INTRODUCTION
This policy covers the processing of personal data by Future plc, whose registered address is at Quay House, The Ambury, Bath, BA1 1UA, and its associated Group companies (“Future”, “we” or “us”). Future is committed to protecting the privacy of your personal information whilst striving to provide the very best user experience. We want our websites to be safe and enjoyable for everyone. Under the UK General Data Protection Regulation 2021 (GDPR), the Data Protection Act 2018 and related laws, we have a legal duty to protect the personal information we collect from you. GDPR says that ‘personal data’ is any information relating to a living individual who can be identified, either directly or indirectly, from that information. This could include your name, email address, postal address or telephone number, or information collected online and used to identify you.
WHAT DATA DO WE COLLECT AND HOW DO WE USE IT?
| Information you provide to us | When you participate in, access, purchase or sign up to any of our services, activities online accounts or online content, such as magazine subscriptions, newsletters, surveys, vouchers, competitions, events, webinars, white papers or community forums we receive personal information about you which we use to provide these services. This may consist of data such as your name, email address, postal address and telephone number. We will use this to provide the specific products and services you are seeking, and will ensure we have a lawful basis for doing so, in accordance with the country in which you reside. |
| Ordering a product or service from us | If you order a product or service from us, you will need to provide certain personal details, including payment information, so the order can be fulfilled. This may be collected, for example, as part of the registration process or when creating an account. In some cases, we will use or direct you to a third party who will collect this information from you and fulfill your order. For example, if you order a subscription to our publications, you may be able to access those products through a digital newsstand such as Apple Newsstand. |
| Attending an event | If you attend one of our events, awards or conferences we may receive personal information about you, including your name and contact details and any dietary and accessibility requirements. If you attend one of our events remotely, we may share your name and contact details with the platform hosting the event. |
| Content you share with us | When you choose to share comments, photos, videos and other content with us we may receive personal information about you, for example when you interact with us on social media. |
| Information we collect automatically when you use our sites/services | We may collect technical and/or behavioural information about your use of our websites or other content online, and the device(s) you use to access the services. For example, this information may include details about how you browse our website and the devices and technology you use to browse our website. This may also include unique online identifiers such as device ID, device type, IP address and approximate location at the time of browsing and may link to your activity on other sites and allows us to recognise you or your device. We may use this to build a more detailed profile of you and your interests. We may also provide you with location-based services (for example, advertising and other personalised content), where we collect geo-location data. Please see What data is collected on our websites? and our Cookies Policy for further details about how we use this data and information on opting out. |
| Information for analysis, reporting and research | We also collect statistical and analytical data about your visits and activity on our sites, such as the pages you view, how long for, and which links are followed. This helps us to improve the way we deliver content and the products and services offered to you. We also use this anonimised data to report on our performance and to sell advertising. In addition, we may need to contact you about your experience of a product or service we provide you. For more detailed information about the analytics companies we work with please click here |
| eCommerce | Some of our websites contain links to products and services offered by third-party websites. If you click on those links we will use data collected about your activity on our site to direct you to the third party site. We and the third party may collect data to show us that you have clicked on the link and whether you purchased any products and services. We may receive a commission from the third party if you link to their site from a Future site and purchase goods and services from them. |
| Direct marketing | We use the information you provide us with, such as email, address, or phone number, to send you marketing communications, either based on your consent or where we have legitimate grounds to do so. You can update your marketing preferences at any time. If you would like to unsubscribe (or opt-out) of receiving these emails please click the links on the emails you receive or contact our DPO on dpo@futurenet.com. |
| Email tracking and online behavioural data | We use web beacons in our emails to track the success of our marketing campaigns so if you open an email from us, we can see which of the pages of our website you visited. Our web beacons don’t store any information on your computer but, by communicating with our cookies on your computer, they can tell us which emails you’re interacting with and how you’re interacting with them. For example, we will know when you have opened an email from us and the devices used. We may keep track of the emails that we send you and may use the information we collect to personalise the emails we send to you. We also keep a record of the communications you have selected to receive or not to receive, for example whether you would like to only receive brand marketing from a particular brand, or that you have agreed to receive emails deemed of interest to you from other brands within the Group. We may also use your email in a hashed, unidentifiable form to help us understand your online behaviour. This may in turn be used for analytics and targeting. If you would like to opt out of receiving such emails, please contact our DPO on dpo@futurenet.com. |
| When you contribute articles and content | If you write for us, or provide us with content in return for payment, through one of our sites, we may collect your social media profiles, such as Facebook and Twitter, on registration. This allows us to show links to your social media profiles within the content that you write, allowing other users of the site, and yourself, to share your content with others. This may also involve giving you access to the areas of a website that directly interacts with or makes use of YouTube APIs. This enables us to collect other information needed to upload content such as the source of the video, (for example, from an existing article or original content or playlist), also analytical data such as view counts, and how long watched. We will also use the information you provide us with, such as bank details, to ensure we pay you the correct fees for the content you provide for us. |
| Research surveys | We may use the information you provide to invite you to participate in surveys and focus groups about our products, clients and services. Participation is always voluntary and the answers you provide are anonymous and aggregated to support our learnings and inform changes we can make to improve our products and services. |
| Information from other sources, including Group companies | We may receive information about you from other sources (for example, missing information about your postal or email addresses) and add it to the personal information we hold about you. We may also receive data from other sources, such as our business partners, Group companies and social media platforms. For example, when you visit one of our Facebook pages. Other information, such as inferred data and demographics data, may also be collected and used to match, combine and enrich profile information we hold on you. For example, linking your contact or subscriber information with your activity across our sites. In addition, if you opt-in to receive marketing from our Group companies, you may receive emails deemed of interest to you from other brands within the Group. |
| Information which allows us to recognise you or your device | We may share information that we collect from you (for example, when you browse through our websites or use our mobile applications), such as your email (in hashed, pseudonymous form), IP address, your mobile advertising ID or information about your browser or operating system, with our partners, and their group companies, who use this information to create an online identification code for the purpose of recognising you on your device. This code does not contain any of your identifiable personal data and cannot be used to re-identify you. We place this code in our first-party cookie or use a partner’s cookie, and allow it to be used for online and cross-channel advertising. This hashed, pseudonymous code may be shared with our advertising partners and other third-party advertising companies globally for the purpose of enabling interest-based content or targeted advertising throughout your online experience (e.g. web, email, connected devices, and in-app, etc). These third parties may in turn use this code to link demographic or interest-based information you have provided in your interactions with them. For example, one of these third parties is LiveRamp who, acting as “joint controllers” (as applicable and defined in the GDPR) use the information to create an online identification code that we may store in our first-party cookie for our use in online, in-app, and cross-channel advertising. This may be shared with advertising companies to enable interest-based and targeted advertising. LiveRamp uses this information to create an online identification code for the purpose of recognising you on your devices. This code does not contain any of your directly identifiable personal data and will not be used by LiveRamp to re-identify you . To opt-out of this activity with LiveRamp, click here. For more detailed information on how the third parties who we work with use your data, please see their privacy policies here. You have the right to withdraw your consent or opt-out of processing your personal data at any time. If you would like to withdraw your cookie consent you can do so via the consent management pop-up. To opt-out of your hashed email address being shared for profile based online advertising, please email dpo@futurenet.com using the subject line ‘opt-out of hashed email ad profiling’. |
| Business specific data | Some of our websites also collect business data, for example when signing up for a webinar or when downloading a white paper. This may include professional or employment information, such as company name, job title, job function, level in organisation, company type, company revenue and number of company employees, business phone number, business address, business email, corporate website, employment history, professional designations and educational information. Also location information, such as country, and state (or county), and ZIP code (or postcode). We typically collect this information directly when you complete registration forms or when you provide other information through our Website or via email. When we collect this information directly, we let you know if providing the information is optional or if it is required to provide our Services. Occasionally we may purchase business data from third party suppliers which may include, for example, business email address, business job title and business postal address. This may result in you receiving communications from Future regarding your business sector or business interests without you having directly supplied your information to us. For example, we may email you to encourage you to sign up to a webinar. We keep clear records of the data suppliers and provide an unsubscribe option at every contact. For information on the third parties we work with, please click here. If you have any queries concerning the use of business data we hold about you please email dpo@futurenet.com (UK/EU consumers) or privacyofficer@futurenet.com (US/Canadian Consumers). |
WHAT LAWFUL BASIS DO WE RELY ON FOR PROCESSING?
In order to process your personal data, we must have a lawful reason for doing so. GDPR sets out six lawful bases under which organisations can collect, use and store personal data. We rely on four of the lawful bases:
Necessary for the performance of a contract
If you are our customer, for example a subscriber of a magazine or an attendee at one of our events, we will process your personal data on the basis that it is necessary for us to provide our products and services to you.
Consent
In some instances we rely on your specific consent to process your personal information. This is where you have actively agreed and ‘opted-in’, for example to receive marketing communications from us, and you have the right to withdraw your consent at any time.
Compliance with laws
We may have to process and share your personal data in order to comply with our legal obligations, or to protect our rights or the rights of others. For example, we are required to collect certain information from you when processing your subscription payment for tax or financial reporting reasons.
Legitimate interests
In some situations we rely on our legitimate business interests in order to collect and use your personal data. In these situations, we have conducted a balancing test to carefully consider the impact of the processing on your interests, rights and freedoms. We will only undertake the processing if we are satisfied there is no negative impact on you. We rely on Legitimate Interests for the following activities:
- providing, maintaining, improving and developing our products and services;
- sending direct marketing communications about our products and services to customers, which may, for example in the US, include content we send on behalf of advertisers;
- sending marketing communications related to the products and services of carefully selected companies in a business-to-business context;
- managing suppression and unsubscribe requests;
- researching publicly available business contact details;
- managing certain aspects of our events;
- analysing the use of our products and services;
- using aggregated, non – personally identifiable statistical and analysis data to identify usage trends, such as your visits and activity on our sites, and to determine the effectiveness of campaigns;
- allowing you to comment on our sites, provide feedback or take a survey;
- dealing with queries and complaints;
- notifying you of product recalls or providing other information concerning products you have purchased;
- personalising your experience on our sites;
- using your data in hashed non-identifiable form to help find you or similar audiences through Facebook’s audience function and Google customer match;
- identifying fraudulent behaviour and ensuring our websites and systems are secure;
- building and enriching profiles of users based upon, for example, product selection and online behaviour; and
- sharing the information you provide and other information held about you within our Group companies, for the purposes of this policy. For more information .
If you object to our reliance on Legitimate Interests for any purpose please contact our DPO.
WHO MAY WE SHARE YOUR DATA WITH?
We use third parties to perform certain functions on our behalf including fulfilling orders, sending emails, organising and managing events, running competitions and promotions, conducting surveys or polls, removing repetitive information from customer lists, comment hosting, website analysis, data analysis, and processing credit card payments. They will have access to your personal information if necessary to perform their function but they cannot use it or disclose it for any other purpose unless you have specifically given them consent to do so.
LINKS TO OTHER WEBSITES
Our websites may include links to third-party websites, plug-ins, and applications. Clicking on those links or enabling those connections may allow third parties to collect or share data about you. We do not control these third-party websites and, when you leave our website, we encourage you to read the privacy notice of every website you visit. We may monetise some of these links through the use of third-party affiliate programmes. These affiliate links help pay the costs of producing our websites and ensure that the content is free to you. However, it doesn’t mean that we are in any way indebted to Amazon or any other company. Nor do they or any other company have any influence over editorial coverage, how we rate products, or whether they get a positive review. Notwithstanding such affiliate programmes, we are not responsible for the content or privacy policies of these websites or for third-party advertisers, nor for the way in which they use the information they collect about you.
STORAGE AND RETENTION OF DATA
We hold personal data for a variety of different purposes and the length of time we keep your data will vary depending on the services or products we are providing. We will only keep your data for a reasonable period of time, which is based on the purpose for which we are using your data.
Once that purpose has been fulfilled, we will securely delete that data or anonymise your information (so that we, or anyone else, can no longer tell that data relates to you) unless we are required to retain the data longer for legal, tax or accounting reasons.
DATA SECURITY
We are committed to protecting the personal data we hold and keep your information secure by taking appropriate technical and organisational measures against its unauthorised or unlawful processing and against its accidental loss, destruction or damage.
Where we use third-party service providers to store data, we have appropriate agreements in place to ensure that your personal data is protected. In addition, we limit access to your personal information to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know. We also require any third parties to whom we may transfer personal data to have appropriate security measures in place. They will only process your personal information on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.
Our websites may permit you to create an account, or have the facility for an account to be created on your behalf. When this happens, you will be prompted to create a password. You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your password, and you are responsible for any access to or use of your account by someone else that has obtained your password, whether or not such access or use has been authorized by you. You should notify us of any unauthorized use of your password or account. If you believe your account has been compromised