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Privacy & Cookie Policy
At St.Oswald's Farm we are committed to protecting and respecting your personal data and privacy. This policy explains how we collect and handle data from you when you book with us as a guest to our self-catering accommodation, use our services or access our website. It also relates to our use of any personal information you provide to us by telephone, text, in written correspondence (both letter and email), through our social media channels and in person. Whenever you provide personal data, we are legally obliged to use your information in line with applicable laws concerning the protection of such information, including but not limited to the Data Protection Act 2018 and the GDPR.
Please note that this policy may be altered in the future. It was last updated on 18th July 2022.
Who collects the information?
The information is being collected by St Oswald's Farm, and the person responsible for handling data is Lorraine Reay, who can be contacted via email at , or by writing to Lorraine Reay, Ridley Cottage, St Oswald's Farm, Wall, Hexham, NE46 4HB. Alternatively, phone: 07944 506536.
You have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), the UK authority for data protection issues. We would however, appreciate the chance to deal with your concerns before you approach the ICO so please contact us in the first instance.
How do we collect information?
Information can be collected in the following ways:
- If you contact us via our enquiry form.
- If you sign up to our mailing list.
- If you contact us via email.
- If you contact us via text or telephone.
- If you contact us via social media
- If you make a booking.
Anonymous data (relating to your computer, not to you personally) can also be collected whenever someone merely visits one of our web pages (this involves cookies - see below).
What information is collected?
For enquiries and/or bookings we will only collect the minimum information required for the purposes of being able to contact you and make an accurate record of the booking and process any payments relating to it such as
Identity Data including first name, last name, title
Contact Data including full postal address, email address, contact telephone numbers
Transaction Data including details about services you have purchased from us or previous visits to us
Financial Data may include bank account or payment card details
Profile Data including purchases or orders made by you, your interests, preferences (including personal likes and dislikes) and allergen information.
Marketing & Communications Data including your preference in receiving marketing from us and your communciation preferences
The anonymous data relating to website traffic is limited to details of the device or connection being used to access our website (including the IP address of your computer, the country the connection is made from, the browser, etc.) and a record of the pages visited, plus the time spent on each page.
If you fail to provide personal data
Where we need to collect personal data by law, or under the terms of a contract we have with you, and you fail to provide that data when reqeusted, we may not be able to perform the contract we have or are trying to enter into with you. In this case, we may have to cancel all or part of a service you have with us but we will notify you if this is the case at the time.
How is your data used?
When you contact us, make a booking or sign up for our newsletter, your data is only used for the corresponding purposes. We will not pass your contact details and other personal data to a third party unless you ask us to.
Some data will also be used for internal record keeping (e.g. for the accounts that we are legally obliged to maintain), and to help us assess how to improve the services that we offer.
Anonymous data collected from cookies is used purely to compile statistics regarding the website traffic so that we can judge how well the website is performing.
What legal bases do we rely on to process your information?
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and UK GDPR require us to explain the valid legal bases we rely on in order to process your personal information. As such, we will always rely on one of the following legal bases to process your personal information:
Consent. We may process your information if you have given us permission (i.e. consent) to use your personal information for a specific purpose. You can withdraw your consent at any time.
Performance of a contract. We may process your personal information when we believe it is necessary to fulfil our contractual obligations to you, including providing our services or at your request prior to entering into a contract with you.
Legitimate interests. We may process your information when we believe it is reasonably necessary to achieve our legitimate business interests and those interests do not outweigh your interests and fundamental rights and freedoms. For example, we may process your personal information for some of the purposes described in order to: Analyse how our services are used so we can improve them to engage and retain users and evaluate our marketing activities.
Legal obligations. We may process your information where we believe it is necessary for compliance with our legal obligations, such as to cooperate with a law enforcement body or regulatory agency, exercise or defend our legal rights, or disclose your information as evidence in litigation in which we are involved.
Vital interests. We may process your information where we believe it is necessary to protect your vital interests or the vital interests of a third party, such as situations involving potential threats to the safety of any person.
Who has access to your information?
We treat any data collected during the course of making bookings or dealing with enquiries in strict confidence. Your data will never be sold. As a member of Premier Cottages (a marketing collective of the best four and five star cottages in the UK) we have agreed to supply to Premier Cottages Ltd the names, postal and email addresses of all guests booking with us unless you have asked us not to. If at any time you would like your details removed from the list you can do so at any point by contacting us.
We will not share your personal information with any other third parties for marketing purposes. Personal information will only be given to a third party when we are legally obliged to do so.
Anonymous data derived from cookies may be shared with third parties, but only for technical purposes, not marketing ones.
Your consent
We will not contact you for marketing purposes by email, phone or text message unless you have given your prior consent. You can change your marketing preferences at any time by unsubscribing or by contacting us by email: or telephone on 07944 506536.
How you can access and update your information
The accuracy of your information is important. If you change your email address, or any of the other information we hold is inaccurate or out of date, please email us at: or write to us at: Ridley Cottage, St Oswald's Farm, Wall, Hexham, NE46 4HB. Alternatively, you can telephone 07944 506536. We will promptly correct any information found to be incorrect.
You have the right to ask for a copy of the information we hold about you, and this will be sent to you in electronic format free of charge.
If you believe that any information we are holding on you is incorrect or incomplete, please write to us or e-mail us as soon as possible.
Your right to restriction
You may choose to restrict the collection or use of your personal information in the following ways:
- Whenever you are asked to fill in a form on the website, look for the box that you can leave unchecked to indicate that you do not want your information to be used by anybody for marketing purposes;
- If you have previously agreed to us using your personal information for direct marketing purposes, you may change your mind at any time by writing to or emailing us at .
Data Retention
We will only retain your personal data for as long as reasonably necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of any legal, regulatory, tax, accounting or reporting requirements. We may retain your personal data for a longer period in the event of a complaint or if we reaosnably believe there is a prospect of litigation in respect to our relationship with you. Unnecessary data will be erased.
By law we have to keep basic information about our clients (including contact, identity, financial and transactional data) for 6 years after they cease being clients.
The security of your information
When details such as your name and email address are submitted via a contact form or email, this can never be guaranteed to be 100% secure. As a result, while we strive to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee the security of any information you transmit to us, and you do so at your own risk. Once we receive your information, we make our best effort to ensure its security on our systems.
Breach notification
If we hold records of your personal data and we become aware of a data breach, we will endeavour to inform you of this within 72 hours.
Links to other websites
Our website contains links to other websites of interest. You should note that we do not have any control over those websites, and so cannot be responsible for the protection and privacy of any information which you provide whilst visiting them.
Users under 18 years of age
Any user under 18 years of age must have their parents'/guardians' consent to use our website. Users without this consent are not allowed to provide us with personal information.
Cookies
A cookie is a small file sent to your computer's hard drive by a web page that you visit. Cookies allow web applications to recognise your device (not you personally) as you move from one page on the site to another, or if you revisit the site within a certain period of time. If you express a preference on a web page, for instance, that preference can then be recalled in the future. A cookie in no way gives us access to other files on your computer or to any other of your device's functions.
We use traffic log cookies to compile statistics about the popularity of pages on our site and about how people have arrived here. This helps us improve our website. We only use this information for statistical purposes.
You can choose to accept or decline cookies. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, however, you can usually modify your browser settings to decline or block cookies if you prefer.
The following table indicates which cookies we are using and what they do.
Cookie | ID | Purpose | Further info |
Google Analytics | _utma _utmb _utmc _utmz |
These cookies are used to collect information about how visitors use our site, which we use to help improve it. The cookies collect information in an anonymous form, including the number of visitors to the site, where visitors have come to the site from and the pages they visited. | Google Analytics privacy info Opting out of Google Analytics |
CMS | PHPSESSID | This stores information anonymously merely to note whether visitors to the website are logged into the content management system or not. | |
Cookie warning | cc_cookie_accept | This simply stores your acceptance of the warning about cookies on the website home page. |
What to do if you don’t want cookies to be set
If you prefer, it is possible to block some or all cookies, or even to delete cookies that have already been set; but you need to be aware that some functions of the website might become inoperable. If you use the Internet Explorer browser, find out more info HERE. If you use Firefox, see the information HERE. If you are using Safari, see HERE.