Privacy Policy

The Institute of Spring Technology Ltd (“We”) are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy.

This policy 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.

For the purpose of the Data Protection Act 1998 (the Act), and the GDPR (2018),  the data controller is the Institute of Spring Technology Ltd, of Henry Street, Sheffield, S3 7EQ, United Kingdom with registered number 3305326.

INFORMATION WE MAY COLLECT FROM YOU

  • We may collect and process the following data about you:
  • ​Information that you provide by filling in forms on our site www.ist.org.uk (our site). This includes information provided at the time of registering to use our site, subscribing to our service, posting material or requesting further services. We may also ask you for information when you report a problem with our site.
  • If you contact us, we may keep a record of that correspondence.
  • We may also ask you to complete surveys that we use for research purposes, although you do not have to respond to them.
  • Details of transactions you carry out through our site and of the fulfilment of your orders.
  • Details of your visits to our site including, but not limited to, traffic data, location data, weblogs and other communication data, whether this is required for our own billing purposes or otherwise and the resources that you access.

IP ADDRESSES AND COOKIES

We may collect information about your computer, including where available your IP address, operating system and browser type, for system administration and to report aggregate information to our advertisers. This is statistical data about our users’ browsing actions and patterns, and does not identify any individual.

For the same reason, we may obtain information about your general internet usage by using a cookie file which is stored on the hard drive of your computer. Cookies contain information that is transferred to your computer’s hard drive. They help us to improve our site and to deliver a better and more personalised service. They enable us:

  • ​To estimate our audience size and usage pattern.
  • To store information about your preferences, and so allow us to customise our site according to your individual interests.
  • To speed up your searches.
  • To recognise you when you return to our site.

You may refuse to accept cookies by activating the setting on your browser which allows you to refuse the setting of cookies. However, if you select this setting you may be unable to access certain parts of our site. Unless you have adjusted your browser setting so that it will refuse cookies, our system will issue cookies when you log on to our site.

FORCE24 COOKIES AND TRACKING

Our organisation utilises Force24’s marketing automation platform. Force24 cookies are first party cookies and are enabled at the point of cookie acceptance on this website. The cookies are named below:

  • F24_autoID
  • F24_personID

They allow us to understand our audience engagement thus allowing better optimisation of marketing activity.

f24_autoId – This is a temporary identifier on a local machine or phone browser that helps us track anonymous information to be later married up with f24_personid. If this is left anonymous it will be deleted after 6 months . Non-essential, first party, 10 years, persistent.

f24_personId – This is an ID generated per individual contact in the Force24 system to be able to track behaviour and form submissions into the Force24 system from outside sources per user. This is used for personalisation and ability to segment decisions for further communications. Non-essential, first party, 10 years, persistent.

The information stored by Force24 cookies remains anonymous until:

  • Our website is visited via clicking from an email or SMS message, sent via the Force24 platform and cookies are accepted on the website.
  • A user of the website completes a form containing email address from either our website or our Force24 landing pages.

The Force24 cookies will remain on a device for 10 years unless they are deleted.

Other Tracking

We also use similar technologies including tracking pixels and link tracking to monitor your viewing activities

Device & browser type and open statistics

All emails have a tracking pixel ( a tiny invisible image ) with a query string in the URL. Within the URL we have user details to identify who opened an email for statistical purposes.

Link Tracking

All links within emails and SMS messages sent from the Force24 platform contain a unique tracking reference, this reference help us identify who clicked an email for statistical purposes.

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. Such staff maybe engaged in, among other things, the fulfilment of your order, the processing of your payment details and the provision of support services. 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 and with the GDPR legislation.

All information you provide to us is stored on our secure servers. Any payment transactions will be encrypted. Where we have given you (or where you have chosen) a password which enables you to access certain parts of our site, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential. We ask you not to share a password with anyone.

Unfortunately, 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 to try to prevent unauthorised access.

Should you pay for services or goods using a Credit Card, Debit Card or other electronic payment system, no details of your payment card or account is stored on our servers, and all such processing is carried out by our payment processing partner, Worldpay, in accordance with PCI-DSS regulations.

WHAT USE WE MAKE OF YOUR DATA

We use information held about you in the following ways:​

  • To ensure that content from our site is presented in the most effective manner for you and for your computer.
  • To provide you with information, products or services that you request from us or which we feel may interest you, where you have consented to be contacted for such purposes. You may update or revoke your consent at any time.
  • To carry out our obligations arising from any contracts entered into between you and us.
  • To allow you to participate in interactive features of our service, when you choose to do so.
  • To notify you about changes to our service.

If you are an existing customer, we will contact you by electronic means (e-mail or SMS) with information about goods and services similar to those which were the subject of a previous sale to you, or to service your contract with us –  i.e. communicate user instructions, access information or update information for the service you are accessing.

If you are a new customer, we will contact you by electronic means to service your contract with us – i.e. communicate user instructions, access information or update information for the service you are accessing.

DISCLOSURE OF YOUR INFORMATION

We may disclose your personal information to any member of our group, which means our subsidiaries, our ultimate holding company and its subsidiaries, as defined in section 736 of the UK Companies Act 1985.

We may disclose your personal information to third parties:

  • ​In the event that we sell or buy any business or assets, in which case we may disclose your personal data to the prospective seller or buyer of such business or assets.
  • If the Institute of Spring Technology Ltd or substantially all of its assets are acquired by a third party, in which case personal data held by it about its customers will be one of the transferred assets.
  • If 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 protect the rights, property, or safety of the Institute of Spring Technology Ltd, our customers, or others. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organisations for the purposes of fraud protection and credit risk reduction.
  • As required for law enforcement activities.

YOUR RIGHTS

You have the right to ask us not to process your personal data for marketing purposes. We will usually inform you (before collecting your data) if we intend to use your data for such purposes or if we intend to disclose your information to any third party for such purposes. You can exercise your right to prevent such processing by checking certain boxes on the forms we use to collect your data. You can also exercise the right at any time by contacting us at ist@ist.org.uk.

Our site may, from time to time, contain links to and from the websites of our partner networks, advertisers and affiliates. If you follow a link to any of these websites, please note that these websites have their own privacy policies and that we do not accept any responsibility or liability for these policies. Please check these policies before you submit any personal data to these websites.

UPDATING YOUR CONSENT TO BE CONTACTED

You may at any time update your consent to be contacted by sending an e-mail to ist@ist.org.uk with a Subject Line of ‘Consent Update’.  We will send you a link to a page on our website that allows you to update your consent to be contacted for marketing purposes.

If you are in a contractual arrangement with us, or are using our membership services, we will contact you as required to meet contractual obligations.

ACCESS TO INFORMATION

The Act gives you the right to access information held about you. Your right of access can be exercised in accordance with the Act. Any access request may be subject to a fee of £10 to meet our costs in providing you with details of the information we hold about you.

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 e-mail.

CONTACT

Questions, comments and requests regarding this privacy policy are welcomed and should be addressed to ist@ist.org.uk.