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Privacy Policy

Last updated: 19 July, 2023

Aims and Objectives

Bristol Zoological Society is committed to the protection of Personal Data obtained and stored by the Society and on our behalf by third-party processors. This statement supports the Data Protection Policy and is a plain English description for the public of what data is collected and stored and for what purposes.

This is the general privacy statement for Bristol, Clifton & West of England Zoological Society Ltd (the full name of Bristol Zoological Society). Please refer to the additional internal policies for details on staff, volunteer and student personal data.

Who are we?

Bristol, Clifton & West of England Zoological Society Ltd and its subsidiary Bristol Zoo Enterprises Ltd (together referred to as ‘BCWEZS’). We are a conservation and education charity, which runs and operates Bristol Zoo Project.

The company details are as follows:

Bristol, Clifton & West of England Zoological Society Ltd
Registered office: Hollywood Mansion House, Hollywood Lane, Bristol BS10 7TW.
Company registered in England and Wales, number 5154176.
Charity registered number 1104986.


Bristol Zoo Enterprises Ltd
Registered office: Hollywood Mansion House, Hollywood Lane, Bristol BS10 7TW.
Company registered in England and Wales, number 1750167.

What information do we collect about you?

We collect information about you when you make a purchase at our sites or online, register for an event, experience or course, donate, or register for our enews mailing list. We also collect information when you enter our competitions or register for special offers. Website usage information is collected using cookies.

Bristol, Clifton & West of England Zoological Society Ltd and Bristol Zoo Enterprises Ltd share your personal information with each other and only in line with the terms and purpose set out in this policy.

We occasionally have photographers on site who may take images of our visitors for use in marketing, promotional and educational purposes.

The Society has installed and monitors closed circuit television (‘CCTV’) to provide a safe and secure environment for employees, for visitors to the Society’s premises, to protect the Society’s property and to monitor some animal enclosures. Sound is only recorded for the purposes of monitoring animal behaviour. CCTV is installed in entrance and exit areas, in retail areas and other high-traffic areas as well as some animal enclosures.

What is the legal basis for having your data?

The ‘legal basis’ is our reason under data protection law for having this information. You can find out more about these at https://ico.org.uk.

When we are providing you with a product or service your personal data is held under the basis of contract. We will only ask for the information we need and will only use it for administration and provision of the product or service.

To develop what we offer to visitors and as educational experiences, we use data for analysis, including customer comments and feedback. The basis for this is legitimate interest. Whenever possible, data is anonymised for these purposes.

The lawful basis of CCTV monitoring includes the safety of those on site, emergency situations, prevention of crime, prevention of employee misconduct and ensuring compliance with health and safety procedures.

In some areas we have a legal obligation to keep data that relate to purchases and incident reports.

For other areas we will ask for consent – this means we would like to use the information for a specific stated purpose and are asking your permission. If you give your permission it is only for this purpose, and you may withdraw permission at any time.

How will we use the information about you?

We collect information to process your purchase or booking, and to manage your membership. If you contact us with queries or feedback, we will use your information to respond.

Research is sometimes conducted by BCWEZS, and you may be contacted following your visit to complete a survey. The data collected as part of this survey is anonymised and your contact details only obtained by consent and only for the purposes of the competition. On occasion research may be conducted on our behalf by Morris Hargreaves McIntyre (MHM), who may contact you as part of your online ticketing purchase.

If you agree, we will email you our newsletter with updates of our work at Bristol Zoo Project and about our UK and overseas conservation. If you agree, we will email you with events and offers which may be of interest to you. You may opt out at any time by clicking the unsubscribe link at the bottom of our newsletter. 

Marketing

We would like to send you information about our ongoing work and future events and offers which may be of interest to you. If you have given permission for this, you may withdraw this at any time by contacting us or by clicking unsubscribe at the bottom of our newsletters.

We sometimes use external companies to support our marketing work, for example a mailing house to send direct mail by post. In this instance, they are acting as our agent, data is transferred securely, use is strictly limited to the delegated work, and data is deleted immediately after use, which is permitted under GDPR legislation. If the purpose is not in relation to delegation of work, and not similarly permissible without permission under GDPR, we would first ask for your permission to share your details with the third party.

Members

A photograph will be taken when you join as part of your membership registration. This will appear on our screens when your card is scanned on entry so we can ensure the correct person is visiting with your card.

Medical information

Some events and experiences require us to obtain medical and emergency contact information. This helps us ensure that all participants are safe to take part. In the unlikely event of an incident they allow us to contact a suitable person and to pass essential information on to emergency services.

In most cases these forms are destroyed at the end of the event or experience. If there was an incident, the form would be kept with the incident report which is stored securely for 5 years as part of our Health and Safety records.

CCTV

Where CCTV captures images of people:

  • Cameras are included in the admission/retail areas to help prevent theft or unauthorised access and are only reviewed retrospectively if a theft or security issue needs to be investigated.

  • Cameras on key pathways which are used for checking visitor flow and safety issues. These will only be reviewed retrospectively if there is a health and safety incident which needs to be checked.

  • Cameras on animal enclosures to monitor animal behaviour and ensure safety are not intended to capture images of people but where this does happen these would only be reviewed retrospectively if there is a health and safety incident which needs to be checked.

  • Access to, and disclosure of, images recorded on CCTV is restricted.

Photographs and digital images of individuals

Anyone featured individually (where the photo is of a person or family), we will ask permission and complete a photography/filming permission form. When photography or filming involves children, and/or vulnerable adults, no photography or filming will be taken unless full permission has been gained from the responsible adult/s accompanying the child/ children and/ or vulnerable adult/ adults.

Fundraising

As a conservation and education based charity, we rely on fundraising and income from our visitors to continue our work both locally and globally. This work is supported by members, individuals, companies and trusts / foundations. We aim to target our fundraising activities to ensure that we contact you appropriately.

To effectively communicate with our donors, we store the personal data provided by individuals and organisations who support and make donations to our charity. This data is stored on third-party databases, which are external to the society, operated and maintained by trusted third-party service providers, separate from our own systems, such as (but not limited to) Beacon, Eventbrite and Enthuse. We will only engage with the third party if we are satisfied that your data will be held in accordance with UK GDPR/Data Protection law, including being held securely by them, and the responsibilities will be established upon signing of any contract. Access to these databases is password protected and limited within the Society, ensuring only authorised personnel with a legitimate need can access and handle the information.

We may use simple research methods to profile supporters and to identify shared interests and connections. As a fundraising organisation, we undertake in-house research and from time-to-time engage specialist agencies to gather information about you from publicly available sources or data that you have given to us. We may also carry out wealth screening to fast-track the research using our trusted third party partners. You will always have the right to opt out of this process. 

We use this information to understand who our supporters are and what they may be best interested in. This information aids us in making appropriate fundraising approaches to those who will be most interested.

Leap of Faith

We act as an agent on behalf of Leap of Faith (HIGH ZONE LIMITED) at Bristol Zoo Project. Information necessary to facilitate your booking and subsequent communications (including complaints) will be used by BCWEZS and provided to the respective company delivering your experience.

How long do we keep your data?

We hold your information for only as long as necessary for the purpose needed. For only as long as necessary’ varies according to the nature of the information.

We have to keep all data relating to purchases and other financial transactions for 6 years for our finance and tax records.

Incident reports are kept for 5 years for our health and safety records.

Medical information forms are destroyed at the end of the day they are needed, unless there has been an incident, or it will be needed for a future event and you have asked us to keep it on file.

Customer feedback and complaints are kept for 3 years from the year of contact.

Member data is kept for contact for the duration of membership, members are also added to our enews mailing list as part of their subscription. Details of the transaction are also kept by Finance for 6 years.

Personal data collected through Morris Hargreaves McIntyre (MHM) research is retained for 1 year.

Personal data collected as part of a competition is retained for 1 month following the closure of the competition.

Enews mailing list tracks if emails are opened. You may also unsubscribe at any time.

CCTV footage is erased after 31 days as standard. Sections may be extracted and retained to support ongoing investigations as required, and may be added to incident reports or complaints with the associated timescales above.

Photography permissions will be kept for 5 years or for the duration that the photograph is in use. ​

Cookies, website and social media

Cookies are small text files that are placed on your computer or device when you visit a website. These files contain anonymous information that allows the website to remember your actions and preferences over time.

We use cookies on our zoo website for the following purposes:

  • Website Analytics: We use cookies to gather anonymous statistical information about how visitors use our website (using google analytics). This helps us understand which pages are popular, how visitors navigate through our site, and improve the overall user experience. The data collected through these cookies is aggregated and does not personally identify you.

  • Social Media Monitoring: We embed social media features on our website, such as sharing buttons or feeds from popular social media platforms. These features may use cookies to track your interaction with the social media platform or to gather information about your browsing habits for targeted advertising.

  • Third-Party Services: Our website contains links to other websites and we may also work with third-party service providers who use cookies on our website to provide additional functionality or services. These providers have their own privacy policies governing the use of cookies, and we recommend reviewing their respective policies for more information.

Most web browsers are set to accept cookies automatically. However, you can choose to modify your browser settings to block or delete cookies if you prefer. Please note that blocking or deleting cookies may affect the functionality of our website and restrict your access to certain features.

Facebook – we do not hold any data on individuals who interact with us through Facebook. We respond to contact made on Facebook via the Facebook interface, but encourage contact to be made by email to receive a full response. Marketing via Facebook is controlled by Facebook.

Online ticket purchases – for tickets purchased online, we do have third party cookies set up with DotDigital to collect browsing behaviour information to improve the online process. By using myonlinebooking.co.uk (the partner platform used for secure ticket and membership sales and operated by our partner K3 Business Technology Group) you acknowledge that we may store and access cookies on your computer or other device as well as capture contact information for remarketing purposes but this will not be entered into any marketing databases. See their cookie statement.

Third Party Processors

Whilst we allow relevant staff, consultants and/or external third party service providers acting on our behalf to access and use your personal data for the activities we have described in this policy (eg to provide services or products to you, conduct research, to analyse data and to process payments), we only permit them to use it to deliver the relevant information, goods or services. 

We will only engage with the third party if we are satisfied that your data will be held in accordance with UK GDPR/Data Protection law, including being held securely by them, and the responsibilities will be established upon signing of any contract.

We do not and will not sell your information under any circumstances.

We can be obligated to disclose your personal data upon request to regulatory and government bodies as well as law enforcement agencies.

Changes to the policy

We review and update our policies regularly, and any update will be made available on our websites.

How to contact us

Please contact us if you have any questions about our privacy policy or information we hold about you.

By email at info@bzsociety.org.uk

By mail at: Bristol, Clifton & West of England Zoological Society Ltd, Hollywood Mansion House, Hollywood Lane, Bristol BS10 7TW.

You have the right to request a copy of the information we hold about you. If you would like a copy of some or all of the information we hold, please write to the address above or email info@bzsociety.org.uk. If you would have a complaint regarding privacy please email info@bzsociety.org.uk. If the matter is then unresolved it should be referred to the Information Commissioner's Office - https://ico.org.uk/

We want to ensure that your information is correct and up-to-date, so you are also entitled to ask us to update or remove information which you think is inaccurate.

Removing or restricting your information

You have the right to request that we remove your information from our records, or stop using it for particular purposes. We will do this wherever possible, with the following exceptions:

  • If any restriction would prevent us providing a service you have asked for (eg membership/booking) and you still wish to receive the service

  • Where we have a legal obligation to retain the information

  • There may be other situations where our business interests require us to keep your data, and we will advise if it is not possible to remove your data entirely in our response

View our Recruitment Privacy Policy here.