Privacy Policy

1. INTRODUCTION

This Privacy Policy applies to the responsibility and processing which Birch undertakes of the personal data our customers share with us. Birch takes guests’ privacy very seriously and treats all their personal information with great care, acting in accordance with the EU General Data Protection Regulation which became effective on 25th May 2018.

By visiting our website, contacting us, making a reservation, purchasing products from us, or visiting Birch, you are acknowledging that we collect information from and about you (and others if their personal information is provided by you). Under data protection legislation, some of the information we collect may be classed as personal data; i.e. “any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person”. It may be collected any time you submit it to us, whatever the reason may be.

This Privacy Policy describes what type of personal data is collected from you and for which purposes this personal data is processed. It also states your rights under the applicable data protection legislation: see Section 5. International Data Transfer; and Section 6. Your Rights.

DATA CONTROLLER: For the purpose of applicable data protection legislation, the Data Controller of your personal data is Birch of Lieutenant Ellis Way, Cheshunt, EN7 5HW. Contact lisa.avril@birchcommunity.com

2. COLLECTING YOUR PERSONAL DATA

Birch collects information about you in the following ways:

Information you give to us

This includes personal data collected:-

(a) Through our website when you register, login, commence or complete an online transaction to use our products and services.
(b) When you contact our reservations team to make a booking or use the facilities at Birch. Facilities include, but are not limited to, event spaces, wellness, bars and restaurants.
(c ) When you have provided your consent, in order to:
• sign up to any of our consumer programmes;
• subscribe to any of our marketing communications;
• complete consumer surveys, enter competitions or provide feedback.
(d) When we do business with you, which will usually include:
• Full or partial contact details including names and addresses (including business details if you are making a corporate booking), telephone and email details.
• If you have special requirements, it may also be necessary to collect details about diet or accessibility or any other preferences that you may have.
• Car parking arrangements at Birch may also make it necessary for us to collect your car registration number for your visit to us.
• We collect payment card information from you, should you choose to use this form of payment for purchasing or guaranteeing use of our products and services.
• We may also collect your birth date and other significant dates for making special recommendations to you around your anniversaries.

Information Automatically Collected

This includes information and personal data collected:-

(a) Through our Website
• When you access our website, we automatically log information about you and your computer or mobile device. The information about your use of the website comprises information which your browser transmits to our webserver, information collected through the use of cookies and log information. For example, when visiting our website, we log your computer or mobile device operating system name and version, manufacturer and model, browser type, browser language, screen resolution, the website you visited before browsing to our website, pages you viewed, how long you spent on a page, access times and information about your use of and actions on the website.
(b) Through CCTV systems at Birch
• CCTV is in operation throughout the site and video recordings may be made. This activity is carried out for the better management of property and security and service reasons for all its clients and staff.

3. HOW WE PROCESS YOUR PERSONAL DATA

Your personal data will be stored in a centralised system which is under the control of Birch and accessible only by authorized staff of Birch or our suppliers.

We use the information we collect about you to process your bookings, answer your queries, process your purchases, provide our hotel facilities and services and enable you to manage your website user account.

With your consent, we will contact you via our marketing and sales channels (email/ phone/post) about other related products and services we provide which we think may be of interest to you. Our marketing communications are generally sent by email but we may sometimes use other methods of delivery such as by post or SMS.

We mainly collect, store and process personal data at two different stages: (i) before you decide to visit Birch; and (ii) when you visit, or have visited Birch.

(i) Before you decide to visit Birch

Website: When you visit https://www.birchcommunity.com, we collect information about your use of the website. This includes information we collect directly from you and information we collect about your online actions. This information may constitute ‘personal data’ under applicable law. We use this information to provide you with (personal) offers, both on our website and via advertisements on other websites you visit.

Advertising Generally: We may use other companies to serve third-party advertisements when you visit and use our website. These companies may collect and use click stream information, browser type, time and date, subject of advertisements clicked or scrolled over during your visits to our website and other websites, in order to provide advertisements about goods and services likely to be of interest to you. These companies typically use tracking technologies to collect this information. Other companies’ use of their tracking technologies is subject to their own privacy policies.

Targeted Advertising: We use website information to provide you with (personal) offers, both on our website and via advertisements on other websites you visit. In order to serve offers and advertisements that may interest you, we may display targeted advertisements on the website, or other digital properties or applications, in conjunction with our content, based on information provided to us by our users and information provided to us by third parties that they have independently collected. We do not provide personal data to advertisers when you interact with an advertisement.

(ii) When you visit or have visited Birch

When you make a reservation, you will have to provide us with your name, email address, postal address, phone number, the dates you are staying with us and credit card details or other payment information, as applicable. We use this personal data to process the reservation, for billing purposes, and to allow us to communicate with you about your reservation. When you stay at Birch, we will collect personal data about your preferences, use of our services, and location.

Overview of activities under stage (i) and (ii):

We may, at each of the stages outlined above, use your personal data but only when and to the extent the law allows us. Most commonly, we will use your personal data in the following circumstances:
• Where we need to carry out 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 or regulatory obligation.
• Where you have provided your consent.

4. SHARING YOUR DATA

We may share your personal data as follows:

Third Parties Specified by You: We may share your personal data with third parties where you have provided your consent to do so.

Our Third Party Service Providers: We may share your personal data with our third party service providers who provide services such as payment processing, information technology and related infrastructure provision, business support (operational and administrative), customer service, the processing and delivery of marketing communications to you, email delivery, auditing and other similar services. These third parties are only permitted to use your personal data to the extent necessary to enable them to provide their services to us. They are required to follow our express instructions and to comply with appropriate security measures to protect your personal data. Third parties are subject to confidentiality obligations and may only use your personal data to perform the necessary functions and not for other purposes.

Affiliates: We may share some or all of your personal data with our affiliates, in which case we will require our affiliates to comply with this Privacy Policy. In particular, you may let us share personal data with our affiliates where you wish to receive marketing communications from them.

Corporate Transactions: We may share personal data when we do a business deal, or negotiate a business deal, involving the sale or transfer of all or a part of our business or assets. These deals can include any merger, financing, acquisition, or bankruptcy transaction or proceeding.

Other Disclosures: We may share personal data as we believe necessary or appropriate:
(a) to comply with applicable laws;
(b) to comply with lawful requests and legal process, including responding to requests from public and government authorities to meet national security or law enforcement requirements;
(c) to enforce our Privacy Policy; and
(d) to protect our rights, privacy, safety or property, and/or that of you or others.

We do not share your data with any third parties outside of the above processing arrangements and we do not share your data with any business external to our group for their own marketing purposes. From the data we collect, you should only ever receive marketing communications from Birch.

5. INTERNATIONAL DATA TRANSFERS

In some instances it is necessary to transfer your personal data overseas. Any transfers will be made in full compliance with all aspects of the applicable regulations.

For many of our business purposes we use cloud-based services. Therefore, for technical and organizational reasons, it is necessary that your personal data is transferred to servers located in the US, or to servers located in countries outside of the EEA. When we transfer the data to a country outside of the EEA that does not offer an adequate level of data protection, we will ensure compliance with applicable law by way of EU Model Clauses, EU-US Privacy Shield-certification, or other legally accepted safeguards, as applicable.

6. YOUR RIGHTS

The General Data Protection Regulation provides the following rights for individuals:

Right to withdraw consent
If we process personal data on the basis of your consent, you have the legal right to withdraw such consent at any time. We will then cease the relevant processing activity going forward.

Right to access information we hold about you
If you want to know what personal data we have collected or we process about you, you may ask us to provide a copy of your personal data by sending an email to lisa.avril@birchcommunity.com. We will ask you to identify yourself. We will not provide you with a copy of your personal data to the extent that the rights and freedoms of others are or may be adversely affected.

Right to data portability
You have the right to request that we process your data in a format which allows it to be transferred to another controller. Once we have received your request, we will comply where it is feasible to do so.

Right to rectification and erasure of data, and restriction of processing
If you believe that our processing of your personal data is incorrect, inaccurate, unlawful, excessive, incomplete, no longer relevant, or if you think that your data is stored longer than necessary, you may ask us to correct, erase or restrict such personal data processing activity, by sending an email to lisa.avril@birchcommunity.com.

Right to object to processing of your data
You have the legal right to request that Birch stops processing your data, on grounds relating to your particular personal situation, at any time. Furthermore, you have the right to object at any time to our processing of your personal data for direct marketing purposes or to profiling. You can do this by either (i) opting out by using the option we provide in the relevant direct marketing message (e.g. an email newsletter), or (ii) updating your preferences on your profile on the https://www.birchcommunity.com website, or (iii) by sending an email to lisa.avril@birchcommunity.com, or (iv) writing to:

Data Protection Officer
Birch
Lieutenant Ellis Way
Cheshunt
EN7 5HW

For the sake of clarity: without prejudice to the foregoing, we are at all times entitled to send you messages that do not constitute direct marketing, i.e. service messages.

General information relevant for all requests and queries

Nothing in this Privacy Statement is intended to provide you with rights beyond or in addition to your rights as a data subject under applicable mandatory data protection law.

We will use reasonable endeavours to respond to your request or query within one month. We are entitled to extend this term by another two months if the complexity of the situation so requires. If your request is manifestly unfounded or excessive we may either (i) charge you a fee, or (ii) refuse to process your request. With respect to access requests we may also charge you for extra copies. If we decide not to honour your request or answer your query, we will explain our reasons for doing so in our reply.

7. PROTECTION AND STORAGE OF YOUR DATA

We have used and will continue to use reasonable endeavours to protect your personal data against loss, alteration or any form of unlawful use. Where possible, your personal data will be encrypted and stored on a virtual private server that is secured by means of state of the art protection measures. A strictly limited number of people have access to your personal data.

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.

8. COOKIES

Our website uses various cookies. We may track and record your use of our online services, either through cookies or via other means. Cookies enable us and others to monitor your browsing behaviour. Information generated by the use of cookies may constitute personal data. We may use the personal data collected in this manner for the purposes as stipulated in this Privacy Policy. If you want to know more about our use of cookies, read our Cookie Policy.

9. RETENTION OF INFORMATION

We will only retain your personal data for the period necessary to fulfil the purposes outlined in this Privacy Statement. This may be up to 7 years, unless a longer retention period is required or permitted by law (which is typically the case in the context of our obligations under tax law).

Should you choose to unsubscribe from our mailing list, please note that your personal data may still be retained on our database to the extent permitted by law.

10. GENERAL

In case you have any queries about this policy, need further information, or wish to lodge a complaint in relation to the policy or our practices in relation to your personal data, you may send an email to lisa.avril@birchcommunity.com or write to us at the address below. We hope to resolve any complaint brought to our attention. However, if you feel that your complaint has not been adequately resolved, you reserve the right to contact your local data protection supervisory authority, which for the UK, is the Information Commissioner’s Office.

We may change this Privacy Policy from time to time to make sure it is still up to date. You should therefore check this policy occasionally to ensure that you are aware of the most recent version that will apply each time you access our website. We may also notify you in other ways from time to time about the processing of your personal information.

Data Protection Officer
Birch
Lieutenant Ellis Way
Cheshunt
EN7 5HW