Privacy Policy

Privacy Policy

Our Privacy Commitments

PFD Media Group. (“we”) respects the privacy of every person who visits, registers with or subscribes to our websites and online publications (“you”), and are committed to ensuring a safe online experience.

This Privacy Statement outlines the information we may collect about you in relation to your use of our websites and related publications and services (“personal data”) and how we may use that personal data. It also outlines the methods by which we and our service providers may (subject to necessary consents) monitor your online behaviour in order to deliver customised advertisements and marketing materials and other tailored services. This Privacy Statement also tells you how you can verify the accuracy of your personal data and how you can request that we delete or update it.

This Privacy Statement applies to all websites operated by us (as indicated on the relevant website) (“Sites”). Please note that the Sites may contain links to external sites and may contain advertisements for, and/or the opportunity for you to purchase products or services from third parties. This privacy statement does not cover the activities of such third parties, and you should consult those third party sites’ privacy policies for information on how your data is used by them. By accessing and using the Sites you are agreeing to the terms of this Privacy Statement.

 

Information about us

Our principal business activities are:

Publishing. We provide a range of products and services focused on sustainable urban development.

PFD Media Group company address:

Chester House

Fulham Green

81-83 Fulham High Street

London SW6 3JA

United Kingdom

 

Collection of Personal Data

Our primary goal in collecting personal data from you is to give you an enjoyable customised experience whilst allowing us to provide services and features that most likely meet your needs.

We collect certain personal data from you, which you give to us when using our Sites and/or registering or subscribing for our products and services. However, we also give you the option to access our Sites’ home pages without subscribing or registering or disclosing your personal data.

Please note that we do not intend to collect any personal data from children under sixteen years of age and no child under sixteen should submit any personal data to any of the Sites. Should we discover that any such personal data has been delivered to any of our Sites, we will remove that information as soon as possible.

 

Types of Personal Data Held and its Use

Customer Services and Administration

At some Sites, PFD Media Group collects personal data such as your name, job title, work and/or home address, and telephone number and email address in order to register you for access to certain content and subscriptions. This information may be supplemented with demographic information from your use of our Sites such as your postal area, age, gender, purchasing preferences and interests.

This information is used to administer and deliver to you the products and/or services you have requested, to operate our Sites efficiently and improve our service to you, and to retain records of our business transactions and communications. By using the Sites and submitting personal information through the registration process you are agreeing that we may collect, hold, process and use your information (including personal information) for the purpose of providing you with the Site services and developing our business, which shall include (without limitation) the purposes described below in paragraphs 2 and 3.

Monitoring use of our Sites

Where, as part of our Site services, we enable you to post information or materials on our Site, we may access and monitor any information which you upload or input, including in any password-protected sections. Subject to any necessary consents, we also monitor and/or record the different Sites you visit and actions taken on those Sites, e.g. content viewed or searched for. If you are a registered user (e.g. a subscriber or taking a trial), when you log on, this places a cookie on your machine. This enables your access to content and services that are not publicly available. Once you are logged on, the actions you take – for example, viewing an article – will be recorded (subject to any necessary consents). We may use technology or a service provider to do this for us. This information may be used for one or more of the following purposes:

* to fulfil our obligations to you;

* to improve the efficiency, quality and design of our Sites and services;

* to see which articles, features and services are most read and used

* to track compliance with our terms and conditions of use, e.g. to ensure that you are acting within the scope of your user licence;

* for marketing purposes (subject to your rights to opt-in and opt-out of receiving certain marketing communications) – see paragraph 3 below;

* for advertising purposes, although the information used for these purposes does not identify you personally. Please see paragraph 5 below for more details;

* to protect or comply with our legal rights and obligations; and

* to enable our journalists to contact and interact with you online in connection with any content you may post to our Sites.

Please see on the Cookies page to learn where you can turn cookies on or off.

Marketing

Some of your personal data collected may be used by us and/or our other group companies and third party service providers to contact you by email, fax, telephone and/or post for sending information or promotional material on our products and/or services and/or those of our other group companies.

We give you the opportunity to opt-out of receiving marketing communications and will in certain circumstances need to obtain your consent before sending such communications to you. Further detail can be found on the applicable Site and in each marketing communication sent by us, our group companies or service providers. See also “Consents and opt-outs” section below.

Reporting

Some of your personal data collected may be used by us to report on the performance of certain content on our Site, including to third-party organisations. We give you the opportunity to opt-out of this in order to be excluded from such reporting.

Trading in Personal Data

None of your personal data will be collected and processed with the intention of selling it to other organisations, unless you have given your explicit consent for this (separately to this privacy statement).

 

Cookies and similar technologies

All our Sites use cookies and similar technical tools to collect information about your access to the Site and the services we provide.

Cookies are pieces of information which include a unique reference code that a website transfers to your device to store and sometimes track information about you. A number of cookies we use last only for the duration of your web session and expire when you close your browser. Other cookies are used to remember you when you return to the Site and will last for longer. Cookies cannot be used to run programs or deliver viruses to your computer. They are uniquely assigned to you and can only be read by a Web server in the domain that issued the cookie.

We may use cookies to:

* remember that you have used the Site before; this means we can identify the number of unique visitors we receive to different parts of the Site. This allows us to make sure we have enough capacity for the number of users that we get and make sure that the Site runs fast enough;

* remember your login session so you can move from one page to another within the Site;

* store your preferences or your user name and password so that you do not need to input these every time you visit the Site;

* customise elements of the layout and/or content of the pages of Site for you;

* record activity on our Sites so that we understand how you use our Sites enabling us to better tailor our content, services and marketing to your needs; and

* collect statistical information about how you use the Site so that we can improve the Site.

Most web browsers automatically accept cookies but, if you prefer, you can change your browser to prevent that or to notify you each time a cookie is set. You can also learn more about cookies in general by visiting www.allaboutcookies.org which includes additional useful information on cookies and how to block cookies using different types of browser. Please note however, that by blocking, deleting or turning off cookies used on the Site you may not be able to take full advantage of the Site.

 

Email tracking

So that we can better understand our users’ needs, we track responses to our emails – for example, to see which links are the most popular in newsletters, and to log and follow up responses to our marketing messages. This enables us to tell if a message has been opened and to track click-throughs on links within the message. Any other purposes for which PFD Publications Ltd. wishes to use your personal data will be notified to you and your personal data will not be used for any such purpose without obtaining your prior consent.

 

Consents and opt-outs

You can give your consent to or opt out of particular uses of your data as indicated above by:

* Indicating at the point on the relevant Site where personal data is collected;

* Informing us by email, post or phone; or

* Updating your preferences on the applicable Site;

* For turning cookies and similar technologies on and off, see the information above.

 

Disclosures

Information collected at one Site may be shared between various PFD Media Group company segments for the purposes listed above.

Your personal data may also be sold to other companies in the form of lists and directories, but only after permission from you in accordance with the provisions above.

We may also disclose your personal data to other third parties, including, without limitation, professional advisers, or governmental or State institutions or regulatory authorities, where necessary in order to exercise or defend legal rights or where required by law.

We may transfer, sell or assign any of the information described in this policy to third parties as a result of a sale, merger, consolidation, change of control, transfer of assets or reorganisation of our business.

 

Public forums, message boards and blogs

Some of our Sites make message boards, blogs or other facilities for user generated content available and users can participate in these facilities. Any information that is disclosed in these areas becomes public information and you should always be careful when deciding to disclose your personal information.

 

Transfers outside the EEA

Services on the Internet are accessible globally so collection and transmission of personal data is not always limited to one country. PFD Media Group may transfer your personal data,

for the purposes listed above, to other group companies, service providers or other third parties which may be located in countries outside the European Economic Area, whose laws may not give the level of protection to personal data as within the UK. This will include transfers to third parties who provide us with email and marketing services. Where we conduct any transfers we will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that your data is treated securely and in accordance with this Privacy Statement.

 

Confidentiality and Security of Your Personal Data

We are committed to keeping the data you provide us secure and will take reasonable precautions to protect your personal data from loss, misuse or alteration.

The transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. Although we will do our best to protect your personal data, we cannot guarantee the security of your data transmitted to our Site; any transmission is at your own risk. Once we have received your information, we will use strict procedures and security features described above to try to prevent unauthorised access.

We have implemented information security policies, rules and technical measures to protect the personal data that we have under our control from:

* unauthorised access

* improper use or disclosure

* unauthorised modification

* unlawful destruction or accidental loss

All our employees, contractors and data processors (i.e. those who process your personal data on our behalf, for the purposes listed above), who have access to, and are associated with the processing of your personal data, are obliged to keep the information confidential and not use it for any other purpose than to carry out the services they are performing for us.

We also give you the option of using a secure transmission method to send us personal data identifiers, such as credit card details and bank account number.

 

How to Access, Update and Erase your Personal Information

If you wish to know whether we are keeping personal data about you, or if you have an enquiry about our privacy policy or your personal data held by us, in relation to any of the Sites, you can contact the Data Protection Officer via postal mail to this address: Data Protection Officer, PFD Media Group, Chester House, Fulham Green, 81-83 Fulham High Street, London SW6 3JA United Kingdom.

Upon request, we will provide you with a readable copy of the personal data which we keep about you. We may require proof of your identity and, under certain circumstances, may charge a small fee (not exceeding the statutory maximum fee that can be charged) to cover administration and postage.

PFD Media Group allows you to challenge the data that we hold about you and, where appropriate in accordance with applicable laws, you have:

* the right to access your personal data

* the right to rectify your personal data

* the right to erase your personal data

* the right to restrict the personal data that is being processed

* the right to data portability of your personal data

* the right to object to your personal data being processed further

*  the right not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing, including profiling.

 

Changes to this Privacy Statement

We will occasionally update this Privacy Statement to reflect new legislation or industry practice, group company changes and customer feedback. We encourage you to review this Privacy Statement periodically to be informed of how we are protecting your personal data.

This Privacy Statement was last updated in June 2021.