PRIVACY POLICY
At LDA we are committed to protecting the privacy of our customers and website
visitors. Our relationship with you is valuable and we understand the
importance you place on the privacy and security of information which
personally identifies you. In that respect and whether you are a first time
visitor to our website or a regular user, we take your privacy seriously.
Please read the following in order to learn more about our privacy policy and
our information gathering and dissemination practices.
1. Why we require your information
LDA provide a variety of on-line offerings, including information about LDA
products and services, business information and publicity. LDA collect
personally identifiable information when you register with us and use our
services. We ask you for personal data only when it is needed to provide goods
or services you have enquired about or asked us to provide or to respond to
your request for information. You do not need to provide us with personal data
simply to browse our site. LDA use this information in order to customise the
content you see on our pages, to fulfil your request for certain products and
services, to communicate with you generally and to contact you about special
offers, promotions or new events and services.
2. What information do we collect?
We will collect information from you in the following circumstances:
Registration
Some areas of our website require you to be registered with us prior to access
being made available to a particular area of the website or to obtain certain
services. Our registration process involves providing us with your name,
address, telephone and fax number and e-mail address and we may also request
some optional information on your family, lifestyle, employment status and
social circumstances. We use this information to provide you with the service
you have requested or to answer your queries.
Promotions and Events
Personal data is required in order to keep you informed of developments
including new (or existing) activities, guidance services and facilities,
promotions, conferences, seminars and training offerings. Where we offer
on-line registration in particular cases we will require to obtain certain
information about you such as contact details and billing information in order
to process your registration and to follow up such registration.
Free Software Download
When you download software from us we may request your contact information in
order to process your order.
Subscriptions and Newsletters
Users of our website can register for a number of e-mail newsletters and news
updates. This service is entirely optional and you may unsubscribe at any time
by contacting .
Contest and Surveys
From time to time we may offer users the option of participating in contests or
surveys. Participation is entirely optional. Any information you provide during
the course of a contest or research will be used to improve facilities and
services or award prizes. Additional terms and conditions may apply to
contests, which will be notified to prospective applicants.
Optional Information
We may request optional information from you on our registration forms. We
request this optional information so that we may serve you better (e.g. to
provide more tailored products and services to you) and so that we may
understand our users better (e.g. through internal research, data analysis,
market research and product research). If we request this additional
information from you we will identify it as optional.
Information from Other Sources
In our normal course of business, LDA supplement the contact information
provided by our users with information from third party marketing firms. We use
this additional information (e.g. demographic and census information) to help
us to serve you better by for example targeting some of our offers, promotions,
services and other events to you.
Job Opportunities
We advertise details of job opportunities with LDA and the local enterprise
companies on our website. If you apply for one of the available positions you
are required to provide us with contact details in order that we can get in
touch with you. These details, together with the contents of your curriculum
vitae, will be treated as confidential and will only be used for the purposes
of considering you for a particular position.
Discussion Forums
Users of our website are offered the opportunity of participating in discussion
forums and posting news, comments and other content to message boards. These
services enable users to interact easily with our staff and other visitors to
the site about LDA and its products and services. The discussion forums and
message boards are not private forms of communication and therefore the general
public can access any information, which is posted on them.
Cookies
There are various technologies, including one-called "cookies" which can be used
to provide you with tailored information from a website. A cookie is a small
data file that certain websites write to your hard drive when you visit them.
The only personal information a cookie can obtain is information a user
supplies him or herself. A cookie can't read data off your hard disk or read
cookie files created by other sites. Cookies, however, enhance our website
performance in a number of ways including providing a secure way for us to
verify your identity during your visit to our website and personalising your
experience on our site making it more convenient for you. The LDA website uses
cookies so that we can serve you better. For example, we set cookies to
maintain the open menus as you move between pages. These are used only when you
are on the website. You can refuse cookies by turning them off on your web
browser and you do not need to have cookies turned on to successfully use our
service. Most browsers are defaulted to accept and maintain cookies and you can
set your browser to notify you when you receive a cookie, giving you the chance
to decide whether to accept it or not.
Use of Web Beacons
LDA Web pages may contain electronic images known as Web beacons - sometimes
called - single-pixel gifs - which allows the LDA to count users who have
visited those pages and to deliver co-branded services. Web beacons are not
used to access your personally identifiable information on the LDA site. They
are a technique we use to compile aggregated statistics about the LDA website
usage. Web beacons collect only a limited set of information including a cookie
number, time and date of a page view and a description of the page on which the
Web beacon resides.
Website Usage Data
With or without cookies, our website keeps track of usage data, such as the
source address that the page request is coming from (i.e. your IP address,
domain name), date and time of the page request, the referring website (if any)
and other parameters in the URL (e.g. search criteria). We use this data to
better understand website usage so we know what areas of our website users
prefer. This information is stored in log files and is used for aggregated and
statistical reporting but is not attributed to you as an individual.
Security
We recognise industry standards and employ security safeguards to protect
information from unauthorised access and misuse. We use the most accurate and
current information you provide in order to process your request. Furthermore,
whenever you transmit sensitive information such as billing or credit card
information to us through our website we provide you access to our secure
server that allows encryption across the Internet.
User Submissions
Please do not post confidential or proprietary information to our website. Any
material, information or any other communication you transmit or post to our
website (other than your personal information) will be considered
non-confidential and non-proprietary unless we are advised to the contrary and
we will have no liability for it. LDA and its designees (including the local
enterprise companies) will be free to copy, disclose, distribute, incorporate
and otherwise use the communications in all data, images, sound, text and other
things embodied therein for any and all commercial or non-commercial purposes.
Users of our website are prohibited from posting or transmitting to or from
this site any unlawful, threatening, libellous, defamatory, obscene,
pornographic or other material that would violate any law.
3. What information do we share?
There are times when we are required to share the information we learn from you
with other parties. We do not sell or rent this information to others but will
send personally identifiable information about you to other companies or people
in the following situations: -
Agents
LDA will share your information with professional advisors, strategic partners,
survey and research organisations, The Greater London Authority and local
enterprise companies and other individuals and organisations whom we employ to
perform functions in certain situations on our behalf. Examples of these
functions include delivering packages, sending postal mail, faxes and e-mail,
providing marketing assistance in data analysis, handling credit card
transactions, fulfilling orders, providing services, (including but not limited
to careers and employment services) and following up on enquiries (including by
phone, e-mail, post or fax). These agents have access to the personal
information required in order to perform their functions but may not use it for
any other purpose. This may also in certain circumstances involve the transfer
of your information abroad.
Compliance with law
We will release personal information where we are required to by law or by the
regulations and other rules (including auditing requirements) to which we are
subject. We may also exchange information with other companies and
organisations for fraud protection and credit risk reduction.
Consent
Other than in the above situations you will receive notice from us when your
personal information might go to third parties and you will have the
opportunity to decide not to share that information.
4. Changes to Privacy Policy
We may edit this policy from time to time. If we make any substantial changes we
will notify you by posting a prominent announcement on our web pages.
5. Questions or suggestions
If you have any questions or suggestions regarding this policy, have any
concerns about the practices of our websites or believe we are not properly
adhering to our privacy policy please contact us at . Should you at any time
wish us to remove your personal details from our database please contact in
writing or by e-mail
6. Your Rights
You have the right to ask for a copy of the information held by us in our
records in return for which we may charge a small fee. You also have the right
to require us to correct any inaccuracies in your information.