Privacy Policy for TechNExt Festival

This website is operated for the TechNExt Festival. The privacy of our users is extremely important to us and therefore we encourage all users to read this policy very carefully because it contains important information regarding:

• Who we are
• How and why we collect, store, use and share personal information
• Your rights in relation to your personal information
• How to contact us and supervisory authorities in the event that you have a complaint

Who we are

TechNExt Festival ("we", "us", "our") collect, use and are responsible for storing certain personal information about you ("you", "your", "yours").

TechNExt is underwritten by Dynamo North East CIC, and co-organised by Sunderland Software City and BeaconHouse Events.

The personal information we collect and use

Personal information is information which you can be identified from (and does not include any anonymised forms of information).

1. Types of personal information

We may process personal data (such as full name, email address, phone number and postal address) and financial data (such as payment card details, billing information and transaction history) to provide and improve our services.

How your personal information is collected

This section describes how the above types of personal information are collected by us. Your personal information will be collected as follows:

1. Personal information obtained from you directly

We will sometimes obtain information from you directly, including when you:

• Subscribe to our newsletter
• Use our "contact us" feature
• Register for our website
• Create a user profile
• Register for an event
• Submit event or session proposals

2. Personal information obtained by use of cookies or other automated means

We will sometimes obtain information via automated technology. This shall be by use of cookies and other similar technology. A cookie is a small text file which is placed onto your computer or electronic device when you access our website.

Similar technologies include web beacons, action tags, local shared objects ("flash cookies") and single-pixel gifs. Such technologies can be used to track users' actions and activities, and to store information about them. Usually, this will be in order to monitor and obtain information.

Our website makes minimal use of cookies and similar technologies. We do not use cookies for tracking personal information or advertising.

We store only the data necessary to maintain a session while users interact with our website, or to support third party logins. These cookies are essential for authentication, security and ensuring a smooth user experience.

We do not use third-party tracking cookies or share cookie-based data with external services unless necessary for the operation of the website.

The applications that potentially use cookies on this website are required for it's functionality and include:

• Webflow (CMS)
• Memberstack (Registration)
• Google Auth (Login)
• LinkedIn Auth (Login)
• YouTube (Video)
• Facebook (Analytics)

3. Changes to the way in which we collect your personal information

In the event that we need to obtain personal information in relation to you from any other source than those described above, we shall notify you of this.

How we use your personal information

1. General purposes

In general, your personal information will generally be processed for the following purposes:

• Manage your profile
• Providing free tickets to events
• Selling paid tickets for events
• Anonymous reporting to our funders
• Estimations of climate impact
• Analysis of attendance
• Safety and security at events
• Sharing with event organisers for event management purposes
• Marketing purposes (where opted in)

2. Use of your information for marketing purposes

We have described above that one of the general purposes for which your data shall be processed is for our marketing purposes.

We wish to make you aware that you have the right to object or to opt out of any direct marketing by:

Unsubscribe by using the unsubscribe button found on all of our email communications, or by contacting us directly at getinvolved@technext.co.uk

Lawful basis for processing of your personal information

We have described above the purposes for which we may process your personal information. These purposes will at all times be justified by UK data protection law.

1. General lawful bases

The lawful basis upon which we are able to process your personal data are:

1. Where we have your consent to use your data for a specific purpose.
2. Where it is necessary to enter into a legal contract with you or to perform obligations under a legal contract with you.
3. Where it is necessary to enable us to comply with a legal obligation.
4. Where it is necessary to ensure our own legitimate interests or the legitimate interests of a third party (provided that your own interests and rights do not override those interests). Wherever we rely upon this basis, details of the legitimate interests concerned shall be provided to you.
5. Where we need to protect your own vital interests (or the vital interests of another person).
6. Where it is needed in the public interest (or where we are acting in our official functions), provided that the task or function has a clear basis in law.

In general, in order to meet the purposes we have described above, we will process your personal information where it is necessary in order to enter into a contract with you or in order to carry out a legal contract.

2. Lawful bases specifically applicable to marketing

We will only ever use your personal information to send you marketing directly where we have your explicit consent (which will be obtained separately to this policy).

Sharing of your personal information

On any occasion where any of your personal information is shared with any third party (such as with event organisers or software providers), we shall only permit them to process such information for our required purposes, under our specific instruction and not for their own purposes, unless separate consent is obtained.

How long your personal information will be kept

Your personal information will only be kept for the period of time which is necessary for us to fulfil the above purposes.

We envisage that your personal information shall be retained by us as follows:

We retain personal data only for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes for which it was collected, including providing our services, complying with legal and regulatory obligations, resolving disputes, and enforcing agreements. The retention period may vary depending on the nature of the data and the specific circumstances in which it was collected.

Account information is retained for as long as the user maintains an active account. Upon account closure, we may retain data for a limited period of time to comply with funding, legal, tax, or accounting obligations.

Transactional and payment data will be retained for a legally required period of time (e.g. for tax and financial reporting purposes) even after an account is closed.

Customer support data is retained for a reasonable period of time after a query is resolved to improve support services.

Marketing and Communications preferences are retained until the user opts out of communications.

Analytics data is retained in an anonymised format and in an aggregated form that does not identify individuals.

Legal and compliance requirements may require that certain data is retained for extended periods where required by law or necessary to protect legal interests.

Once the retention period expires, we securely delete or anonymise personal data, ensuring it is no longer identifiable.

Keeping your information secure

We will ensure the proper safety and security of your personal information and have measures in place to do so. We will also use technological and organisational measure to keep your information secure.

These measures are as follows:

• Personal and financial data are encrypted in transit using SSL.
• User accounts are protected by strong password policies.
• Data is stored on secure servers with firewalls, access controls and intrusion detection systems to prevent unauthorised access.
• Only authorised personnel have access to personal data, and access is limited to what is strictly necessary.

We have proper procedures in place to deal with any data security breach, which shall be reported and dealt with in accordance with data protection laws and regulations. You shall also be notified of any suspected data breach concerning your personal information.

Children

We do not knowingly collect, process, or store personal information from individuals under 16 years of age without verifiable parental consent. If we become aware that a minor under this age has provided personal information without consent, we will take steps to delete such data promptly.

Parents and guardians are responsible for monitoring their child’s use of our services and ensuring that they provide consent where required.

If you believe we have inadvertently collected personal data from a minor, please contact us at getinvolved@technext.co.uk so we can take appropriate action to delete their records.

Your rights

Under the UK General Data Protection Regulation, you have a number of important rights free of charge. These include:

• Fair processing of information and transparency over how we use your personal information;
• Access to your personal information and to certain other supplementary information that this Privacy Statement is already designed to address;
• Correction of any mistakes in your information which we hold;
• Require the erasure of personal information concerning you in certain situations;
• Receive the personal information concerning you which you have provided to us, in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format and have the right to transmit this information to a third party in certain situations;
• Object at any time to processing of personal information concerning you for direct marketing;
• Object to decisions being taken by automated means which provide legal effects concerning you or similarly significantly affect you;
• Object in certain other situations to our continued processing of your personal information, or ask us to suspend the processing of your personal information in order for you to confirm its assurance or our reasoning for processing it;
• Object to processing your personal information where we are doing so in reliance upon a legitimate interest of our own or a third party where you wish to raise to an objection to this particular ground;
• Claim compensation for damages caused by our breach of any data protection laws; and/or
• In any circumstance where we rely upon your consent for processing personal information, you may withdraw this consent at any time.

For further information on these rights, see the UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) guidance on your rights under the General Data Protection Regulations.

If you would like to exercise any of these rights, contact our data protection representative: MR ADAM HILL via email at getinvolved@technext.co.uk

‍Changes to the privacy policy

This privacy policy was published on 1st January 2025 and last updated on 1st January 2025.

We may change this privacy policy and will notify you of changes via email (if opted in).

Contacting us

Any request or questions regarding the use of your personal information should be to the above-named person by the following method:

Directly via email at getinvolved@technext.co.uk