Privacy Policy
This Privacy Policy summarises the key points about how we collect, use and disclose personal data. Personal data is information (including opinions) which relates to an individual and from which he or she can be identified either directly or indirectly through other data which we have or are likely to have in our possession.
Responsibilities
Letstalk Mediators is the data controller of the personal data that we process and is therefore responsible for ensuring that our systems, processes, suppliers and employees comply with data protection laws in relation to the information we handle.
What personal information do we collect about you?
We may collect personal information from you in the course of our business, including through the provision of mediation services, through your use of our website, when you contact or request information from us, or as a result of your relationship with one or more of our mediators.
The personal information that we process includes:
- basic information, such as your name (including prefix or title), the company you work for, your position or title and your relationship to a person
- contact information, such as your postal address, email address and phone number(s)
- financial information, such as payment-related information
- technical information, such as information relating to your visits to our website or in relation to emails that we send you
- information that you might provide to us if you attend one of our events, including access and dietary requirements
- identification and background information provided by you or collected by us in the course of providing mediation services
- any other information relating to you which you may provide to us.
How we obtain your personal information
- We obtain information from you in the course of providing our mediation services to you
- We collect your personal information when you use our website and in the course of sending you email communications
- We gather information about you when you provide it to us, or interact with us directly, such as registering on our website
- We may use publicly available sources to obtain your personal information in order to ensure that the contact details we hold for you are up to date
How we use your personal information
We use the personal information that we collect about you from the sources listed above, in a number of ways:
- to provide and improve this website
- to provide and improve our services to you, including maintaining our records relating to mediation.This includes providing personal information to the mediator that you instruct for your mediation
- to provide information requested by you
- to promote our services
- to manage and administer our relationship with you
Use of our website
When someone visits www.letstalkmediators.com we use a third party service, Google Analytics, to 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 the site. Google Analytics does this by placing small text files called ‘cookies’ on your device. The information that cookies collect is only processed in a way which does not identify anyone. We do not make, and do not allow Google to make, any attempt to find out the identities of those visiting our website. If we do want to collect personally identifiable information through our website, we will be up front about this. We will make it clear when we collect personal information and will explain what we intend to do with it.
Our website is managed by Pink Elephant Media and hosted by [TBC?]. We use a standard [TBC?] service to collect anonymous information about users’ activity on the site, for example the number of users viewing pages on the site, to monitor and report on the effectiveness of the site and help us improve it. [TBC] requires visitors that want to post a comment to enter a name and email address. For more information about how [TBC?] processes data, please see [TBC’s] Privacy Policy.
Search queries and results are logged anonymously to help us improve our website and search functionality. No user-specific data is collected by either us or any third party.
Use of cookies by us
You can read more about how we use cookies in our Cookie Policy (see above).
Security and performance
WE use a third party service to help maintain the security and performance of our website. To deliver this service it processes the IP addresses of visitors to our website.
On what basis we use your personal information
We use your personal information on the following bases:
- to perform a contract, such as providing mediation services to you
- for legitimate business purposes as detailed in ‘How we use your personal information’ above.
- to comply with legal and regulatory obligations
How long we keep your personal information
Your personal information will be retained in accordance with our data retention policy which categorises all the information held by us and specifies the appropriate retention period for each category of data. Those periods are based on the requirements of applicable data protection laws and the purpose for which the information is collected and used, taking into account legal and regulatory requirements, limitation periods for taking legal action, good practice and our business purposes.
Who we share your personal data with
We may share your information with certain trusted third parties in accordance with contractual arrangements in place with them including:
- our mediators in relation to whom you make enquiries or who you instruct to mediate for you
- suppliers who provide support services in relation to IT and email marketing
- third parties involved in hosting or organising events with us
We use LinkedIn. Our social media interactions are managed in-house and will be stored by those providers in accordance with their privacy policies. We do not sell, rent or otherwise make personal information commercially available to any third party, except with your prior permission.
How we protect your personal information
We use a variety of technical and organisational measures to help protect your personal information from unauthorised access, use, disclosure, alteration or destruction. We use [TBC] to encrypt and protect email traffic. If your email service does not support [TBC], you should be aware that any emails we send or receive may not be protected in transit.
We will also monitor any emails sent to us, including file attachments, for viruses or malicious software. Please be aware that you have a responsibility to ensure that any email you send is within the bounds of the law.
Your rights regarding your personal information
Under the Data Protection Act 1998, you have rights as an individual which you can exercise in relation to the information we hold about you. You can read more about these rights here – https://ico.org.uk/for-the-public/is-my-information-being-handled-correctly/
We must ensure that your personal information is accurate and up to date. Therefore, please advise us of any changes to your information by emailing us here.
Complaints or queries
Letstalk Mediators tries to meet the highest standards when collecting and using personal information. For this reason, we take any complaints we receive about this 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 Policy 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 to the address below.
If you want to make a complaint about the way we have processed your personal information, you can contact the Information Commissioner’s Office which is the statutory body which oversees data protection law – www.ico.org.uk/concerns.
Access to personal information
Letstalk Mediators seeks 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 please make a written request to the address below. If you agree, we will try to deal with your request informally, for example by providing you with the specific information you need over the telephone. If we do hold information about you, you can ask us to correct any mistakes by contacting us again.
Disclosure of personal information
In many circumstances we will not disclose personal data without consent. However when we investigate a complaint, for example, we may 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 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 Policy does not cover the links within this site linking to other websites. We encourage you to read the privacy statements on the other websites you visit.
Changes to this Privacy Policy
We keep our Privacy Policy under regular review and it was last updated in December 2023.
How to contact us
If you want to request information about our Privacy Policy please email info@letstalkmediators.com.