This privacy policy sets out how Solar Bear uses and protects any information that you give us when you:

• Browse our websites
• Fill-out a feedback form or complete an online survey
• Sign-up for our newsletters
• Apply for training and opportunities
• When your photograph is taken by a festival photographer/videographer

This policy exists because we respect your privacy. We have implemented procedures to ensure that your personal information is handled in a safe, secure and responsible manner. Should we ask you to provide any information when completing any of the above by which you could be identified, be assured that it will only be used in accordance with this privacy policy and in line with the General Data Protection Regulations.

Solar Bear reserves the right to update and make changes to this privacy policy from time to time. We advise you to revisit this page regularly to ensure that you are aware of any modifications or updates to the ways in which we collect and use your personal information.

As a small organisation we pride ourselves in managing data in a transparent manner. We want to ensure you know exactly how your data is handled, so we have created some FAQS to answer any questions you may have.

What is the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and how does it affect me?

This legislation will replace current data privacy law, giving more rights to you as an individual and place more obligations on organisations holding your personal data, in this case, Solar Bear. This means that when you interact with organisations online, you have rights with regards to how we use and hold your information. This includes:

• The right to be informed (i.e. via this privacy policy)
• The right to access the personal information that we hold about you
• The right to change or rectify the personal information that we hold about you
• The right to erasure, or restrict the processing of personal information that we hold about you
• The right to stop direct mailings or email marketing

For more information on how to exercise these rights, please scroll down to: ‘How do I exercise the rights to my data being used?‘

Why does Solar Bear collect my information?

We mainly process your personal information under what the GDPR call “Legitimate Interests”. Legitimate Interests means those of our organisation when conducting and managing our business to enable us to give you the best service and most secure experience we can. For example, we have an interest in making our marketing relevant for you, so we may process your information to send you information that is tailored to your interests.

We always make sure to consider carefully any potential impact – both positive and negative – our legitimate interests and activities may have on you and your rights under data protection laws. Our legitimate business interests do not automatically override your interests – we will not use your Personal Data for activities where our interests are overridden by the impact on you (unless we have your consent or are otherwise required or permitted to by law).

If you have any concerns, you have the right to object to any processing of information that is based on our legitimate interests.

What information does Solar Bear collect?

Predominantly, we use your data information for marketing purposes, unless we have been in contact with each other over direct email with regards to year-round activities. We use the information we collect for a range of reasons, including:

• To provide, operate and maintain regular newsletters
• For administration and reporting purposes including (but not limited to) troubleshooting, performance analysis, statistical analysis and testing
• To improve our website(s) to ensure that their content is presented in the most effective manner for you and for your device
• To analyse how you use our website(s) for trend monitoring and marketing purposes
• For the purposes made clear to you at the time you submit your information
• As part of our efforts to keep our website(s) safe and secure

Here is a breakdown of where and how we use your data, including information about any third parties we use to manage your data on our behalf. Our team has conducted a great deal of research to ensure that the third parties that handle our customers data are safe, reliable and active members of EU-US Privacy Shield.

Website(s)

When you use our website we collect personal information that you provide to us – name and email address – via our online forms for newsletters sign-up. Please note, we do not sell your personal information to anyone under any circumstances, unless we may be require to in response to valid requests by public authorities such as the police or security services.

We use cookies to help identify your computer, so we can tailor your user experience and track the pages you are interested in using. Cookies are very small text files that are stored on your computed when you visit certain websites. You can disable any cookies already stored on your computer, but these may stop our website(s) from functioning properly. We will not share any information with third parties.

For your convenience, hyperlinks may be posted on our website that link to other websites. We are not responsible for – and this Privacy Policy does not apply to – the privacy practices of any linked sites or of any companies that we do not own or control. We encourage you to read the privacy statements on the other website you visit.

We use third party provider, WordPress, to manage, edit and upload information onto our website(s). For more information, please see the WordPress privacy notice. For website analytics, we use Google Analytics, to analyse our web traffic. For more information please see Google’s privacy notice.

Newsletters

We use a third-party provider, Mailchimp, to deliver our regular newsletters. We gather statistics around email opening and clicks using industry standard technologies to help us monitor and improve our newsletters. You can opt-out anytime by clicking ‘unsubscribe’. For more information, please see Mailchimp’s privacy policy.

Workshops & events

We use third party provider, Eventbrite, to manage one-off events and workshops. We utilise the website to manage event attendees and to contact you directly with any updates or changes. For more information, please see Eventbrite’s privacy notice.

Feedback & online surveys

We use third party provider, Survey Monkey, to collect feedback from workshop participants, artists, audiences and venues who engage in Solar Bear productions and projects. For more information, please see Survey Monkey’s privacy notice.

Social media

We use third party providers, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Hootsuite to send, schedule and track our social media transaction with our audiences. For more information, please see Facebook’s privacy notice, Twitter’s privacy notice, Instagram’s privacy notice and Hootsuite’s privacy notice.

Photography & videography

We often hire professional, freelance photographers or videographers to capture our live events. We use the documentation to create promotional material for purely marketing purposes. The material is shared on our websites and social media pages. At events, we will alert audiences and artists that photographs/video are being taken. We will seek appropriate written permission for the use of these images and inform you every step of the way. We will only share the material with third parties with your approval.

If we have used an image of you, or shared a video that you have not approved, please alert us as soon as possible so we can either seek appropriate approval and/or remove the image online and offline.

Applications

When you email or submit an application to Solar Bear we have a robust system in place to protect your information. At the end of the application process we will remove your contact information from our servers. Applications submitted to us are handled discretely, confidentially and sensitively. Applications will be submitted to us either over direct email or via Google Forms. We will ask you to submit a voluntary Equality, Diversity and Inclusion form via a Survey Monkey link. The sensitive data we gather is anonymous and only used for business purposes.

Direct email

When you contact us directly, we use data provided by you on your email – name, email and phone number – to get in touch with you for the legitimate interest regarding Solar Bear business.  If third parties request personal data we hold about you, we will seek your permission before sharing. We use a third party provider, Microsoft Outlook, to run our emails. For more information, please see Outlooks privacy notice.

How does Solar Bear ensure my personal information is secure?

We use appropriate technical, organisational and administrative security measures to protect any information we hold from loss, misuse, unauthorised access, disclosure, alteration and destruction. Unfortunately, no company or service can guarantee complete security, but we have robust measures in place to find and track any data breaches. Unauthorised entry or use, hardware of software failure, and other factors may compromise the security of user information at any time. If any such breach happens, Solar Bear will inform you straight away.

How long do you hold my data for?

We only hold your personal data for as long as it is necessary for the purpose for which it was collected. Solar Bear has specified retention periods for these purposes and your information will be kept for a maximum of two-years, after which the information will be deleted or anonymised for business research and analysis. However, there may be a legal basis, such as the prevention of fraud and crime, for which we hold your information beyond the two-year period and we may share your information with a law enforcement body, when require to do so.

I’m a child under 16, does this apply to me?

We do not knowingly collect or solicit personal information from anyone under the age of 16. If you are under 16, please do not attempt to send any personal information about yourself to us. If we learn that we have collected personal information from a child, we will delete that information as quickly as possible. If you believe that a child may have provided us with personal information, please contact us at: info@solarbear.org.uk

How do I exercise the rights to my data being used?

You can opt-out of receiving promotions or marketing information from us at any time by clicking the unsubscribe link on the newsletters that we send you.

If you would like to make a complaint about the way that we have handled any aspect or the use and/or storage of your personal information, please contact the Information Commissioner’s Office which oversees data protection law: www.ico.org.uk/concerns

If you have any questions or concerns in regards to our privacy policy, please send a detailed message to: info@solarbear.org.uk

Our main address for the purposes of our website(s) is:

The Board Walk

Solar Bear

105 Brunswick Street

Glasgow G1 1TF