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Privacy Notice

Visit Ashford and Tenterden

  1. Introduction

The website that you are currently viewing – www.visitashfordandtenterden.co.uk – is a microsite that is owned and managed by Ashford Borough Council (ABC), but is hosted on the Visit Kent website – www.visitkent.co.uk and operated in partnership with Visit Kent Limited.

ABC is the data controller in connection with any personal information collected or received by us arising from your use of this website. ABC’s and its Data Protection Officer can be contacted at: The Data Protection Officer, Ashford Borough Council, Civic Centre, Tannery Lane, Ashford TN23 1PL or via FOI@ashford.gov.uk.

The processing of personal data is governed, in the UK, by the General Data Protection Regulation (the “GDPR”) 2016 and any national implementing laws, regulations and secondary legislation, as amended or updated from time to time, and the regional supervisory authority is the ICO.

We are registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) with registration number Z8344724.

  1. Information collected

We may collect and hold the following personal data about you and/or your business/organisation;

  • Information about your visit to our website, including details about your computer, your browser and how you use this website;
  • E-mail address, when subscribing to any newsletter;
  • Name, company name, e-mail address, phone number, and any details you may give us when contacting us;
  • Any information (name, company name, e-mail address, details of enquiry etc) you send us via e-mail;
  • Any personal details provided in your email or letters to us;
  • Records of any services we provide you, your company/business/organisation.

If you contact us for any reason, we may retain copies of any letters, emails or online forms and may record telephone conversations with you.

  1. Why and how we use your data

At times we will process information that you provide to us for the purpose of visitor registration, brochure requests, e-newsletters subscriptions, competition entry and to place promotional entries on our site (tourism businesses only).

  • E-newsletters – At times we may run newsletter campaigns, by signing up you are agreeing to receive email communications. These can be unsubscribed from at any time, simply by clicking the unsubscribe link at the bottom of the email or replying with the word ‘Unsubscribe’. In such scenarios your data will be processed under a consensual legal basis.
  • Competitions – At times we may run competitions please check the individual terms and conditions associated with each competition. When you enter a competition, we may collect your name, email address and postal address. In such scenarios your data will be processed under a contractual legal basis.
  • Business promotional entry – All tourism businesses in the area can benefit from a free promotional entry on our site. Information provided will be shared with Visit Kent and its other regional microsites and will be publically available to promote your business. Information will be periodically reviewed and a request to remove the promotional entry can be made at any time. In such scenarios your data will be processed under a contractual legal basis.
  • If you contact us via email, letter or our contact form your information may be held for the period of up to 7 years in line with our email retention policy.
  1. Cookies, Heat Mapping and Google Analytics.

Cookies are small data files which are sent from the website and stored on your computer by your website browser. The cookies used on this website are either to:

  • Enable you to navigate the website and find the information you are looking for, or
  • To give us general information about website activity, e.g. how many people visit the website, which pages they look at, what devices they use (PC's mobile phones etc).

For more information please see Visit Kent’s Data Protection Pages here

  1. Social Media

If you use any of our social network pages or applications or you use one of our products or services that allow interaction with social networks, we may receive information relating to your social network accounts. For instance:

  • If you click on a ‘like’, ‘+1’ or ‘tweet’ or similar button in one of our websites or services, we may record the fact that you have done so. In addition, the content that you are viewing may be posted to your social network profile or feed. We may receive information about further interactions with this posted content (for example, if your contacts click on a link in the posted content), which we may associate with the details that we store about you.
  • If you ‘like’, ‘+1’ or similar one of our pages on a social network site, we may receive information about your social network profile, depending on your social network account privacy settings.

For more information and for details about how you can control access to your social network profile, you should view the privacy policy and other guidance available on your social network’s website.’

  1. Who we share personal data with and why

We may share your personal data with: - our employees, officers, Visit Kent and its other microsites in order to administer and ensure the good performance of this website. Your data may be shared with other departments within the council for the purpose of improving services, keeping records up-to-date and for the protection of the public fund.

  1. How we protect your data

The data you provide is protected by rigorous measures and procedures to make sure it can’t be seen, or accessed by, or disclosed to anyone who shouldn’t be allowed to see it.

We provide training to staff who handle personal data and treat it as a disciplinary matter if they misuse or do not look after your personal data properly.

  1. Your rights

Unless subject to an exemption under data protection legislation, you have the following rights:

  • the right to access;
  • the right to rectification;
  • the right to erasure;
  • the right to restrict processing;
  • the right to object to processing;
  • the right to data portability;
  • the right to complain to a supervisory authority; and
  • the right to withdraw consent.

For further information about you individual rights, including how to contact Ashford Borough Councils, Data Protection Officer, please see the council’s data protection pages which can be found here.

  1. Right to Complain

We set ourselves high standards when it comes to protecting your personal data. For this reason, we take any complaints we receive from you about our use of your personal data very seriously and request that you bring any issues to our attention.

Where you are communicating with us for the purpose of making a complaint, we will only use your personal data to handle, investigate and respond to the complaint and to check on the level of service we provide.

If having exhausted the complaint process you are not content that your request or review has been dealt with correctly, you can appeal to the ICO to investigate the matter further by writing to:
Information Commissioner's Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

  1. About Us

The website is owned and operated by Ashford Tourist Information part of Ashford Borough Council:

Ashford Visitor information Centre,
Ashford Gateway Plus,
Church Road,
Ashford,
Kent,
TN23 1AS.
Tel: 01233 330316 tourism@ashford.gov.uk

  1. Changes to our Data Protection Policy
  • We may update this policy from time to time by publishing a new version on our website.
  • You should check this page occasionally to ensure you are happy with any changes to this policy.
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Contact Us
Ashford Visitor Information Service. Email: tourism@ashford.gov.uk
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