1. Statement of Intent
From time to time, you may be asked to submit personal information about yourself (e.g. name and email address etc) in order to receive or use services on our website. Such services include newsletters, competitions, "Alert Email", live chats, message boards and membership (e.g. for support services).
By entering your details in the fields requested, you enable Colchester Arts Centre to provide you with the services you select. Whenever you provide such personal information, we will treat that information in accordance with this policy. Our services are designed to give you the information that you want to receive. Colchester Arts Centre will act in accordance with current legislation and aim to meet current Internet best practice.
The following statement explains our policy regarding the personal information we collect about you.
2. Information on Visitors
During the course of any visit to https://www.colchesterartscentre.com, the pages you see, along with something called a cookie, are downloaded to your computer (see point 3 for more on this). Most, if not all, websites do this, because cookies allow the website publisher to do useful things like find out whether the computer (and probably its user) has visited the site before. This is done on a repeat visit by checking to see, and finding, the cookie left there on the last visit.
Any information that is supplied by cookies can help us to provide you with a better service and assists us to analyse the profile of our visitors. For example: if on a previous visit you went to, say, the Search Engine pages, then we might find this out from your cookie and highlight Search Engine information on a second visit. We also use cookies to provide functions such as Shopping Carts and the information held in the shopping cart is held in a cookie on your PC.
We do not gather or use personal information from our website other than to use for despatching goods and invoices or for making contact with you as the result of an enquiry or support request. We do not pass on any personal information to other companies unless we are specifically instructed to do so by you.
We do not use cookies or spyware to gather information for use in marketing or any other activity from that stated above.
3. What is a Cookie?
When you enter a site your computer will automatically be issued with a cookie. Cookies are text files that identify your computer to our server. Cookies in themselves do not identify the individual user, just the computer used. Many sites do this whenever a user visits their site in order to track traffic flows.
Cookies themselves only record those areas of the site that have been visited by the computer in question, and for how long. Users have the opportunity to set their computers to accept all cookies, to notify them when a cookie is issued, or not to receive cookies at any time. The last of these, of course, means that certain personalised services cannot then be provided to that user.
NB: Even if you haven't set your computer to reject cookies you can still browse our site anonymously until such time as you attempt to purchase products or register for services.
4. Use and storage of your personal information
When you supply any personal information to Colchester Arts Centre (e.g. for purchase, services or support membership) we have legal obligations towards you in the way we deal with that data. We must collect the information fairly, that is, we must explain how we will use it (see the notices on particular webpages that let you know why we are requesting the information) and tell you if we want to pass the information on to anyone else. In general, any information you provide to us will only be used within Colchester Arts Centre and by its service providers. It will never be supplied to anyone outside Colchester Arts Centre without first obtaining your consent, unless we are obliged or permitted by law to disclose it. Also, if you post or send offensive or inappropriate content anywhere on or to https://www.colchesterartscentre.com or otherwise engage in any disruptive behaviour on our website, and we consider such behaviour to be serious and/or repeated, we can use whatever information that is available to us about you to stop such behaviour. This may include informing relevant third parties such as your employer, school or e-mail provider about the content and your behaviour.
We will hold your personal information on our systems for as long as you use the service you have requested, and remove it in the event that the purpose has been met, or, in the case of support membership you no longer wish to continue your registration as a member. For safety reasons, however, Colchester Arts Centre may store messaging transcript data (including message content, member names, times and dates) arising from the use of services such as our forum for a period of six months. Where personal information is held for people who are not yet registered but have taken part in other services (e.g. competitions), that information will be held only as long as necessary to ensure that the service is run smoothly. We will ensure that all personal information supplied is held securely, in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998.
If you are notified on a Colchester Arts Centre site that your information may be used to allow us to contact you for "service administration purposes", this means that we may contact you for a number of purposes related to the service you have signed up for. For example, we may wish to provide you with password reminders or notify you that the particular service has been suspended for maintenance. We will not contact you for promotional purposes, such as notifying you of improvements to the service or new services on our website unless you specifically agree to be contacted for such purposes at the time you submit your information on the site, or at a later time if you sign up specifically to receive such promotional information.
5. Access to your personal information
You have the right to request a copy of the personal information held about you and to have any inaccuracies corrected. (We charge £10 for information requests.) Please address requests to:Church Street
Colchester
Essex
CO1 1NF
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6. Users 16 and under
If you are aged 16 or under, please get your parent/guardian's permission beforehand whenever you provide personal information to any of our websites. Users without this consent are not allowed to provide us with personal information.
7. How to find and control your cookies
If you're using Netscape 6.0
On your Task Bar, click:
Edit, then
Preferences
Click on Advanced
Click on Cookies
If you're using Internet Explorer 6.0
Choose Tools, then
Internet Options
Click the Privacy Tab
Click on Custom Level
Click on the 'Advanced' button
Check the 'override automatic cookie handing' box and select Accept, Block or Prompt for action as appropriate.
If you're using Internet Explorer 5.0 or 5.5
Choose Tools, then
Internet Options
Click the Security tab
Click on Custom Level
Scroll down to the sixth option to see how cookies are handled by IE5 and change to Accept, Disable, or Prompt for action as appropriate.
If you're using Internet Explorer 4.0
Choose View, then
Internet Options
Click the Advanced tab
Scroll down to the yellow exclamation icon under Security and choose one of the three options to regulate your use of cookies.
In Internet Explorer 3.0
You can View, Options, Advanced, then click on the button that says Warn before Accepting Cookies.
If you're using Netscape Communicator 4.0
On your Task Bar, click:
Edit, then
Preferences
Click on Advanced
Set your options in the box that says Cookies.
8. How do you know which of the sites you've visited use cookies?
If about us you're using Netscape 6.0
On your Task Bar, click:
Edit, then
Preferences
Click on Advanced
Click on Cookies
Click the View Cookies button
If you're using Internet Explorer 5.0 or 6.0
Choose Tools, then
Internet Options
Click the General tab
Click Settings
View Files
If you're using Internet Explorer 4.0
On your Task Bar, click:
View, then
Internet Options
Under the tab General (the default tab) click
Settings
View Files.
Internet Explorer 3.0
On your Task Bar, click:
View
Options
Advanced
View Files.
Netscape Communicator 4.0
Netscape bundles all cookies into one file on your hard drive. You'll need to find the file, which it calls Cookie.txt on Windows machines.
9. How do you see your cookie code?
Just click on a cookie to open it. You'll see a short string of text and numbers. The numbers are your identification card, which can only be seen by the server that gave you the cookie.
© Colchester Arts Centre 2002-2024
Church Street
Colchester
Essex
CO1 1NF