Privacy Policy
The Hobbs Consultancy, registered as a Data Controller with the ICO ZA685335
To contact us with a data protection query or request, please contact us.
This page explains what happens to your personal data when you interact with our website.
Contact Form
When you use the Contact Form to get in touch with us, we receive a notification email with your message, and use this to respond to your enquiry.
Data about you: Name, email address, phone number (if supplied), message, connection info (IP address, device type, approximate location, pages visited, URL arrived at the site from)
Available to: Hobbs Consultancy
Retained for: 30 Days
Lawful basis: Legitimate interests
Data subject rights: to be informed, objection, access
Buying and booking courses
On this website:
You can book some of our courses directly through this site. The information you provide will be used to reserve your place on the course, accept payment, and communicate essential details about the course venue, scheduling and preparation. When you book a course directly through this website, we receive an email notification with the details, which we add to our customer records database. Payments are then processed by Stripe, who will use your information for completing the transaction on our behalf, including automated anti-fraud checks; and for their own profiling and targeted advertising purposes.
Data about you: Your name and contact details, your booking (course and date), payment card details
Available to: Stripe
Retained for: 7 years for financial record-keeping duties
Lawful basis: To fulfil a contract (individual purchase), legitimate interests (corporate purchase), legal obligation (retention of financial records).
Data subject rights: to be informed, access, objection (corporate clients), restriction, erasure (after 7 years)
Via EventBrite.
To book a place on a scheduled course, you may be redirected to EventBrite, a third-party service for event management. The booking information you submit will be used by The Hobbs Consultancy to reserve your place on the course; and by EventBrite for payment processing and their own profiling and advertising purposes.
Data about you: Your name and contact details, your booking (course and date), payment information, your EventBrite user profile (if logged-in)
Available to: EventBrite (USA)
Retained for: 7 years for financial record-keeping duties
Lawful basis: To fulfil a contract (individual purchase), legitimate interests (corporate purchase), legal obligation (retention of financial records).
Data subject rights: to be informed, access, objection (corporate clients), restriction, erasure (after 7 years)
Booking by email
Some of our courses can only be booked by contact us via email. When you email us about a course booking, we’ll use the information you’ve supplied to us to respond to your request. If you go ahead with booking the course, we will then need the names, contact information, accessibility requirements and dietary preferences of all attendees, to ensure that the course environment is a safe and inclusive one.
Data about you: Your name and contact details, your booking (course and date), your company details, course attendee information, payment information.
Available to: N/A
Retained for: 7 years after last contact, in corporate client file
Lawful basis: Legitimate interests, legal obligation (retention of financial records).
Data subject rights: to be informed, access, objection (corporate clients), restriction, erasure (after 7 years)
Using the e-learning platform
Our e-learning platform is hosted in the UK, but managed by a US-based service provider. The service provider has access to e-learner information, but is forbidden to make use of it except as instructed by The Hobbs Consultancy.
Once you have purchased an e-learning course, you’ll be provided with details for setting up your e-learner account. Your account profile contains the following:
- Your name, email address and any other contact information you add
- Courses you’ve purchased, and your progress through these courses
- Payment information (if you add it)
This information is used for:
- Providing you with secure access to the e-learning platform (including password resets).
- Keeping a record of your e-learning purchases and progress.
- Measuring uptake and popularity of courses (stats only)
Available to: Aura Software (USA - under restrictions)
Retained for: 7 years after your last login to the e-learning platform
Lawful basis: To fulfil a contract (individual learner), legitimate interests (corporate learner),
Your rights: to be informed, access, objection (corporate clients), restriction, erasure (after 7 years), portability
Your Rights Explained
To be informed
You have the right to be provided with clear and full explanations of
- How and why your personal data is used;
- The lawful bases for uses of your data;
- Who else the data is made available or passed on to;
- Where in the world the data is sent to;
- Where we obtained your data, if not directly from you;
- What your rights are and how to exercise them.
If you have any queries about how your data is used, or wish to request a further explanation of the information provided here, please contact us using the web form and include the words “data protection” in your message.
Access
You (the ‘data subject’) have the right to ask us whether we are processing personal data about you, and for access to any personal data relating to you which The Hobbs Consultancy is using, along with explanations of why and how it is being used.
To make a data subject access request, please contact us using the web form and include the words “data subject access request” in your message.
We will need to verify that your request is legitimate, which may mean asking you for more information so that we can confirm you are authorised to access the data. Once your request has been verified, we will provide you with your data within 30 calendar days. If we need to redact any information – for example, to protect other people’s privacy – we will explain what has been redacted and why.
When the information is ready, we will provide it to you with a secure method.
Rectification
If the information we have about you is inaccurate, incomplete or out-of-date; you have the right to ask us to rectify it. You can do this by contacting us directly and describing the changes that should be made. We may need you to confirm some additional information about your relationship with The Hobbs Consultancy so that we can be sure we only action authorised and legitimate changes.
You can update your own information within the e-learning portal at any time.
Objection
… to processing for direct marketing purposes
You can tell us to stop making any use of your data for direct marketing purposes. This includes sending you promotional messages, customer profiling and targeted advertising.
To object to your data being used for direct marketing, you can take the following actions:
- Unsubscribe from our newsletter emails
- Opt out of MailChimp data analytics
- Contact us directly and ask for your data to be excluded from direct marketing uses.
We may need to ask you for more information to help us find your data records. Details you supply to us as part of an objection will only be used to log the request, locate your data, and suppress it from marketing uses.
… to processing based on legitimate interests
Data protection law allows us to process your personal data if we believe it will be beneficial to do so, and our processing doesn’t infringe your rights or harm your interests. If you consider our processing of your data to be a problem for your rights or interests, you can make an objection by contacting us and giving us the following information:
- Your name, contact information and relationship to us (individual customer, corporate customer, enquirer)
- The processing that you object to
- The reason for your objection
We will weigh your request against the benefits of the processing, then inform you of our decision and any actions we’ll take in response.
Erasure (the ‘right to be forgotten’)
You have the right to request erasure of your personal data if any of the following criteria are met:
- The original purpose for us processing it no longer applies, and there are no other legitimate reasons for keeping it.
- The data is inaccurate or out of date, and rectifying it is not appropriate.
- Our processing was based on your consent, which you have withdrawn.
- Our processing was based on legitimate interests that you have objected to, and your objection is upheld.
- The processing is unlawful
Please note, that the right to be forgotten does not apply to any personal data that we must continue processing to meet our legal or contractual obligations. For example, we cannot erase your data from our financial, or health and safety records. If you request erasure of your e-learning profile, you will no longer be able to access our courses.
To make an erasure request, please contact us directly and include the following information:
- Your name, contact information and relationship to us (individual customer, corporate customer, enquirer)
- A description of the data that you wish us to erase
- The grounds for erasure that you believe are applicable
Where the right to be forgotten applies, we will arrange for your data to be deleted from our systems at the earliest opportunity, and keep you informed of the progress of your request
Restriction
In some cases, you can instruct us to restrict our processing of your personal data, so that it can only be used with your consent, for legal claims, to protect someone else’s rights, or if there is an important public interest in processing it. The right to restriction applies when:
- There is a question about the accuracy of the data, which is under investigation
- The processing is unlawful and you have reasons for not wanting the data to be erased
- We no longer need the data, but you need us to preserve it for the purpose of legal claims
- You have objected to processing that’s based on legitimate interests, and we are working out whether those interests outweigh the objection.
To exercise your right to restriction of processing, please contact us directly and include the following information:
- Your name, contact information and relationship to us (individual customer, corporate customer, enquirer)
- Which data about you the restriction should apply to
- Which of the reasons for restriction your request is based on
Complaints
If you have a concern or complaint about the way we’re processing your personal data, please contact us and let us know so that we can work together to resolve the problem.
However, if you aren’t happy with our response, you can raise your concern with the UK’s data protection regulator, which is the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).