Privacy and Cookies

How we use your information

This privacy notice tells you what to expect when we collect general and at times, but rarely, personal information. It applies to information we collect about:

visitors to our websites
complainants and other individuals in relation to a data protection or freedom of information complaint or enquiry
people who use our services, eg who subscribe to our newsletter or request a publication from us
people who notify under the Data Protection Act
job applicants and our current and former employees

Visitors to our websites

When someone visits our and associated websites we collect standard internet log information and details of visitor behaviour patterns. We do this to find out things such as the number of visitors to the various parts of these sites. We collect this information in a way which does not identify anyone. We do not make any attempt to find out the identities of those visiting either of our websites (www.sds-i.com or others identified as our group websites). We will not associate data gathered from these sites with any personally identifying information from any source. If we do want to collect personally identifiable information through our website, we will tell you about this. We will make it clear when we collect personal information and will explain what we intend to do with it.

We operate an opt-in module to allow you to agree to the use of cookies when you use our website. This opt-in module will work to it’s best ability and conformity to the main browsers, but may not cover all types of browsers and devices. We recommend using Firefox, IE, Safari or Chrome. Other browser may not be supported for the opt-in. Should you decide to continue to browse our sites with any browser and whether or not opted-in we consider this as your consent to us using cookies as detailed here.

Our sites need to set cookies to allow us to provide our services, security for users, our sites and our business, and to comply with legal requirements. If you do not wish to receive cookies from or on behalf of or from third parties through our sites, then please stop browsing this site now.

Set your Browsers Privacy and Security levels according to your needs

We recommends to set your Privacy and Security settings in your browser to the level reflecting the levels and complexity needed on your system and whether it is shared or not. High levels of Privacy and Security will require you to respond to prompts from your browser frequently. This will disrupt your browsing experience, but it reduces risks and gives you a higher degree of control what data is retrieved from your system by who.

We also suggest to you to set required cookies to “current session only” and to clear your browsers history, cache and cookies at the end of each of your sessions, at least though frequently, regularly and always before you hand your system to another user.

If you login to any of the our websites we will require you to allow additional cookies to be set to identify your system on a per session basis only for your on our website’s mutual security. You may remove our cookies to ease future access such as avoiding partial or full retyping of login details. This is entirely at your own risk and is recommended on shared systems. We recommend to set your browser to clear all information related to your browsing at the end of your session automatically.

Most web browsers allow some control of most cookies through the browser settings. To find out more about cookies, including how to see what cookies have been set and how to manage and delete them, visit www.allaboutcookies.org.

To opt out of being tracked by Google Analytics across all websites visit http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout.

Use of cookies by us

Cookies are small text files that are placed on your computer by websites that you visit. They are widely used in order to make websites work, or work more efficiently, as well as to provide information to the owners of the site.

We record IP addresses, URLs visited, and related information for all site visitors for the purpose of site traffic analytics and captured as part of normal operation in our server logs. Cookies are used to track logins, sessions, and collect anonymous traffic data.
We use 3rd-party services like Google Analytics.

The table below explains the cookies we use, or may use in the future and why.

Cookie	Name	Purpose	More information
Google Analytics	_utma _utmb _utmc _utmz _utmx _utmxx	These cookies are used to collect information about how visitors use our site. We use the information to compile reports and to help us improve the site. The cookies collect information in an anonymous form, including the number of visitors to the site, where visitors have come to the site from and the pages they visited.	Click here for an overview of privacy at Google
site cookie acceptance	CookiesAccepted	This cookie is used to record if a user has accepted the use of cookies on the our website.	expires at end of session
tads	free.timeanddate.com	This cookie is used by third-party "timeanddate.com" allowing us to use their clock settings in the sidebar & other locations.	expires at end of session - see timeanddate.com - Privacy Statement
Content Management System cookies	SESSa8c381043a21fbcfa411bcea92a4bdb3 has_js	These cookies are set by our content management system on a small number of browsers, upon arrival to our site. They are not used by us for any purpose other than enhancing the users and our sites security. These cookies should be deleted when a user closes their browser. They are only need on a per session basis	expires at end of session
Content Management System cookie	Drupal_l10n_client	This cookie is set to keep track of a users language choice to browse our pages.	expires at end of session
Content Management System cookie	DRUPAL_UID	This cookie is set when a user logs in to our sites to identify the user for the duration of the session to ensure security for our site and for the user.	expires at end of session
Content Management System cookie	cookie-agreed-en cookie-agreed-de cookie-agreed-ru or cookie-agreed-xx - xx = other language ID	This cookie is set when a user agrees to our policy on Privacy and Cookies.	expires at end of session
Content Management System cookie	dhtml_menu	Cookie related to our menu to indicate the browsing path.	expires at end of session

Video Channel cookies from YouTube and others

We may embed videos from Video Channel websites such as YouTube and we will wherever possible use privacy-enhanced modes. In this mode the Video Channel websites may set cookies on your computer once you click on the respective video player. Should you decide to play content from any Video Channel (YouTube and others) you need to review their respective Privacy and Cookie policies directly, such as YouTube’s embedding videos information page.

Search engine

The search engine on our websites is designed to be as powerful and easy to use as the popular search engine Google. The search is made possible by a piece of hardware (a search ‘appliance’) supplied by Drupal that is plugged into our server and continuously indexes the content on our site. All search requests are handled by the appliance and the information is not passed on to any third party.

You may also use other search engines to search our sites and in those cases we recommend to you to read and agree to their Privacy and Cookie policies directly on those sites.

When you call us

When you call us we may collect Calling Line Identification (CLI) information. We use this information to help improve its efficiency and effectiveness.

When you make a complaint to us

When we receive a complaint we create a file containing the details of the complaint. This normally contains the identity of the complainant and any other individuals involved in the complaint, including contact details.

We will only use the personal information we collect to process the complaint and to check on the level of service we provide.

We usually have to disclose the complainant’s identity to whoever the complaint is about. We will not handle complaints on an anonymous basis.

We will keep personal information contained in complaint files in line with our retention policy. This means that information relating to a complaint will be retained for four years from closure. It will be retained in a secure environment and access to it will be restricted according to the ‘need to know’ principle.

Similarly, where enquiries are submitted to us we will only use the information supplied to us to deal with the enquiry and any subsequent issues and to check on the level of service we provide.

When you use our services

We have to hold the details of the people who have requested services in order to provide it. However, we only use these details to provide the service the person has requested and for other closely related purposes. For example, we might use information about people who have requested a publication to carry out a survey to find out if they are happy with the level of service they received. When people do subscribe to our services, they can cancel their subscription at any time and are given an easy way of doing this.

Job applicants, current and former employees

When individuals apply to work for us, we will only use the information they supply to us to process their application and to monitor recruitment statistics. Where we want to disclose information to a third party, for example where we want to take up a reference or obtain a ‘disclosure’ from the Criminal Records Bureau we will not do so without informing them beforehand unless the disclosure is required by law.

Personal information about unsuccessful candidates will be held for 12 months after the recruitment exercise has been completed, it will then be destroyed or deleted. We retain de-personalised statistical information about applicants to help inform our recruitment activities, but no individuals are identifiable from that data.

Once a person has taken up employment with us, we will compile a file relating to their employment. The information contained in this will be kept secure and will only be used for purposes directly relevant to that person’s employment. Once their employment with us has ended, we will retain the file in accordance with the requirements of our retention schedule and then delete it.

Complaints or queries

We try to meet the highest standards when collecting and using personal information. For this reason, we take any complaints we receive about this very seriously. We encourage people to bring it to our attention if they think that our collection or use of information is unfair, misleading or inappropriate. We would also welcome any suggestions for improving our procedures.

This privacy notice was drafted with brevity and clarity in mind. It does not provide exhaustive detail of all aspects of our collection and use of personal information. However, we are happy to provide any additional information or explanation needed. Any requests for this should be sent via the contact page link below.

Access to personal information

We try to be as open as it can be in terms of giving people access to their personal information. Individuals can find out if we hold any personal information by making a ‘subject access request’ under the Data Protection Act 1998. If we do hold information about you we will:

give you a description of it;
tell you why we are holding it;
tell you who it could be disclosed to; and
let you have a copy of the information in an intelligible form.

To make a request to us for any personal information we may hold you need to put the request in writing addressing it to our Information Privacy department via the contact page link below.

If we do hold information about you, you can ask us to correct any mistakes by contacting as as detailed above.

Disclosure of personal information

In many circumstances we will not disclose personal data without consent. However when we investigate a complaint, for example, we will need to share personal information with the organisation concerned and with other relevant bodies.

You can also get further information on:

agreements we have with other organisations for sharing information;
circumstances where we can pass on personal data without consent for example, to prevent and detect crime and to produce anonymised statistics;
our instructions to staff on how to collect, use and delete personal data; and
how we check that the information we hold is accurate and up to date.

Links to other websites

This privacy notice does not cover the links within these sites linking to other unrelated, third party websites. We encourage you to read the privacy statements on the other unrelated, third party websites you may visit when following links from here.

How to contact us

Requests for information about our privacy policy can be emailed to the Information Privacy department via our Contact Form.

Changes to this privacy notice

We keep our privacy notice under regular review. This privacy notice was last updated on 01. June 2020.

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