Privacy and Data Protection
The document along with the South Staffs Water privacy policy explains how South Staffs Water ("our", "us", "we") use your personal data when you sign up to, and participate in the online community.
We have commissioned Explain Market Research (“Explain”) who are an independent market research agency (http://www.explainresearch.co.uk/), to build and manage this community and they will process your personal data on our behalf.
If you register and create an account, we require some basic information at the time of account creation. You will create your own username and password, and we will ask you for a valid email address. We need this information to create your account, to be able to identify you on the community and to communicate with you about the community.
We will also ask for some profiling information such as postcode, gender, year of birth and household composition. The data collected is used for research purposes and to inform us about the demographics of community members.
The community is not intended to receive service queries, however if you do raise a query or concern about your water supply on the community and do not opt to do so anonymously, Explain as moderator may pass on your contact details and profiling information such as the first half of your postcode to us to allow us to take steps to investigate or address your query or concern.
Only your username and profile picture will be shared with other users. We 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. Please also see the H2Online Posting Guidelines.
We will use your email address to communicate with you, updating you when there is new content on the community and opportunities to take part in market research, or in connection with other topics related to the community, for example if you are one of our prize draw winners.
In running and maintaining this community we may collect and process the following data, which is collected by Explain on our behalf and shared with us:
- Information about your use of our site including details of your visits such as pages viewed and the resources that you access. This information includes traffic data, location data and other communication data.
- Your email address and how you interact with our emails - for example whether you open them and which links you click on.
- Information provided voluntarily by you. For example, when you complete your user profile or participate in community content.
- Information that you provide when you communicate with us by any means.
Use of your information
Data can be viewed only by authorised persons within Explain Market Research and South Staffs Water. It is not shared with third parties. Data is used to:
- Improve the site by monitoring how you use it
- Gather feedback to improve our services
- Respond to any feedback you send us, if you’ve asked us to
- Send transactional emails to users relating to the community including amongst other things new content, prize draw information, changes to the community terms and conditions and privacy notice, and user account queries
- Conduct market research and analysis
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. Information on each of these is provided in the table below.
|
Cookie Name |
Purpose |
|
Session |
This is essential for the activation of the page and is deleted when your browser is closed. |
|
Cookie banner |
This 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. |
|
comm_login |
This becomes active when you select the “keep me logged in” checkbox on any device. The cookie stores a hashed token for 60 days which will keep you logged in on that device for that period. |
|
Google Analytics |
Google Analytics is a web analytics service offered by Google that tracks and reports website traffic. 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 |
Unsubscribing
You can unsubscribe from the Community and delete your user account at any time by clicking here and selecting ‘leave the community’.
Where your data is stored
All data is stored securely within the UK.
For further information on your personal data rights please refer to our privacy policy: https://www.south-staffs-water.co.uk/privacy-cookie-policy
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 the email address below.