Privacy Policy

Email Subscribers

We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing. Learn more about Mailchimp’s privacy practices here.

Alongside Mailchimp’s own privacy practices, Progress Publishing (Bedford Independent) has the following policies:

  • We will use your personal information to send you emails about news stories, events, special offers and targeted advertising. We will only ask for the least amount of information needed to allow us to do this, including full name and email address.
  • We will not disclose any of your personal information to any company or organisations outside of Progress Publishing, unless required to do so by law.
  • Every email sent to you will contain a link allowing you to unsubscribe at any time should you wish to do so.
  • We will keep your email information within the Mailchimp database until you unsubscribe or up to one year after you last opened an email sent to you by us, whichever is the sooner.

By subscribing to our emails, you agree that your personal information can be used for the purposes identified.

Advertisers and Public Notices

Payments through our online portal are via PayPal. You can read their privacy and data protection policy here.

Alongside PayPal’s own privacy practices, Progress Publishing (Bedford Independent) has the following policies:

  • We will only ever ask for information needed to process a transaction and deliver the service you have paid for, this may include:
    1. For Public Notices: Your full name, postal address and email address. Payment details will be stored with PayPal and we do not have access to this information.
    2. For Advertisers: Your full name, your business name your business postal address and business email address. For card payments details will be stored with PayPal and we do not have access to this information. For BACS or regular bank transfers we will provide you with our bank details for you to make payment or set up a regular payment. Once payment is made, your bank details will be stored by our own bank, HSBC, you can read their privacy policy here.
  • We will destroy any data collected through a purchase of our services one calendar year after the last transaction made by the same individual or business.

By making a purchase of our services you agree that your personal and/or business information can be used for the purposes identified.

Awards

  • We will only ever ask for information needed to enable the smooth running of our award programmes and deliver the service you expect from that event, this may include:
    1. A nominator’s full name, email address and phone number.
    2. A nominee’s full name, email address and phone number.
    3. Details of a nominees activity relating to the award nomination
  • We will destroy any data collected through the nomination process, of either the nominator or nominee, one calendar year after the award final ceremony.
  • None of the data will be used in any other area of business provided by Progress Publishing.
  • If you are nominated but choose not to accept the nomination, your details will be destroyed within 48 hours from the receipt of your request not to continue with the nomination.

By making a nomination, or agreeing to accept the nomination, you agree that your personal information can be used for the purposes identified.

Data protection breaches

If we learn that we have been subject to a direct data protection breach or PayPal, Mailchimp, or HSBC has suffered their own data protection breach, we will immediately notify the Information Commissioners Office (ICO) and follow their guidance which you can read here.

Your rights

For whatever reason you have given us access to your data you can request for a copy of all the data we hold about you and your business, that has been collected for one of the above reasons.

You must make this request in writing to admin@bedfordindependent.co.uk including:

  • Your full name
  • When you gave your data to us
  • Why you gave you data to us

We will respond to all data copy requests within seven working days of receipt.

Please note: This request for data does not include any information we may hold for editorial reasons. Any personal information held by our editorial team with a view to publication in the public interest, is exempt from GDPR legislation. If you believe that our editorial team has personal information about you that is not for genuine journalistic reasons, then you can write to news@bedfordindependent.co.uk.

Complaints:

If you think that Progress Publishing (Bedford Independent) has not followed the policy set out above, or has committed a breach of GDPR legislation then you can write to admin@bedfordindependent.co.uk

Please include:

  • Your full name
  • Details of your complaint
  • What you would like to happen to satisfy your complaint

We will acknowledge all complaints within 48 hours and respond in full within 10 working days. We will provide information about how you can escalate your complaint should you feel our response is unsatisfactory.

You do not have to complain to us. If you would prefer a third party look into your complaint, then you can inform the Information Commissioners Office (ICO) directly. You can inform them of your complaint here.

Please note: The ICO advise all complainants to try and resolve a matter directly before getting them involved.

They state they will not usually become involved until all other options have been exhausted and even then will advise both parties of their obligations to resolve a complaint informally, including advising the person holding your data what they need to do to put right any mistakes without us taking any formal action.

This policy was written on 5 November 2018
This policy was last reviewed and updated on 10 January 2022