Privacy Policy

1. Introduction and Scope

This is the Privacy Policy for Technology Connected’s Wales Tech Week event and associated websites, apps, and registration. This policy sets out the basis on which any personal information we collect from you, or that you provide to us, will be processed by us. Please read the following policy carefully, it explains the types of information collected and created in connection with the Wales Tech Week conference, how and why we use  the information gathered, who we share it with, and your legal rights.

This Privacy Policy is issued on behalf of ESTnet Ltd, trading as Technology Connected for the Wales Tech Week summit and related events. When we refer to “We”, “Us” or “Our” in this Privacy Policy, we are referring to the relevant event/trading name of ESTnet Ltd, which is responsible for processing your data.

Wales Tech Week is a conference and networking event for the technology community and associated supporting ecosystem.  We are committed to protecting your personal information. 

Unless indicated otherwise, this Privacy Policy relates to our use of any personal information we collect or use in relation to the following services (collectively, the “Services”):

• the Wales Tech Week conference, physical and digital;
• the Wales Tech Week websites (including www.walestechweek.com) and their related subdomains and websites including those pertaining to registration for attendance at the conference;
• any official Wales Tech Week apps;
• online surveys relating to the conference;
• messages sent via the Conference support team; and
• the Wales Tech Week official social media channels.

For UK data protection laws and General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the data controller for Wales Tech Week is ESTnet Limited whose registered office is at Trade Street Desk, 14 Trade Street, Cardiff, CF10 5DT.

1.1 Data Protection Principles

We should only process your data where we have legal grounds to do so. This means your

personal information must be:-

• processed lawfully, fairly and in a transparent manner;
• processed for specified, explicit and legitimate purposes;
• adequate, relevant and limited to what is necessary;
• accurate and kept up-to-date;
• kept for no longer than is necessary; and
• processed in a manner that ensures appropriate security.

2. Information we collect

When we provide the Services, we collect and receive information in several different ways. In many cases, you choose what information to provide, although some information is required for us to provide you the Services.

Directly from you and from approved third parties

We collect a variety of information from you when you provide it to us directly, when we request it from you, or when you give us permission to get information from a third-party source.

Attendee registration information

When you register to attend a Conference, you must provide us with basic information such as name, address, email address, telephone number, job. We also give you the option to provide additional information.

Conference survey responses
We may ask you to participate in optional surveys regarding your experience at the Conference in order to help us improve the event and for related commercial purposes.

Attendee Support customer messaging software. So that we may provide customer services and respond to and resolve any enquiries or complaints.

From your browser or device

We automatically collect certain information from your browser or device when you use certain Services or read a message from us.

For example, we collect:

• data regarding the device you are using, such as its unique identifier and operating system; logs will be recorded by our servers based on the information sent from your app or browser;
• information automatically as you navigate through our websites using cookies and other tracking technologies. (Information collected automatically may include usage details, email address, IP addresses, and information collected through cookies and other tracking technologies).
• Information may be recorded by cookies and similar technologies when you use the Services. Please review our cookie policy for further detail on how we use cookies and similar technologies on our Services and how to opt out of these.

Startup, Investor and Speaker participation

If you choose to participate in Wales Tech Week as a Startup, Investor or Speaker you will share information including your name and contact details and any other information necessary to review and to get in touch with you.

If your application is successful, you will be asked to share more Personal Data in order for you to participate in our event, for example to complete your Startup or Speaker profile. The amount of information you share depends on your participation but generally includes your name, work title, and email address.

3. How we use your information

We use your information to provide, operate, improve, understand, customise, support, and market our Services. We may use information we hold about you in the following ways:

• to confirm your identity.
• to administer your registration.
• to let you know about other relevant services, both ours and those of other parties

whose products and services we have agreed should be made available to you

• to update and correct our attendance records and financial records of your transactions with us.
• to carry out statistical and market analyses, including benchmarking exercises, to enable us to understand you better and improve our services.
• to develop, test and improve our systems.
• to notify you about changes to our services.
• to ensure the content of Our website is presented in the most effective manner for you and for your computer.
• to administer Our website and for internal operations, including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, research, statistical and survey purposes.
• to improve our website to ensure that content is presented in the most effective manner for you and for your computer.
• Internal management and planning, which includes:-
  • Resource management;
  • Planning of tasks or meetings;
  • Keeping records of sources of new enquiries; and
  • Storage and archiving of files and documents.

We will only use your personal information for the purpose(s) for which we collected it, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose. If we need to use your personal information for an

unrelated purpose, we will notify you and we will explain the legal basis which allows us to do so.

Please note that we may process your personal information without your knowledge or consent, in compliance with the above rules, or where this is required or permitted by law.

Communicating with you

We use your personal information to contact you regarding your registration, to notify you of any changes to our policies and practices, for commercial, sales or investment purposes, and to respond to any requests or feedback you submit to us. 

If you subscribe to marketing, such as newsletters, we will use your information as described below. To opt out of our newsletters, please click the unsubscribe button at the bottom of marketing emails from us or alternatively email us via the contact info below. We may collect information from these communications to improve our Services and for the training and development of our staff.

Marketing

If you do not opt-out to receiving marketing communications from us, we will use your personal information for outreach and marketing, such as to send you information about our future Events and to exhibit attending companies and partners. 

You can opt-out of these communications by using the unsubscribe links in our communications or by emailing us. 

We may also use your information in order to market the Events. For example, we sometimes use your image in our published list of Events attendees or your public social media posts to promote the Events. If you want to object to this use, please contact us via the contact details at the bottom of this page.

Cookies & Web Beacons

We may use information from beacons and cookies collected from your use of our website and app to target your online activity, browser or apps, with certain advertisements. We may also use these tools to determine the popularity of certain content or advertisements on our website.

Third-Party Tracking & Advertising

We may use third party tools for profiling and remarketing such as Facebook Advertising, Facebook Pixel Remarketing, LinkedIn Insight Tag, and Google Ads. These tools allow us to understand and deliver ads and make them more relevant to you. The collected data remains anonymous without personal data connected to the individual users.

We may use your personal information to be able to show you advertising on other websites. Please also review our cookie policy for your options to control how we use cookies and similar technologies for advertising.

4. Legal bases for processing your information

GDPR and UK Data protection law sets the lawful legal bases (or ‘conditions’) which allow us to collect, hold and use your personal information. We rely on several bases to lawfully process your personal information for the purposes described in this Privacy Policy. 

We process your personal information:

• when necessary to perform the Terms and Conditions or to provide you with the Services;
• where you have consented to the processing, which you may revoke at any time;
• when necessary for us to comply with a legal obligation, a court order, or to exercise and defend legal claims;
• when necessary to protect your vital interests, or those of others, such as in the case of an emergency;
• where you have made the information public;
• where necessary in the public interest; and
• where necessary for the purposes of our, your, or a third party’s legitimate interests, such as those of partners or other attendees or volunteers.

5. Our legitimate interests

As indicated above, in certain cases we use your information where necessary to pursue our, your and others’ legitimate interests, including where necessary to:

Keep the Services safe and secure
We use your information as it is necessary to pursue our legitimate interests, or those of our attendees, our volunteers or our partners in ensuring the Conference is a safe and secure event, such as enforcing our Terms and Conditions. We also act in the legitimate interests of these parties with respect to our Conference website, app and other Services, such as by implementing and enhancing security measures and protections and protecting against fraud, spam and abuse.

Provide, develop and improve the Services

We process your information as necessary to pursue our legitimate interests in improving the Conference and our other Services, such as our Conference websites and apps. For example, we use your information in order to conduct access control and enforce security at the Events. We also use your information to conduct data analysis and analytics across our Services. In certain cases, and where you have not objected, we may record sales and other calls to you for our business interests in the training and development of our staff.

Market the Services

We process your information in accordance with our legitimate interests of marketing the Conference and the Services to you. For example, we use your information to market future Events to you and to exhibit attending companies. We may also use your image in our marketing materials in order to highlight the attendees participating in our Events. We also use photos and audio-visual footage from past Events which may contain your image or voice. If you want to exercise your right to object to any of these uses please email us via the email at the bottom of this page.

Provide seamless Services with Technology Connected brands and Our affiliates

We may share personal information amongst our parent company, subsidiaries, or affiliates for internal business purposes and to provide you with the Services in accordance with the Terms and Conditions and this Privacy Policy. If we share your information, we will ensure that your information continues to be used only in accordance with this Privacy Policy and your expressed choices, and in accordance with applicable law.

6. Sharing with third parties

We share information with attendees, service providers, affiliates, partners, and other third parties where it is necessary to perform the Terms and Conditions, to provide the Services, and for other purposes described in the Privacy Policy.

Sharing with other attendees and Partners

Our Services, such as the website and related Events app, provides attendees with the means of making connections with other attendees. For example, the profile information that you choose to provide us will be accessible to other attendees of the Conference, subject to the app settings. 

Marketing

In order to further our legitimate interests in marketing the Services, we rely on third-party marketing platforms and service providers to assist us and perform certain marketing services for us.

If you share your email address with us we might use information we hold about you to tailor sponsored content on social media sites, like Facebook, Google or Twitter. We securely match encrypted email addresses via our third party processor. The social media site can only see an email address if it’s already used for an account on their site. We don’t provide any new data on users.

Advertising

We may share your personal information with common advertising platforms such as Facebook, Google and LinkedIn to show you advertising when you use those services. Please also review our cookie policy for your options to control how we use cookies and similar technologies for advertising.

Third party service providers

We may share your personal information to help us operate, provide, improve, understand, customize, support, and market our Services. These third parties provide us with services including for customer support, data storage and website hosting, ticketing and payments processing, legal advice and compliance, and marketing and data analysis. These third parties are contractually required to use it only to provide their service to us. They are prohibited from using it for their own purposes.

Business reorganisation

In instances where we are subject to a reorganisation, such as a merger or acquisition of some or all of its assets, we may, in accordance with our legitimate interests, need to share information in the course of the transaction. In such circumstances, your information may be disclosed, where permitted by applicable law, in connection with such corporate restructuring, sale, or assignment of assets, merger, or other changes of control or our financial status.

Legal and safety reasons

We may also share your personal information to third parties if we are under a duty to disclose or share your personal data in order to comply with any legal obligation, or in order to enforce or apply our terms of use and other agreements; or to protect our

rights, property, or safety of our members and their employees, or others.

Aggregated information

We may also share aggregated or anonymised  information, such as the number of attendees from an organisation or their role-related data, with companies we do business with including partners, sponsors, and advertisers.

7. How long we store your information

We will generally keep personal information about you no longer than is needed for us to carry out the functions described in this notice. We will usually delete personal information that we collect related to our events after six months. However, we may retain some information (such as attendance records) for longer where it is in our legitimate interests to do so. We will keep personal information held as part of our membership records for the duration of that organisation’s membership.

8. Data transfers

As a business registered in England & Wales, we process data within the UK but our digital platforms or global partnerships mean we may need to access and transfer information around the world. We transfer your personal information in accordance with law and must take steps to ensure that your information is appropriately protected to the standards set in UK law.

In particular, where we transfer information to countries that are not viewed as providing adequate protections, we would rely on an approved mechanism known as standard contractual clauses (SCCs) to protect the information transferred. These are template contracts published by the ICO and European Commission containing approved commitments to protect the privacy and security of the information transferred. To request a copy of the clauses, please contact us.

9. Your rights

You have various legal rights in relation to the information you give us, or which we collect

about you, as follows:-

• You have a right to access the information we hold about you free-of-charge, together with various information about why and how we are using your information, to whom we may have disclosed that information, from where we originally obtained the
• information and for how long we will use your information.
• You have the right to ask us to rectify any information we hold about you that is inaccurate or incomplete.
• You have the right to ask us to erase the information we hold about you (the ‘right to be forgotten’). Please note that this right can only be exercised in certain circumstances and, if you ask us to erase your information and we are unable to do so, we will explain why not.
• You have the right to ask us to stop using your information where:-
• the information we hold about you is inaccurate;
• we are unlawfully using your information;
• we no longer need to use the information; or
• we do not have a legitimate reason to use the information. Please note that we
• may continue to store your information, or use your information for the purpose
• of legal proceedings or for protecting the rights of any other person.
• You have the right to ask us to transmit the information we hold about you to another person or company in a structured, commonly-used and machine-readable format. Please note that this right can only be exercised in certain circumstances and, if you ask us to transmit your information and we are unable to do so, we will explain why not.
• Where we use/store your information because it is necessary for our legitimate business interests, you have the right to object to us using/storing your information. We will stop using/storing your information unless we can demonstrate why we believe we have a legitimate business interest which is more important than your interests, rights and freedoms.
• Where we use/store your data because you have given us your specific, informed and unambiguous consent, you have the right to withdraw your consent at any time.
• You have the right to object to us using/storing your information for direct marketing purpose

If you wish to exercise any of your legal rights, please contact Avril Lewis by writing to the address at the top of this policy, or by emailing us at avril.lewis@technologyconnected.net. You also have the right, at any time, to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office if you believe we are not complying with the laws and regulations relating to the use/storage of the information you give us, or that we collect about you.

10. Security

The security of your personal information is important to us. We strive to use appropriate technical and organisational skills to protect your personal information. Despite these measures, the Internet is not a fully secure environment and we cannot guarantee that your personal information won’t be intercepted or improperly accessed.

11. Children

Attendees under 18 years of age may attend Wales Tech Week if accompanied by an adult or guardian, depending on the age of the attendee. You can find further information on our age limitations in our Terms and Conditions.

12. How can you stop the use of personal data belonging to you for direct marketing?

There are ways you can stop direct marketing communications from us:

• Click the ‘unsubscribe’ link in any email communication that we send you. We will then stop any further emails.
• Email us at the contact details at the bottom of this page.

Please note that you may continue to receive communications for a short period after changing your preferences while our systems are fully updated.

13. Changes to this privacy policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time so please review it occasionally. If we make material changes, we will take steps to notify you. The date of the most recent revisions will appear here.

Revised: 29 June 2022

Contact us

If you have any questions or concerns about this Privacy Policy or our privacy practices generally, or if you would like to exercise your statutory rights, you can contact us at:

Data Protection Officer (“DPO”)

You can contact our Data Protection Officer at avril.lewis@technologyconnected.net 

Or alternatively write to us at:

Wales Tech Week, ESTnet Ltd, Trade Street Desk, 14 Trade Street, Cardiff, CF10 5DT