VisitScotland privacy policy

VisitScotland is the national tourism organisation for Scotland. Our main aim is to contribute significantly to the advancement of Scottish tourism by giving it a real presence in the global marketplace and benefiting the whole of Scotland.

This Policy will inform you as to how we look after your personal data when you visit our website and tell you about your privacy rights and how the law protects you. It also sets out if you have any queries or concerns about this information.

Purpose of this policy

This Policy aims to give you information on how VisitScotland collects and processes your personal data through your use of this website, including any data you may provide through this website when you sign up to our newsletter or use any of our products, services, applications, websites and consumer, business customer or stakeholder support communications or take part in a competition.

It is important that you read this Policy together with any other privacy policy or with any other fair processing policy we may provide on specific occasions when we are collecting or processing personal data about you so that you are fully aware of how and why we are using your data. This Policy supplements other notices and privacy policies and is not intended to override them.

Controller

VisitScotland is the controller and responsible for your personal data.

We have appointed a data protection officer (DPO) who is responsible for overseeing questions in relation to this Policy. If you have any questions about this Policy, including any requests to exercise your legal rights, please contact the DPO using the details set out below.

Contact Details

If you have any questions about this Policy or our privacy practices, please contact our DPO in the following ways:

Full name of legal entity: VisitScotland

Email address: dpo@visitscotland.com 

Postal address: VisitScotland, Records Management and Data Protection Officer, Waverley Court, 4 East Market Street, Edinburgh, EH8 8BG

Telephone number: 0131 472 2222

You have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues (www.ico.org.uk). We would, however, appreciate the chance to deal with your concerns before you approach the ICO so please contact us in the first instance.

Changes to the policy and your duty to inform us of changes

We keep Policy under regular review. This version was last updated on 26 September 2018. We reserve the right to make changes to this Policy at any time and we may notify you of changes to this Policy by email.

It is important that the personal data we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your personal data changes during your relationship with us.

Third-party links 

Our website 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 are not responsible for their privacy statements. When you leave our website, we encourage you to read the privacy policy of every website you visit.

Contents

1. The data we collect about you
2. How is your personal data collected?
3. How we use your personal data
4. Disclosures of your personal data
5. International transfers
6. Data security
7. Data retention
8. Your legal rights
9. Glossary

1.  The data we collect about you 

Personal data, or personal information, means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified. It does not include data where the identity has been removed (anonymous data).

We may collect, use, store and transfer different kinds of personal data about you which we have grouped together in certain categories. Please take care when submitting information to us, particularly when completing free text fields or uploading content, documents and other materials. Some of our services may be automated and we may not recognise that you have accidentally provided us with incorrect or sensitive information.

Whenever you interact with us, you may be asked to provide us with information relating to you. The following types of data may be collected from you:

• Identity Data includes first name, last name, username or similar identifier, title, and date of birth.
• Contact Data includes address, email address and telephone numbers.
• Financial Data includes bank account and payment card details.
  Transaction Data includes details about payments to and from you and other details of products and services you have purchased from us.
  Technical Data includes internet protocol (IP) address, your login data, browser type and version, time zone setting and location, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform and other technology on the devices you use to access this website.
• Enquiry Data includes data you provided us with when you contact us for consumer, business customer or stakeholder service assistance (by any means of communication including written communications or via our website(s), support forums, telephone, email, SMS, or our social media channels) or when you visit us at a public event, such as a trade show or exhibition or participate in one of our surveys, competitions or prize draws, we may record all consumer, business customer or stakeholder service communications and keep information about the particular communication, including your name, the product(s) you bought, the reason why you contacted us, and the advice we gave you so we can track the resolution of any consumer, business customer or stakeholder service issues and for consumer, business customer or stakeholder service training purposes.
• Profile Data includes your username and password, purchases or orders made by you, your interests, preferences, feedback and survey responses. We may also receive content that you choose to upload or post, such as your name, address, telephone number, email address, profile pictures, gender, date of birth, relationship status, interests and hobbies, educational details and employment details, product reviews, comments, photos and forum posts, or details of your interests and preferences that you choose to tell us about when, for example, selecting the services that you wish to receive.
• Usage Data includes information about how you use our website, products and services, as well as the frequency and pattern of your service use.
• Marketing and Communications Data includes your preferences in receiving marketing from us and our third parties and your communication preferences.

We also collect, use and share Aggregated Data such as statistical or demographic data for any purpose. Aggregated Data could be derived from your personal data but is not considered personal data in law as this data will not directly or indirectly reveal your identity. For example, we may aggregate your Usage Data to calculate the percentage of users accessing a specific website feature. However, if we combine or connect Aggregated Data with your personal data so that it can directly or indirectly identify you, we treat the combined data as personal data which will be used in accordance with this Policy.

We do not collect any Special Categories of Personal Data about you (this includes details about your race or ethnicity, religious or philosophical beliefs, sex life, sexual orientation, political opinions, trade union membership, information about your health, and genetic and biometric data). Nor do we collect any information about criminal convictions and offences.

If you fail to provide personal data 

Where we need to collect personal data by law, or under the terms of a contract we have with you, and you fail to provide that data when requested, we may not be able to perform the contract we have or are trying to enter into with you (for example, to provide you with goods or services). In this case, we may have to cancel a product or service you have with us but we will notify you if this is the case at the time.

2.  How is your personal data collected?

We use different methods to collect data from and about you including through:

Direct interactions. You may give us your Identity, Contact and Financial Data by filling in forms or by corresponding with us by post, phone, email, face to face or otherwise. This includes personal data you provide when you:

• apply for our products or services;
• create an account on our website;
• subscribe to our service or publications;
• request marketing to be sent to you;
• specify your interests and preferences when you set up or register for any product or service; 
• use our app;
• enter a competition, promotion or survey; or
• give us feedback or contact us.

Automated technologies or interactions. As you interact with our website, emails and app we may automatically collect Technical Data about your equipment, browsing actions, patterns and wifi. We collect this personal data by using cookies, server logs, digital analytics (Google) and heat mapping software and other similar technologies. We may also receive Technical Data about you if you visit other websites employing our cookies. Please see our cookie policy for further details.

a. Details of your usage patterns, the content (including any advertisements) that you view and interact with including information on the services and applications you are using in-device to personalise services to your specific needs. For example, when you use our websites, we may collect information about your visit, such as your browser software, which pages you view and which items you 'clicked' on.

A specific example is the use of digital analytics tools such as Google Analytics and DoubleClick. These may be used to record anonymous user's interaction with VisitScotland websites. The data may then be used to retarget users through advertising on other websites, therefore an individual's behaviour on one of our websites may result in them being retargeted with advertising related to the pages they visited or actions they took on the site. (You may opt out of the DoubleClick cookie by visiting the Google advertising opt-out page or you may opt out of our use of Analytics by visiting the Google Analytics opt-out page.)

b. Service, product or server logs, which hold technical information about your use of our service, product or websites, such as your IP address, device ID(s), domain, device and application settings, errors and hardware activity. We may use your IP address to determine your location/country of origin.

c. Device Information such as your device ID(s), including information about where your device is physically located. For example, when you are using a geo-location service or application and you have given consent to your location being shared.

d. WiFi information such as WiFi_APMac, WiFi_ClientIP, WiFi_ClientMac, WiFi_Location, WiFi_UserAgent.

e. Remarketing Lists for Search Ads - We may also use Cookies to serve ads based on a user's prior visits to our website, as well as to develop remarketing lists for customised campaigns (Remarketing Lists for Search Ads). (Users may opt out of Google's use of cookies by visiting the Google advertising opt-out page. In addition, you may also opt out of third party vendor's use of cookies by visiting the Network Advertising Initiative opt out page.)

f. VisitScotland Virtual Reality (VR) APP - When you download or use the VisitScotland app on your mobile device, information may be accessed from or stored to your device. Most often this is used in a similar way to a web browser cookie, such as by enabling the app to 'remember' you or provide you with the content you have requested.

Your web browser or device may also provide VisitScotland with information about your device, such as a device identifier or IP address. Technical Data and device identifiers may be collected automatically, such as the device ID, IP address, MAC address, IMEI number and app ID (a unique identifier relating to the particular copy of the app you are running).

When you sign in to a VisitScotland app, your sign-in details may be stored securely on the device you are using, so you can access other VisitScotland apps on the same device without needing to enter your sign-in details again.

On using our app for the first time, you are also given the opportunity to agree/disagree tracking of app usage.  We ask all app users to accept or deny access to analytics. These analytics are anonymous and not attributed to individuals but provide analysis of the way consumers use the app which then allows us to review and make improvements to the app. We also use geo-location information in order to provide local content on our app.  This geo-location data is anonymous and is only used to provide local content to you. We do not store any geo-location information relation to your use of the app.

If you have any concerns about the information which might be accessed from or stored on your device by VisitScotland, you may wish to only access VisitScotland content through a web browser and review your web browser settings.

g. Creating and Planning a Trip - We collect your Identity Data and Contact Data to create an account. When you login, we will track this and your behaviour. We may use this data and other data we hold about you to tailor your experience in the account and any communications we send. We may also use it improve our service to you and others.

Third parties or publicly available sources. We may receive personal data about you from various third parties.

• Identity and Contact Data from publicly available sources such as Companies House and the Electoral Register.
• Identity and Contact Data from social media if you (i) interact with any of our social network pages or applications; or (ii) 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:
  (a)  Logging in: If you log-in to one of our websites, applications or services using your social network account, we may receive basic details from your social network profile. The basic details we receive may depend on your social network account privacy settings; however, they might include your social network ID, name, profile picture, gender and location.
  (b) Interactions: 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.

3.  How we use your personal data 

We will only use your personal data when the law allows us to. Most commonly, we will use your personal data in the following circumstances:

• where we need to perform the contract we are about to enter into or have entered into with you.
• where it is necessary for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests. 
• where we need to comply with a legal obligation

Section 9 (Glossary, Lawful Basis) provides more detail about the types of lawful basis that we will rely on to process your personal data.

We rely on consent as a legal basis for processing your personal data if you became a consumer with us after 25 May 2018.

We rely on legitimate interest as a legal basis for processing your personal data if you became a consumer with us before 25 May 2018, if you have not asked us to stop, and you have engaged with the content recently.

If you are a business customer we generally use contract as a legal basis for processing your personal data. If you are a stakeholder we generally use legitimate interest as a legal basis for processing your personal data.

If you are a business customer or stakeholder we generally do not rely on consent as a legal basis for processing your personal data although we will get your consent before sending third party direct marketing communications to you via email or text message. You have the right to withdraw consent to marketing at any time by contacting us.

Purposes for which we will use your personal data

We have set out below, in a table format, a description of all the ways we plan to use your personal data, and which of the legal bases we rely on to do so. We have also identified what our legitimate interests are where appropriate.

Note that we may process your personal data for more than one lawful ground depending on the specific purpose for which we are using your data. Please contact us if you need details about the specific legal ground we are relying on to process your personal data where more than one ground has been set out in the table below.

Purpose/Activity Type of Data Lawful basis for processing including basis of legitimate interestData RetentionTo register you as a new:
(a) business customer
(b) consumer after 25 May 2018
(c) consumer before 25 May 2018
(d) stakeholder(a) Identity
(b) Contact
 

(a) Performance of a contract with you
(b) Consent
(c) Legitimate interest
(d) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to study how stakeholders use our /products/services, to develop them and grow our business)

(a) 7 years after the contract terminates
(b) 2 months after you withdraw consent
(c) 2 months after you've asked us to withdraw receipt of communications
(d) 5 years after you cease business with us
 

To create an account to plan trips as a  

(a)  Consumer

(a) Identity
(b) Contact
(a) Identity
(b) Contact
(c) Technical
(a) Consent(a) 2 months after you withdraw consent
(b) 26 months after you last used your account
To enable you to take a virtual tour of iconic tourist attractions using the VisitScotland Virtual reality (VR) App(a) Identity
(b) Contact
(c) Technical
 (a) Consent (a) 2 months To process and deliver your order including:
(a) Manage payments, fees and charges
(b) Collect and recover money owed to us
(c) Provide you with a product or service you have requested (including any back-up and restore service), delivering your purchase to you or ensuring that you benefit from any relevant special offer or promotion (and to fulfil our obligations under any other agreement we may have with you)
 (a) Identity
(b) Contact
(c) Financial
(d) Transaction
(e) Marketing and Communications
 (a) Performance of a contract with you
(b) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to recover debts due to us)
 (a) 7 years after the contract terminates
(b) 7 years after debts are collected
 To manage our relationship with you which will include:
(a) Notifying you about changes to our terms or privacy policy
(b) Asking you to leave a review or take a survey
 (a) Identity
(b) Contact
(c) Profile
(d) Marketing and Communications
 (a) Performance of a contract with you
(b) Necessary to comply with a legal obligation
(c) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to keep our records updated and to study how business customers and stakeholders use our products/services)
(d) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to keep our records updated and to study how consumer use our products/services)
 

 (a) 7 years after the contract terminates
(b) 7 years

(c) 5 years after you cease business with us

(d) 2 months

 To enable you to partake in a prize draw or competition (a) Identity
(b) Contact
 (a) Consent (a) 2 months

 To administer and protect our business and this website (including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, system maintenance, support, reporting and hosting of data)

 (a) Identity
(b) Contact
(c) Technical
 (a) Necessary for our legitimate interests (for running our business, provision of administration and IT services, network security, to prevent fraud and in the context of a business reorganisation or group restructuring exercise)
(b) Necessary to comply with a legal obligation
 (a) 5 years after you cease business with us
(b) 7 years
 

 To deliver relevant website content and advertisements to you and measure or understand the effectiveness of the advertising we serve to you (a) Identity
(b) Contact
(c) Profile
(d) Usage
(e) Marketing and Communications
(f) Technical
 Necessary for our legitimate interests (to study how business customers, stakeholders and consumers use our products/services, to develop them, to grow our business and to inform our marketing strategy) 5 years To use data analytics to improve and enhance our existing website, products/services/applications, marketing, business customer, stakeholder and consumer relationships and experiences and to develop new offerings, recommendations, advertisements (a) Technical
(b) Usage
 

 Necessary for our legitimate interests (to define types of business customers, stakeholders and consumers for our products and services, to keep our website updated and relevant, to develop our business and to inform our marketing strategy)

 5 years after you cease business with us To make suggestions and recommendations to you about goods or services that may be of interest to you, including carrying out surveys to better understand your preferences. (a) Identity
(b) Contact
(c) Technical
(d) Usage
(e) Profile
(f) Marketing and Communications
 

 Necessary for our legitimate interests (to develop our products/services and grow our business)

 5 years after you cease business with us To prevent fraud and for investigation purposes, for example, using device information such as device ID(s) to ensure that any vouchers or discounts relating to any promotions or campaigns are not being redeemed fraudulently, checking that a payment is not made fraudulently. (a) Identity
(b) Contact
(c) Technical
(d) Usage
(e) Profile
(f) Financial
 Necessary to comply with a legal obligation 7 years

 To create and manage database(s). As part of our ongoing relationship management activities, we may consolidate several databases into one or otherwise link separate databases to more effectively manage your accounts. Information may be linked via a unique identifier, such as a cookie or account number.
Alternatively, we may decide to combine two or more databases into a single database of information.
We may do this for your and/or our convenience (for example, to allow you to more easily register for a new service), to allow us to provide more seamless support whenever you contact us and to provide you with better, personalised services, content, marketing and adverts.
This applies to:
(a) business customers
(b) consumers after 25 May 2018

(c) consumers before 25 May 2018

(d) stakeholders

 a. (a) Identity
b. (b) Contact
(c) Financial
(d) Transaction
(e) Technical
(f) Enquiry
(g) Profile
(h) Usage
(i) Marketing and Communications
 

 (a) Performance of a contract with you
(b) Consent
(c) Legitimate interest

(d) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to ensure that we have optimal data management practices in place)

 (a) 7 years after the contract terminates

(b) 2 months after you withdraw consent

(c) 2 months after you've asked us to withdraw receipt of communications

(d) 5 years after you cease business with us

 To enable you to provide feedback  both when we ask you and unprompted as a:
(a) business customer

(b) consumer after 25 May 2018

(c) consumer before 25 May 2018

(d) stakeholder

 (a) Identity Data
(a) (b) Contact (only your email address if you want us to reply to your feedback
 (a) Performance of a contract with you
(b) Consent
(c) Legitimate interest
(d) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to study how stakeholders use our /products/services, to develop them and grow our business)
 

 (a) 7 years after end of contract
(b) 2 months after you withdraw consent
(c) 2 months after you've asked us to withdraw receipt of communications
(d) 5 years after you cease business with us

 To allow us to deliver brochures and/or newsletters to:
(a) business customers and stakeholders

(b) consumers after 25 May 2018

(c) consumers before 25 May

 (a)  Identity Data
(b) Contact Data
 

 (a) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to inform business customers and stakeholders about our products/services, and to develop them and grow our business)

(b) Consent

(c) Legitimate interest

 (a) 5 years after you cease business with us
 
(b) 2 months after you withdraw consent

(c) 2 months after you request withdrawal of communications

 To allow us to deliver email communications to:
(a) business customers and stakeholders

(b) consumers after 25 May 2018

(c) consumers before 25 May 2018

 (a)  Identity Data
(b) Contact Data
 

 (a) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to inform business customers and stakeholders about our products/services, and to develop them and grow our business)

(b) Consent

(c) Legitimate interest

 (a) 5 years after you cease business with us

(b) 2 months after you withdraw consent

(c) 2 months after you request withdrawal of communications

Marketing 

You will only receive marketing communications from us if you have requested information from us by opting in to receive such marketing.

Our aim is to give you choice over how you receive marketing and what you want to hear about.

We will use your Identity Data, Contract Data, Technical Data and Usage Data to provide you with product and service updates, newsletters and other communications tailored to you and in the channels you have chosen. 

Promotional offers from us

We may use your Identity, Contact, Technical, Usage and Profile Data to form a view on what we think you may want or need, or what may be of interest to you. This is how we decide which products, services and offers may be relevant for you (we call this marketing).

You will receive marketing communications from us if you have requested information from us or purchased goods or services from us and you have not opted out of receiving that marketing.

Joining data and profiling

We want to provide the best possible service to you. To achieve this we, where possible, join anonymous and personal data.
When you provide personal data via a form on the website, we collect a unique ID assigned to you by Google. We use this to combine your personal information with information from Google. The information we collect from Google includes how you reached our website and your behaviour whilst on the site. This applies to visits where you submit a form, previous and future visits, if available. 
We may use this information to improve our service to you and to tailor the information we provide in future.  We may also use it to understand the success of our marketing and make improvements to our services overall.  Personal data is stored for as long as the purpose intended (see section: 'When you provide personal data').

Profiling is defined as under the General Data Protection Regulations as the automated processing of personal data to evaluate certain things about an individual.  Profiling can be part of an automated decision-making-process. Automated decision-making is making a decision solely by automated means without any human involvement.

We may use these techniques to make the information in our emails, website or app more relevant to you. We therefore process this data in your legitimate interest.  If you do not want us to use your data in this way, please email dpo@visitscotland.com. Likewise if you would like to see the data that we use for this purpose contact us.

Third-party marketing

We will get your express opt-in consent before we share your personal data with any third party for marketing purposes.

Opting out 

You can ask us or third parties to stop sending you marketing messages at any time by following the opt-out links on any marketing message sent to you OR by contacting us at any time.

Where you opt out of receiving these marketing messages, this will not apply to personal data provided to us as a result of a product/service purchase, product/service experience or other transactions.

Please note that we may occasionally send you important information (including via email) about our products and services that you are using or have used including essential software updates, changes to applicable terms and conditions and/or other communications or notifications as may be required to fulfil our legal and contractual obligations to provide warranty or after sales repair services. These important product and/or service communications are not affected by your opt-out of any marketing communications.

Publish your reviews, comments and content

Where you have uploaded product reviews, comments or content to our websites or services and made them publicly visible, we may link to, publish or publicise these materials elsewhere including in our own advertisements.

Cookies

Our website uses industry-wide technologies, such as "cookies", to collect information about the use of our website and email communications. For instance, these technologies may tell us which visitors clicked on key elements (such as links or graphics) on a website or email and recognise your browser the next time you visit our websites.

You can set your browser to refuse all or some browser cookies, or to alert you when websites set or access cookies. If you disable or refuse cookies, please note that some parts of this website may become inaccessible or not function properly. For more information about the cookies we use, please see our Cookie Policy.

Change of purpose

We will only use your personal data for the purposes for which we collected it, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use if for another reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose. Please contract us using the details set out at the beginning of this Policy for an explanation as to how the processing for the new purpose is compatible with the original purpose.

If we need to use your personal data for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and we will explain the legal basis which allows us to do so.

Please note that we may process your personal data without your knowledge or consent, in compliance with the above rules, where this is required or permitted by law.

4.  Disclosure of your personal data 

We may share your personal data with the parties set out below for the purposes set out in the table Purposes for which we will use your personal data above.

We may have to share your personal data with the third parties set out below for the purposes set out in the table in paragraph 3 above.

(a) our payment services providers for services relating to our website and services to which you have subscribed to which may be handled by our payment services providers, such as, without limitation, Worldpay. We will share transaction data with our payment services providers only to the extent necessary for the purposes of processing your payments, refunding such payments and dealing with complaints and queries relating to such payments and refunds. You can find information about the payment services providers' privacy policies and practices at https://www.worldpay.com/uk/privacy-policy.

(b) one or more of the selected third party suppliers of goods and services identified on our website to which you have specifically consented to share your personal data with for the purposes set out in such consent or to fulfill our contractual obligations. Each such third party will act as a data controller in relation to the data that we supply to it; and upon contacting you, each such third party will supply to you a copy of its own privacy policy, which will govern that third party's use of your personal data.

(c) our authorised data processors and service providers for the purposes of providing certain data processing services for us (acting as our authorised data processors). Examples of authorised data processors could include evaluation and research agencies, billing and fulfilment partners, data analytics providers who process information on our behalf for the purposes outlined above. For example, we may use the services of third parties to personalise content, fulfil orders, deliver packages, send postal mail and emails, send text messages (SMS), provide marketing assistance, process credit card payments, provide fraud checking services and provide consumer, business customer or stakeholder services. When acting as our authorised data processors, our service providers are required to only process data in accordance with our instructions, in line with this Policy, and are subject to appropriate confidentiality and security obligations.

(d) our professional advisers insofar as reasonably necessary for the purposes of managing risks, obtaining professional advice, or the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims, whether in court proceedings or in an administrative or out-of-court procedure.

(e) to government bodies such as Audit Scotland and law enforcement agencies to prevent fraud, to comply with applicable laws, regulations and court orders and to comply with valid legal information requests from such bodies.

We require all third parties to respect the security of your personal data and to treat it in accordance with the law. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes and only permit them to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.

Anonymous statistics

We prepare anonymous, aggregate or generic data (including "generic" statistics) for a number of purposes as outlined above. As we consider that you cannot reasonably be identified from this information, we may share it with any third party (such as our partners, advertisers, industry bodies, the media and/or the general public).

5.  International transfers

VisitScotland is a statutory body incorporated under the Development of Tourism Act 1969 with its headquarters based in Edinburgh, Scotland. We have a national network of offices to assist in delivering our core function of promoting the development of tourism to and within Scotland and encouraging people to visit Scotland.

The hosting facilities for our website(s) are situated in the United Kingdom.

Some of our external third parties are based outside the European Economic Area (EEA) so their processing of your personal data will involve a transfer of data outside the EEA.

Whenever we transfer your personal data out of the EEA, we ensure a similar degree of protection is afforded to it by ensuring at least one of the following safeguards is implemented:

• We will only transfer your personal data to countries that have been deemed to provide an adequate level of protection for personal data by the European Commission. For further details, see European Commission: https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-topic/data-protection/data-transfers-outside-eu/adequacy-protection-personal-data-non-eu-countries_en
• Where we use certain service providers, we may use specific contracts approved by the European Commission which give personal data the same protection it has in Europe. For further details, see European Commission: https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-topic/data-protection/data-transfers-outside-eu/model-contracts-transfer-personal-data-third-countries_en
• Where we use providers based in the US, we may transfer data to them if they are part of the Privacy Shield which requires them to provide similar protection to personal data shared between the Europe and the US. For further details, see European Commission: https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/law-topic/data-protection/data-transfers-outside-eu/eu-us-privacy-shield_en

Please contact us if you want further information on the specific mechanism used by us when transferring your personal data out of the EEA.

6.  Data security 

We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal data to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal data on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected personal data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so.

Some of the steps we use to protect your information from unauthorised access, use or alteration and unlawful destruction, include where appropriate:

• Using Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption when collecting or transferring sensitive information, such as credit card details (SSL encryption is designed to make the data unreadable by anyone but us).
• Limiting access to the information we collect about you (for instance, only those of our personnel who need your information to carry out our business activities are allowed access).
• Putting in place physical, electronic, and procedural safeguards in line with industry standards.

As general best practice on the Internet, it is recommended that individuals take great care with user accounts, and follow some basic rules:

• Do not use trivial passwords (such as single dictionary words).
• Do not use the same password for multiple accounts.
• Do use very long passwords (at least 10 characters, but preferably much longer)
• Do use passwords which contain a combination of upper and lower case letters, numbers and special characters e.g. $%^& etc.
• Do keep passwords securely (never written down, or shared with anyone) and changed periodically.

7.  Data retention

How long will you use my personal data for?

This paragraph sets out our data retention policies and procedure, which are designed to help ensure that we comply with our legal obligations in relation to the retention and deletion of personal data.

We will only retain your personal data for as long as reasonably necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, regulatory, tax, accounting or reporting requirements. We may retain your personal data for a longer period where such retention is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation to which we are subject, or in order to protect your vital interests or the vital interests of another natural person, or in the event of a complaint, or if we reasonably believe there is a prospect of litigation in respect to our relationship with you.

In some cases it is not possible for us to specify in advance the periods for which your personal data will be retained. In such cases, we will determine the period of retention by taking into consideration the period necessary for retention for its lawful purpose.
Details of retention periods for different aspects of your personal data are set out in the table Purposes for which we will use your personal data above.

In some circumstances you can ask us to delete your data: see your legal rights below for further information.

In some circumstances we will anonymise your personal data (so that it can no longer be associated with you) for research or statistical purposes, in which case we may use this information indefinitely without further notice to you.

8.  Your legal rights

Under certain circumstances, you have rights under data protection laws in relation to your personal data. we have provided a summary of the rights that you have under current data protection law. Accordingly, you should read the relevant laws and guidance from the regulatory authorities for a full explanation of these rights.

Your principal rights under data protection law are:
(a) the right to be informed;
(b) the right to access;
(c) the right to rectification;
(d) the right to erasure;
(e) the right to restrict processing;
(f) the right to object to processing;
(g) the right to data portability;
(h) the right to complain to a supervisory authority; and
(i) the right to withdraw consent.

You have the right to:

• Request access to your personal data (commonly known as a "data subject access request"). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.
• Request correction of the personal data that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate data we hold about you corrected, though we may need to verify the accuracy of the new data you provide to us.
• Request erasure of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal data where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal data where you have successfully exercised your right to object to processing (see below), where we may have processed your information unlawfully or where we are required to erase your personal data to comply with local law. Note, however, that we may not always be able to comply with your request of erasure for specific legal reasons which will be notified to you, if applicable, at the time of your request.
• Object to processing of your personal data where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground as you feel it impacts on your fundamental rights and freedoms. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal data for direct marketing purposes. In some cases, we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process your information which override your rights and freedoms.
• Request restriction of processing of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your personal data in the following scenarios:
  o If you want us to establish the data's accuracy.
  o Where our use of the data is unlawful but you do not want us to erase it.
  o Where you need us to hold the data even if we no longer require it as you need it to establish, exercise or defend legal claims.
  o You have objected to our use of your data but we need to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to use it.
• Request the transfer of your personal data to you or to a third party. We will provide to you, or a third party you have chosen, your personal data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format. Note that this right only applies to automated information which you initially provided consent for us to use or where we used the information to perform a contract with you.
• Withdraw consent at any time where we are relying on consent to process your personal data. However, this will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before you withdraw your consent. If you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide certain products or services to you. We will advise you if this is the case at the time you withdraw your consent.

Read more about your individual rights on the Information Commissioner's Office website.
If you wish to exercise any of the rights set out above, please contact us by emailing dpo@visitscotland.com
or by post at VisitScotland, Records Management and Data Protection Officer, Ocean Point One, 94 Ocean Drive, Edinburgh, EH6 6JH.

No fee usually required

You will not have to retain a fee to access your personal data (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request is clearly unfounded, repetitive or excessive. Alternatively, we could refuse to comply with your request in these circumstances.

What we may need from you

We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your personal data (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is a security measure to ensure that personal data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it. We may also contact you to ask you for further information in relation to your request to speed up our response.

Time limit to respond

We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month. Occasionally it could take us longer than a month if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests. In this case, we will notify you and keep you updated.

9.  Glossary

Lawful basis

Legitimate Interest means the interest of our business in conducting and managing our business to enable us to give you the best service/product and the best and most secure experience. We make sure we consider and balance any potential impact on you (both positive and negative) and your rights before we process your personal data for our legitimate interests. We do 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). You can obtain further information about how we assess our legitimate interests against any potential impact on you in respect of specific activities by contacting us.

Performance of Contract means processing your data where it is necessary for the performance of a contract to which you are a party or to take steps at your request before entering into such a contract.

Comply with a legal obligation means processing your personal data where it is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation that we are subject to.

Consent must be a "freely given, specific, informed and unambiguous indication of the data subject's wishes by which he or she by a statement or a clear affirmative action signifies agreement.

Third parties

External third parties  

• Service providers acting as processors based in Denmark and the United Kingdom who provide IT and system administration services.
• Professional advisers acting as processors or joint controllers including lawyers, bankers, auditors and insurers based in the United Kingdom who provide consultancy, banking, legal, insurance and accounting services.
• HM Revenue & Customs, Audit Scotland, regulators and other authorities acting as processors or joint controllers based in the United Kingdom who require reporting of processing activities in certain circumstances.