Privacy Policy Notice for Councillor Q&A

The policy: This privacy policy notice is for this website; towncouncillor.com and served by Martin Brampton t/a Black Sheep Research of 4 York Road, Malton, North Yorkshire, YO17 6AX and governs the privacy of those who use it. The purpose of this policy is to explain to you how we control, process, handle and protect your personal information while browsing or using this website, including your rights under current laws and regulations. If you do not agree to the following policy you may wish to cease viewing / using this website.

Policy key definitions:

• "I", "our", "us", or "we" refer to the business, Martin Brampton trading as Black Sheep Research.
• "you", "the user" refer to the person(s) using this website.
• GDPR means General Data Protection Act.
• PECR means Privacy & Electronic Communications Regulation.
• ICO means Information Commissioner's Office.
• Cookies mean small files stored on a users computer or device.

Processing of your personal data

Under the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) we control and / or process any personal information about you electronically using the following lawful bases.

• We are exempt from registration in the ICO Data Protection Register because we currently operate on a non-profit basis.

Lawful basis: Legitimate interests
The reason we use this basis: the data we hold is the minimum required to exercise appropriate control over postings to the web site, which are shown to the general public, and to run the site efficiently.
We process your information in the following ways: your identity is used to enforce the login mechanism of the web site; we track visits in order to asses the success of the web site, mostly processing aggregate data only.
Data retention period: until you request its removal
Sharing your information: We do not share your information with third parties.


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If, as determined by us, the lawful basis upon which we process your personal information changes, we will notify you about the change and any new lawful basis to be used if required. We shall stop processing your personal information if the lawful basis used is no longer relevant.

Your individual rights

Under the GDPR your rights are as follows. You can read more about your rights in details here;

• the right to be informed;
• the right of access;
• the right to rectification;
• the right to erasure;
• the right to restrict processing;
• the right to data portability;
• the right to object; and
• the right not to be subject to automated decision-making including profiling.

You also have the right to complain to the ICO [www.ico.org.uk] if you feel there is a problem with the way we are handling your data.

We handle subject access requests in accordance with the GDPR.

Internet cookies

Please refer to our cookie policy

Data security and protection

We ensure the security of any personal information we hold by using secure data storage technologies and precise procedures in how we store, access and manage that information. Our methods meet the GDPR compliance requirement.

Transparent Privacy Explanations

We have provided some further explanations about user privacy and the way we use this website to help promote a transparent and honest user privacy methodology.

Sponsored links, affiliate tracking & commissions

Our website may contain adverts, sponsored and affiliate links on some pages. These are typically served through our advertising partners, or are self served through our own means. We only use trusted advertising partners who each have high standards of user privacy and security. However we do not control the actual adverts seen / displayed by our advertising partners. Our ad partners may collect data and use cookies for ad personalisation and measurement. Where ad preferences are requested as 'non-personalised' cookies may still be used for frequency capping, aggregated ad reporting and to combat fraud and abuse.

Clickable sponsored or affiliate links may be displayed as a website URL like this; www.thetafhotel.co.uk or as a titled text link like this: Bed & Breakfast in Whitland.

Clicking on any adverts, sponsored or affiliate links may track your actions by using a cookie saved to your device. You can read more about cookies on this website above. Your actions are usually recorded as a referral from our website by this cookie. In most cases we earn a very small commission from the advertiser or advertising partner, at no cost to you, whether you make a purchase on their website or not.

We use advertising partners in these ways to help generate an income from the website, which allows us to continue our work and provide you with the best overall experience and valued information.

If you have any concerns about this we suggest you do not click on any adverts, sponsored or affiliate links found throughout the website.

Email marketing messages & subscription

Under the GDPR we use the consent lawful basis for anyone subscribing to our newsletter or marketing mailing list. We only collect certain data about you, as detailed in the "Processing of your personal date" above. Any email marketing messages we send are done so through an EMS, email marketing service provider. An EMS is a third party service provider of software / applications that allows marketers to send out email marketing campaigns to a list of users.

Email marketing messages that we send may contain tracking beacons / tracked clickable links or similar server technologies in order to track subscriber activity within email marketing messages. Where used, such marketing messages may record a range of data such as; times, dates, I.P addresses, opens, clicks, forwards, geographic and demographic data. Such data, within its limitations will show the activity each subscriber made for that email campaign.

Any email marketing messages we send are in accordance with the GDPR and the PECR. We provide you with an easy method to withdraw your consent (unsubscribe) or manage your preferences / the information we hold about you at any time. See any marketing messages for instructions on how to unsubscribe or manage your preferences, otherwise contact the EMS provider.

Our EMS provider is MailChimp. We hold the following information about you within our EMS system;

• Email address
• I.P address
• Subscription time & date

Resources & further information

• Overview of the GDPR - General Data Protection Regulation
• Data Protection Act 1998
• Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003
• The Guide to the PECR 2003
• Twitter Privacy Policy
• Facebook Privacy Policy
• Google Privacy Policy
• Linkedin Privacy Policy
• Mailchimp Privacy Policy
• Small business GDPR policy template

Privacy Notice Policy Base: v.4.0 May 2018 - Made available without liability by Jamie King, Website management services.