Any information you provide about yourself to Waterfront Media CIC or our associated companies will only be used in accordance with our Privacy Policy Statement, detailed below. Please note, the Privacy Policy Statement does not apply to websites or text services operated by third parties.

We collect information from you for a number of reasons, for example:

• To enable us to send out editorial content that you’ve requested.
• To enter you into competitions you've chosen to participate in.
• To enable us to send out promotions in which we think you will be interested.
• To help us to improve the services we offer.  To use anonymous, aggregated details about our users to sell appropriate advertising space on our websites and other properties (for example, we may need to tell advertisers what proportion of the visitors to our websites are female), collect promotional and marketing information, and to pass on offers to our users, and does not mean sharing an individual’s details with an advertiser.

Our Aims
1. We are fully committed to protecting your privacy and will respect your privacy in terms of email, mobile and any other details you submit to us via any media.
2. We will not collect personally identifying information except with your specific knowledge and consent.
3. We will work with our suppliers to ensure that your data is protected with high quality, reliable and secure technology. Our technology partners invest in high-quality security and work hard to protect your privacy.
4. We follow strict security procedures set out in UK Data Protection Legislation in respect of the storage and disclosure of information given by you via our websites, your mobile or via any other media.

Collection of Information
5. We may collect information on our users through cookies on websites, interactions with both our websites and our text services and via other media.
6. The information we need depends on how you are interacting with the station, but could include an email address, a password, age, gender, postcode or mobile telephone number, although additional information may also be requested.  We may ask further or different questions for different services, including competitions. Unless stated, all questions are compulsory. We may also ask some further, voluntary questions so we can gain a clearer understanding of our users. Your responses help us to sell appropriate advertising space and to alert you to information we think may be of interest to you and so improve the offering we can make to users. They also enable us to personalise services for our users, for example through club membership.  We do not share this information with third parties unless you have specifically consented to this.
7. Where applicable, if we create a members area of the website then you may update your personal information at any time. 
8. When you interact with us via either online or text services you may be invited to register with us. Such registration is your choice. Your decision to register or otherwise will not have any effect on the outcome of any competition.

“Cookies”
9. You may have read about “cookies”, small pieces of information that are stored by your browser on your computer’s hard drive. Waterfront Media CIC uses cookies to identify previous users without needing to ask for details every time you access one of our sites. The cookies control the display of adverts, to ensure that you don’t see the same advert too many times in a single session, for example, and to track usage patterns on our sites. Our cookies do not contain any personally identifying information.  While using the sites, you may notice that our advertisers occasionally serve you cookies, either directly or when you link to their sites. We cannot directly control what our advertisers or these cookies do, but it’s our policy that advertisers on the sites should use cookies the same way we do.
10. Occasionally, we may use cookies to track registered or unregistered users as they travel through the site – for instance, we might use cookies to count the total number of unique users who are accessing the site over a particular period of time. This information will never be shared with a third party at an individual level, and is used to make our systems more efficient.
11. We use cookies to identify that an individual has done something and not to identify any further information about that individual. If you are concerned about cookies, you can turn them off in your browser. However, please note that if you do this some areas of the site may not work properly.

“Safe Harbor”
12. For purely technical and operational reasons, your user data may from time to time be stored on our behalf on servers based overseas.  All contractors operating such storage on our behalf will be identifiable as “Safe Harbor” compliant.

“Data Protection Act”
13. We will ensure that all personal information supplied is held securely in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998 and its relevant subordinate legislation and we will comply with the principles set out in that Act. When you supply any personal information to us we will meet our legal obligations towards you in the way that we deal with that information. In accordance with the data protection principles we have to collect the information fairly and to let you know how we will use it (see paragraphs 14 – 18) and whether we will pass the information on to anyone else. We will not supply your personal information to third parties without your express prior consent or where required by law. We will ensure that any information will be held only as long as is necessary to ensure that our service runs smoothly. We use up to date industry procedures to keep personal data as safe and secure as possible and to protect against loss, unauthorised disclosure or access.

Use of Information
14. Where you have submitted personal information about yourself we may from time to time provide you by e-mail, mail, text or otherwise with an update of information about our services and products. You may “opt out” by clicking on opt out or unsubscribe links provided in subsequent communications.
15. You should be aware that any information you post in our public areas on our websites, or other branded services (including social media), may be seen, collected and used by others, and may result in unsolicited messages from other users or parties. We can’t control this; you post at your own risk. Please note that, at times, the comments on our website will be taken from Facebook - information on one medium may be seen on the other.
16. Sometimes, specifically as part of competitions on the station, personal details of entrants may be passed to the company responsible for the promotion and you may be included on their mailing lists as a party interested in their services. If this is the case, you will be notified at the time you give your details and given the opportunity to opt out. By law, those companies should also give you the chance to revoke your agreement at any point by unsubscribing. Rest assured, your details will never be sold to companies for profit. See paragraph 20.
17. Sometimes you will provide us with data that doesn’t reveal your personal identity. We may use this sort of information for editorial marketing and promotion purposes and occasionally for other purposes.
18. Any research carried out via our websites or through text message to your mobile is for the exclusive use of Waterfront Media CIC unless specifically stated at the time of completion. However, please note that “pooled” responses to questions may be shared with our partner organisations.

Advertisers, Sponsors and Associates
19. Where we collect registration information from you, we will only contact you ourselves unless we let you now otherwise at the point of collection.
20. We will not sell, trade, rent or pass on any individual’s user details (including your email address and/ or mobile telephone number) unless we have your prior consent. With your permission we will only share the information with carefully chosen, reputable and trustworthy third parties.
21. We will never share your personally identifying information with a third party, including an advertiser, without your explicit permission. Similarly, you will receive unsolicited mail or texts only from Black Country Radio and associated companies only if you have agreed to this, with the option to remove yourself from those lists available at any point.
22. A few special cases are worth noting: From time to time we may run competitions or request material we can publish; to participate, you must usually supply us with your identity which you agree to have publicly associated with your submission. The exact rules vary from case to case, and will be noted clearly on the relevant pages. Your participation will always be voluntary and knowing.
23. Otherwise, we will only share anonymous aggregate statistics about our users, sales and traffic patterns with our advertisers. Whilst your individual information is protected as outlined above, we reserve the right to use aggregated, anonymous data about our users as a group whether this is in connection with either web or text users. For example, we might report to potential advertisers that a certain percentage of our users are interested in its products, based on information requests.
24. We reserve the right to access and disclose individually identifiable information to comply with applicable laws and lawful government requests, to operate our systems properly and to protect both ourselves and our users.
25. We may provide aggregate statistics about our customers, sales, traffic patterns and related site information to reputable third-party vendors, but these statistics will include no personally identifying information.
26. Waterfront Media CICand our associated companies follow the relevant legal requirements and uses all reasonable precautions to ensure only responsible third parties see the information, however we are not responsible for any breach of security or any actions of any third parties who receive the information.

We reserve the right to change our privacy policy and all changes will be posted here.