Privacy Policy

1. Introduction

  1. The privacy of the visitors to our website is very important to us, and we are committed to safeguarding it. This policy explains what we will do with your personal information.
  2. Consenting to our use of cookies in accordance with the terms of this policy when you first visit our website permits us to use cookies every time you visit our website.

2. Collecting personal information

The following types of personal information may be collected, stored and used:

  1. information about your computer, including your IP address, geographical location, browser type and version, and operating system;
  2. information about your visits to and use of this website, including the referral source, length of visit, page views, and navigation paths;
  3. information such as your email address that you enter when you register on our website;
  4. information that you enter when creating a profile on our website — for example, your name, profile pictures, gender, date of birth, marital status, interests and hobbies, academic and occupational details;
  5. information such as your name and email address that you enter to set up subscriptions to our emails and/or newsletters;
  6. information that you enter while using the services on our website;
  7. information generated while using our website, including when, how often and in what circumstances you use it;
  8. information relating to any purchases made, services used, or transactions through our website, which may include name, address, telephone number, email address, and card details;
  9. information that you post on our website for publication on the internet, which may include your username, profile images, and post content;
  10. information contained in any communications you send to us by email or through our website, including the content and metadata thereof;
  11. any other personal information that you send to us.

Before disclosing another person's personal information to us, you must obtain that person's consent both to the disclosure and to the processing of that information in accordance with this policy.

3. Using your personal information

Personal information submitted via our website will be used for the purposes specified in this policy or on the relevant pages of the website. We may use your personal information for:

  1. administering our website and business;
  2. personalising our website for you;
  3. providing services purchased through our website;
  4. sending commercial communications for informational purposes;
  5. sending email notifications that you have specifically requested;
  6. sending our newsletter by email if you have requested it (you can inform us at any time if you no longer wish to receive it);
  7. handling enquiries and complaints made by or about you relating to our website;
  8. keeping our website secure and preventing fraud;
  9. verifying compliance with the terms and conditions governing the use of our website (including monitoring private messages sent through our private messaging service); and
  10. other uses.

If you submit personal information for publication on our website, we will publish and use it in accordance with the scope of the consent you provide.

Privacy settings can be used to limit the publication of your information on our website and can be modified using the privacy controls on the website.

Without your express consent, we will not provide your personal information to third parties for direct marketing by such third parties or any other third party.

4. Disclosing personal information

We may disclose your personal information to any of our employees, professional advisors, agents, suppliers, or subcontractors as reasonably necessary for the purposes set out in this policy.

We may disclose your personal information to any member of our group of companies (this includes our subsidiaries, our parent company, and all its subsidiaries, or entities affiliated through common ownership) as reasonably necessary for the purposes set out in this policy.

We may disclose your personal information:

  1. to the extent required by law;
  2. in connection with any ongoing or potential legal proceedings;
  3. to establish, exercise or defend our legal rights (including providing information to third parties for fraud prevention and credit risk reduction);
  4. to the purchaser (or potential purchaser) of any business or service we are selling (or planning to sell); and
  5. to any person we reasonably believe may apply to a court or other competent authority for disclosure of personal information where, in our reasonable opinion, such court or authority would likely order disclosure.

Except as provided in this policy, we will not provide your personal information to third parties.

5. International data transfers

  1. Information we collect may be stored, processed, and transferred between any of the countries in which we operate to enable us to use the information in accordance with this policy.
  2. Information collected may be transferred between the following countries that do not have data protection laws equivalent to those in force in the European Economic Area: United States of America, Russia, Japan, China, and India.
  3. Personal information you publish on our website or submit for publication may be available worldwide via the internet. We cannot prevent the use or misuse of such information by others.
  4. You expressly agree to the transfers of personal information described in this Section.

6. Retention of personal information

  1. This Section sets out our data retention policies and procedures, designed to help ensure that we comply with our legal obligations regarding the retention and deletion of personal information;
  2. Personal information that we process for any purpose shall not be kept for longer than is necessary for that purpose;
  3. Without prejudice to the above, we usually delete personal data falling into certain categories in line with our policy;
  4. Notwithstanding the other provisions of this Section, we will retain documents (including electronic documents) containing personal data:
    1. to the extent required by law;
    2. if we believe the documents may be relevant to any ongoing or future legal proceedings; and
    3. to establish, exercise or defend our legal rights (including providing information to third parties for fraud prevention and credit risk reduction);

7. Security of your personal information

  1. We will take reasonable technical and organisational precautions to prevent the loss, misuse, or alteration of your personal information.
  2. We will store all personal information you provide on our secure servers (password and firewall protected).
  3. All electronic financial transactions entered into through our website will be protected by encryption technology.
  4. You acknowledge that transmission of information over the internet is inherently insecure and we cannot guarantee the security of data sent over the internet.
  5. You are responsible for keeping confidential the password you use to access our website; we will never ask you for your password (except when you log in to our website).

8. Amendments

We may update this policy from time to time by publishing a new version on our website. You should check this page occasionally to ensure you understand any changes to this policy. We may notify you of changes by email or through our website's private messaging system.

9. Your rights

You may request that we provide you with any personal information we hold about you.

We may withhold the personal information you request to the extent permitted by law.

You may request at any time that we do not process your personal information for marketing purposes.

In practice, you will either expressly consent in advance to use of your personal information for marketing purposes, or we will offer you the opportunity to opt out of such use.

10. Third-party websites

Our website includes hyperlinks to, and details of, third-party websites. We have no control over, and are not responsible for, the privacy policies and practices of third parties.

11. Updating information

Please let us know if the personal information we hold about you needs to be corrected or updated.

12. Cookies

Our website uses cookies. A cookie is a file containing an identifier (a string of letters and numbers) that is sent by a web server to a browser and stored by the browser. The identifier is then sent back to the server each time the browser requests a page from it. Cookies may be either "persistent" or "session" cookies: a persistent cookie will be stored by a browser and remain valid until its set expiry date, unless deleted before that date; a session cookie will expire at the end of the user session, when the browser is closed. Cookies do not typically contain any information that personally identifies a user, but personal information we store about you may be linked to information stored in and obtained from cookies. {SELECT THE APPROPRIATE WORDING. On our website we use only session cookies / only persistent cookies / both persistent and session cookies.}

  1. The names of the cookies we use on our website and the purposes for which they are used can be found below:
    1. We use Google Analytics and Adwords on our website to recognise a computer when a user {INCLUDE ALL THE PURPOSES FOR WHICH COOKIES ARE USED ON YOUR WEBSITE — visits the website / tracks users as they navigate the website / enables shopping-cart activation / improves website usability / analyses website usage / administers the website / prevents fraud and improves website security / personalises the website for each user / serves advertisements that may be of particular interest to the user / describe the purpose(s)};
  2. Most browsers allow you to refuse cookies — for example:
    1. in Internet Explorer (version 10) you can block cookies using the cookie-handling settings override, accessed via "Tools", "Internet Options", "Privacy", then "Advanced";
    2. in Firefox (version 24) you can block all cookies via "Tools", "Options", "Privacy", selecting "Use custom settings for history" from the drop-down menu, and unchecking "Accept cookies from sites"; and
    3. in Chrome (version 29) you can block all cookies by accessing the "Customise and control" menu, clicking "Settings", "Show advanced settings", "Content settings", then selecting "Block sites from setting any data" under "Cookies".
  3. Blocking all cookies will have a negative impact on the usability of many websites. If you block cookies, you will not be able to use all features on our website.
  4. You can delete cookies already stored on your computer — for example:
    1. in Internet Explorer (version 10), you must manually delete cookie files (instructions are available at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/278835);
    2. in Firefox (version 24) you can delete cookies via "Tools", "Options", "Privacy", selecting "Use custom settings for history", clicking "Show Cookies", then "Remove All Cookies"; and
    3. in Chrome (version 29) you can delete all cookies by accessing the "Customise and control" menu, clicking "Settings", "Show advanced settings", "Clear browsing data", selecting "Cookies and other site and plugin data", and clicking "Clear browsing data".
  5. Deleting cookies will have a negative impact on the usability of many websites.