1. Introduction

This policy covers the British Food Fortnight use of personal information that British Food Fortnight collects when you use www.britishfoodfortnight.co.uk.

From time to time, you will be asked to submit personal information about yourself (e.g. name, address and email address) in order to receive or use services on our website.

By entering your details in the fields requested, you enable British Food Fortnight to provide you with the services you select. Whenever you provide such personal information, we will treat that information in accordance with this policy. When using your personal information British Food Fortnight will act in accordance with current legislation and aim to meet current Internet best practice.

2. Visitor Information

During the course of any visit www.britishfoodfortnight.co.uk, the pages you see, along with a short text file called a 'cookie', are downloaded to your computer. Many websites do this, because cookies enable website publishers to do useful things like find out whether the computer (and probably its user) has visited the website before. This is done on a repeat visit by checking to see, and finding, the cookie left there on the last visit.

Information supplied by cookies can help us to provide you with a better online user experience and assist us to analyse the profile of our visitors. For example: if on a previous visit you went to our education pages, we might find this out from your cookie and highlight educational information on your second and subsequent visits.

British Food Fortnight gathers non-personal information regarding the visitors to our website using cookies, log file data and code which is embedded on our website. British Food Fortnight uses this type of information, as with that obtained from other cookies used on the site, to help it improve the services to users.

3. What is a cookie?

identifier that is sent to your browser from a website's computer and stored on your computer's hard drive. Each website can send its own cookie to your browser if your browser's preferences allow it, but (to protect your privacy) your browser only permits a web site to access the cookies it has already sent to you, not the cookies sent to you by other sites.

Many sites do this whenever a user visits their website in order to track online traffic flows.

Cookies record information about your online preferences. 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 and accordingly you may not be able to take full advantage of all of the British Food Fortnight website features. Each browser is different, so check the "Help" menu of your browser to learn how to change your cookie preferences.

4. Use and storage of your personal information

When you supply any personal information to www.britishfoodfortnight.co.uk (e.g. for promoting your event, contacting us or requesting information) we have legal obligations towards you in the way we use those data. We must collect the information fairly, that is, we must explain how we will use it (see the notes on particular web pages that will let you know why we are requesting the information – for example, to list your event with you as the point of contact) and tell you if we want to pass the information on to anyone else.

In general, any information you provide to British Food Fortnight will only be used by British Food Fortnight. Your information will be disclosed where we are obliged or permitted by law. Also, if you post or send offensive, inappropriate or objectionable content anywhere on www.britishfoodfortnight.co.uk or otherwise engage in any disruptive behaviour on www.britishfoodfortnight.co.uk, British Food Fortnight can use whatever information that is available to it about you to stop such behaviour. This may involve informing relevant third parties such as your employer, school e-mail/Internet provider and law enforcement agencies 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 membership if you no longer wish to continue your registration as a member. For safety reasons, however, British Food Fortnight may store messaging transcript data (including message content, member names, times and dates) arising from the use of www.britishfoodfortnight.co.uk services for longer periods where necessary. Where personal information is held for people who are not yet registered but have taken part in other British Food Fortnight services (e.g. competitions), that information will be held as long as is 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 that your information may be used to allow British Food Fortnight to contact you for "service administration purposes", this means that British Food Fortnight 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, or advise you of dates of future events.

5. Access to your personal information

You have the right to request a copy of the personal information British Food Fortnight holds about you and to have any inaccuracies corrected. (We charge £10 for information requests.)

Please address requests to :
British Food Fortnight
PO Box 16141
London
SE11 4ZH

Email: This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

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 the British Food Fortnight website. Users without this consent are not allowed to provide us with personal information.

British Food Fortnight
November 2007