Privacy Policy – What we do with your information


The South West Information Compliance Group is committed to protecting your privacy when you use our website and forum.  In this policy we explain how and why we collect your information, what we do with it and what controls you have over our use of it.
From time to time, we add or change functions, features or products to our website or add or change services.  This, and our commitment to protecting the privacy of your personal information, may result in periodic changes to this Privacy Policy.  As a result, please remember to refer back to it regularly to review any amendments.

Any questions regarding our Privacy Policy should be sent through our Contact Us webpage.
Your acceptance of these Privacy Statement terms
By using any of the web pages or services (including the Forum) you unconditionally agree to be bound by this Privacy Policy.

What personal information do we collect and how do we use it?
The South West Information Compliance Group collects and processes information about you in order to:

  1. Register you as a member of the group when you sign on to the Forum, and identify you each time you sign on to it.
  2. Provide a service to you (such as book you in as an attendee for a training course (if/when this facility becomes available);
  3. Improve our services and website.

You may be asked, either when you register with the Forum, or at other times, for information about yourself, such as your name, e-mail address, postal address and telephone number.  You are under no obligation to provide this information, but if you don't then we may not be able to provide you with certain services or personalise your experience and tailor our services for you (for example, tell you about group meetings or training days).
Log files/IP addresses
When you visit our website, we automatically log your IP address (the unique address which identifies your computer on the internet) which is automatically recognised by our website provider’s web server.  They use IP addresses to help them administer our website and to collect broad demographic information for aggregate use. Neither our provider (Daneswood) nor the Swicg Group link IP addresses to your personally identifiable information.
Non personal information
We may automatically collect non-personal information about you such as the type of internet browsers you use or the site from which you linked to our website.  You cannot be identified from this information and it is only used to assist us in providing an effective service on our website and Forum.
Use of Cookies
Cookies are pieces of information that a website transfers to your hard drive to store and sometimes track information about you.  Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but if you prefer, you can change your browser to prevent that.  However, you may not be able to take full advantage of a Website if you do so.  Cookies are specific to the server that created them and cannot be accessed by other servers, which means they cannot be used to track your movements around the web.  Although they do identify a user's computer, cookies do not personally identify customers or passwords.  Credit card information is not stored in cookies.
We use cookies for the following reasons:

  1. To identify who you are and to access your Forum account information;
  2. To estimate our audience size and patterns;
  3. To control how often visitors see similar adverts (if these are used); and
  4. To track preferences and to improve and update our website.

With whom is the information shared?
The South West Information Compliance Group will not share, sell or rent your personal information to third parties.  However, we may disclose your personal information to third party suppliers so that they can provide services on our behalf.
The South West Information Compliance Group may disclose aggregate statistics about our website visitors in order to describe our services to prospective partners, advertisers and other reputable third parties and for other lawful purposes, but these statistics will not include personally identifying information.
The South West Information Compliance Group may disclose your personal information if required to do so by law or if it believes that such action is necessary to protect and defend the rights, property or personal safety of members of the South West Information Compliance Group, visitors to the website and Forum and recipients of our services.
Links to other websites
Our website contains links to the sites of third parties.  When you visit these sites, we suggest that you read their privacy policies.  The South West Information Compliance Group is not responsible for the privacy policies or the content of such sites. 
Security
The South West Information Compliance Group places a great importance on the security of all information associated with our members and individuals who access or website or use our services. We have security measures in place to attempt to protect against the loss, misuse and alteration of personal data under our control.  With regard to the Forum we use secure server software (SSL) to encrypt personal information you input before it is sent to us.  While we cannot ensure or guarantee that loss, misuse or alteration of data will not occur, we use our best efforts to prevent this.
Where is the information stored?
Information which you submit via our website is stored on a computer located in the European Economic Area (EEA).  This is necessary in order to process the information and to send you any information you have requested. 
Comments
Please e-mail any questions, concerns or comments you have about our Privacy Policy through our Contact Us webpage 
South West Information Compliance Group

© September 2009