you or them.

Disclosure of your information

We may share your personal information with any member of our group, which means our subsidiaries, our ultimate holding company and its subsidiaries, as defined in section 1159 of the UK Companies Act 2006.

We may also share your information (including personal data) with selected third parties including:

  • Business partners, suppliers and sub-contractors who help us deliver the site and our services to you. This includes (but is not limited to) the following suppliers:

    • Campaign monitor, a supplier which provides us with a cloud-based email system to enable us to provide you with customised newsletters and updates; and

  • Third parties on whose behalf we have conducted surveys, competitions, promotions and other activities which you have chosen to take part in.

  • Advertising networks that require the data to select and serve relevant adverts to you and others. We do not disclose information about identifiable individuals to our Advertising networks, but we may provide them with aggregate information about our users (for example, we may inform them that 500 men aged under 30 have clicked on their advertisement on any given day). We may also use such aggregate information to help Advertising networks reach the kind of audience they want to target.

  • Analytics and search engine providers that assist us in the improvement and optimisation of our site.

  • In the event that we sell or buy any business or assets, the prospective seller or buyer of such business or assets.

  • Parties to whom we are under a duty to disclose or share your personal data in order to comply with any legal obligation, or in order to enforce or apply our terms of use or terms and conditions of supply and other agreements; or to whom we disclose or share data in order to protect the rights, property, or safety of the Sift Limited group of companies, our customers, or others. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organisations for the purposes of fraud protection and credit risk reduction.

A full list of our Sub-Processors can be found here

Marketing

We would like to send you information by post, email, telephone, text message (SMS) or automated call about our products and services, competitions and special offers which may be of interest to you.

Other businesses within our group or [content partners] we work with may also send you similar marketing messages, depending on what you agree with us.

We will only ask whether you would like us and other businesses to send you marketing messages when you tick the relevant boxes when you create an account or complete online forms (for example for downloading a whitepaper), or sign up in advance of an event to a sponsored session or allow your badge to be scanned at that session or on a stand at an event.

We may send B2B marketing emails to you as a business contact where we believe we have legitimate interests for doing so. Such emails will always give the option to opt-out from future communications.

If you have consented to such receive marketing from us, [[our group] or other businesses,] you can opt out at any time. See 'What rights do you have?' below for further information.

You can also manage your preferences by using our privacy dashboard when you have logged in.

Keeping your data secure

We will use technical and organisational measures to safeguard your personal data, for example:

  • access to your account is controlled by a password and user name that are unique to you;
  • we store your personal data on secure servers; and
  • payment details are encrypted using SSL technology (typically you will see a lock icon or green address bar (or both) in your browser when we use this technology).

Our hosting provider is certified to ISO 27001. This family of standards helps us manage your information and keep it safe and secure.

While we will use all reasonable efforts to safeguard your personal data, you acknowledge that the use of the internet is not entirely secure and for this reason we cannot guarantee the security or integrity of any personal data that are transferred from you or to you via the internet. If you have any particular concerns about your information, please contact us (see 'Contact' below).

What can I do to keep my information safe?

If you want detailed information from Get Safe Online on how to protect your information and your computers and devices against fraud, identity theft, viruses and many other online problems, please visit www.getsafeonline.org. Get Safe Online is supported by HM Government and leading businesses.

Where we store your personal data

The data that we collect from you may be transferred to, and stored at, a destination outside the European Economic Area ("EEA"). It may also be processed by staff operating outside the EEA who work for us or for one of our suppliers. By submitting your personal data, you agree to this transfer, storing or processing. We will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that your data is treated securely and in accordance with this privacy policy.

Social media

If you use social media plugins or features on our site, including but not limited to the LinkedIn login function, you agree that we may receive information about you from social media sites (including personal information such as your name, gender, date of birth and location) in order to enable us to provide you with an online account and to enable you to use the site and its features. Any information received by us via the use of social media functions shall be stored and used strictly in accordance with this privacy policy.

How long do we keep your personal information?

We keep your personal information for as long as we need to for the purposes for which it was collected or (if longer) for any period for which we are required to keep personal information to comply with our legal and regulatory requirements.

Your Data Protection Rights

Sift Ltd would like to make sure you are fully aware of all of your data protection rights. Every user is entitled to the following:

  • The right to access
    • You have the right to request Sift Ltd for copies of your personal data. We may charge you a small fee for this service. When exercising this right please make sure you tell us that this is a “Subject Access Request”.
  • The right to rectification
    • You have the right to request that Sift Ltd correct any information you believe is inaccurate. You also have the right to request Sift Ltd to complete the information you believe is incomplete.
  • The right to erasure
    • You have the right to request that Sift Ltd erase your personal data, under certain conditions.
  • The right to restrict processing
    • You have the right to request that Sift Ltd restrict the processing of your personal data, under certain conditions.
  • The right to object to processing
    • You have the right to object to Sift Ltd ’s processing of your personal data, under certain conditions.
  • The right to data portability
    • You have the right to request that Sift Ltd transfer the data that we have collected to another organization, or directly to you, under certain conditions.

Once we have received the request and verified your identity, we will respond as soon as possible and in any event within one month.  If you would like to exercise any of these rights, please contact us via one of the following methods:-

Email us at:-

Call us at

  • +44 (0)117 915 9600

Or write to us:

  • SIFT, Charlotte Place, Queen Charlotte Street, Bristol, BS1 4EX, United Kingdom

Your request should include the following details:

  • Your full name
  • The email address used in your registration
  • The type of request you are making
  • Sift Publishing Title you know you have an account with
  • Any details that will help us to identify your data.

All email must send an email from the email account used in their registration on our site granting you permission to request the information.

Cookies

A cookie is a small text file written to your hard drive that contains information about your account and use of this site. Cookies enable us to collect useful information and to improve your experience when accessing and using our site.

Our website uses cookies to distinguish you from other users of our website. This helps us to provide you with a good experience when you browse our website and also allows us to improve our site.

There is a popup when you visit our website which asks for your permission for us and our partners to use cookies on our platform (apart from where we have a Legitimate Interest to do so). The consent you give us is stored in a Consent Management Platform (Quantcast) and you can remove consent at anytime by either clicking "More Options" in the Popup or via the link at the top of this privacy policy.

The cookies we use on our site include:

  • Quantcast
    We use this this service to manage your consent choices.

  • The service:

    • This service runs in the background and drops a cookies to your computer, or handheld device. It helps us to collect, record, and pass  your advertising consent to our thrid party suppliers that participate in the IAB framework (http://advertisingconsent.eu/). Note that Google is  not currently IAB framework.

  • The data Quantcast stores about you:

    • A unique identifier with a record of what you have consented too.

  • Google Analytics
    We use this this service to improve your experience across the sites

  • The service:

    • This service runs in the background and drops one or more cookies to your computer, or handheld device. It helps us measure how you interact with our websites content by tracking your user journey and site interactions. The cookies store non-identifiable information about your browsing history, we use this data to analyse patterns and trends to help improve your experience.

  • The data Google Analytics stores about you:

    • Non-identifiable data such as, visits, pages views, time on site, and the journey you take through the site.

For more details on Google Analytics please visit their website http://www.google.com/analytics/

  • AddThis
    We use this service to monitor social sharing of content

  • The service:

    • As part of the Service, we operate the AddThis sharing platform, this allows you to share our content across social channels. You can find the AddThis feature on all our articles and data is only collected when a user interacts with one or more of the social icon buttons. We collect certain non-personally identifiable information automatically for tracking and analysis purposes. We share this data with AddThis, their terms and conditions can be found on their website http://www.addthis.com/privacy/privacy-policy

  • The data AddThis stores about you:

    • We collect non-personally Identifiable Information via the AddThis Button for use on the AddThis Platform. For example, when you visit a web page that contains one of the AddThis Buttons, their (AddThis) server logs collect your Internet Protocol address, browser type, browser language, the date and time you visited that web page, and (if you came to a web page where an AddThis Button is enabled via a search engine such as Google), the web search that landed you on that web page.

  • The data AddThis stores about you:

    • A unique identifier with a record of what interactions you have made with the running campaigns.

  • Drupal
    We use this service as a platform to power our content management system

  • The service:

    • Drupal (http://drupal.com/) is our content management system and sets cookies to store user initiated interface preferences. This helps make your visits easier and the site more useful to you.

  • Facebook
    We use this service to show relevant advertisements to users

  • The service:

    • Facebook sets this cookie to show relevant advertisements to users by tracking user behaviour across the web, and on sites that have Facebook pixel or Facebook social plugin.

  • LinkedIn
    We use this service to show relevant advertisements to users

  • The service:

    • LinkedIn sets this cookie to show relevant advertisements to users by tracking user behaviour across the web, and on sites that have LinkedIn pixel or LinkedIn social plugin.

Third Party Cookies

Third parties (including, for example, advertising networks and providers of external services like web traffic analysis services) may also use cookies, over which we have no control. These cookies are likely to be analytical/performance cookies or targeting cookies.

Managing cookies

If you do not wish to manage your consent choices through our Consent Management Platform then you can also do this through your browser settings. The "help" function within your browser should provide information about this. However, if you use your browser settings to block all cookies (including essential cookies) you may not be able to access all or parts of our site.

Changes to our privacy policy

Any changes we may make to our privacy policy in the future will be posted on this page and, where appropriate, notified to you by email. Please check back frequently to see any updates or changes to our privacy policy.

Complaints

If you have any complaints about the way we use your personal information please contact [email protected] who will try to resolve the issue. If we cannot resolve any issue, you have the right to complain to the data protection authority in your country (the Information Commissioner in the UK). This can be done via their website

Contact

Questions, comments and requests regarding this privacy policy are welcomed and should be addressed to [email protected] and please state the website(s) it is in reference to.

Thank you for visiting our site.