Privacy Policy

Hertfordshire Building Control as part of Broste Rivers Ltd group of companies takes great care to preserve your privacy and safeguard any personal details you share with us. We aim to be clear when we collect your information and not do anything you wouldn’t reasonably expect. This policy explains how we collect and use your personal information. Examples of your personal information would include your name, address and email address.

To enable us to achieve this, we hold information about our employees, partners, collaborators and customers and the products and services in which they have expressed an interest. This information is used to keep our members, collaborators and customers up-to-date with new developments in the industry, training, newsletters, and service the agreements we hold with them and from time to time to obtain feedback on our activities.

By using our website or providing us with your personal information you are agreeing to this policy. Personal information may be collected from

  • purchasing services from us
  • completion of a survey
  • downloading online resources 
  • participation in a collaborative activity
  • participation in a research project
  • participation in and provision of feedback from our training and network events
  • applying for a job 
  • phoning us
  • writing to us
  • sending us an email

This Privacy Policy does not apply to personal information provided to us via any other website.  Users should be aware that if they access other websites, using the links provided, these are outside our control. If you provide personal information to other companies, the privacy policies of those companies determine how the information is used and our Privacy Policy will no longer apply.

About Us

In this Privacy Policy, references to “we” or “us” are to Broste Rivers Ltd, a company incorporated in England and Wales (registered number 09988660) whose registered office is Campus East, Welwyn Garden City, AL8 6AE, who will be the controller of any personal data processed as described in this Privacy Policy.

How do we collect information?

We may collect information about you whenever you interact with us. For example, when you contact us regarding our services, register on one of our websites, download free publications and content, sign up to one of our newsletters, participate in a collaborative or research activity, sign up for an event or training course, order services or engage with our social media accounts, you may specifically and knowingly provide us with your personal information.  In addition, we collect aggregated or anonymous information about the services you use and how you use them, like when you visit our website or view and interact with our content.

What information do we collect?

When you interact with us, we may ask you to provide us with your name, job title, address, email address, telephone number and areas of professional interest. As a provider of services, we would not ordinarily require you to provide us with any personally sensitive information, for example regarding marital status. We may ask you to advise us of any dietary requirements when you register for events or training courses which are catered, however, this information is not stored.
We may collect some, or all, of this information when you visit our website, depending on how you use it. We also monitor how people use our website so we can improve it. However, you can use our website without giving us any personal information. If you visit our site anonymously, we may however still record information about:

  • the areas of the website visited
  • the amount of time spent on the site
  • whether you are new to the site, or have visited it before
  • how you came to our website – for example, through a link in an email or a search engine
  • the type of device, browser, network location and internet connection used
  • specific actions taken on the website, for example downloading our information resources.

We do this by using cookies, which you can learn more about in the specific section below.

We may also receive information about you from third parties, such as organisations which we are under contract to and credit reference agencies, who are legally entitled to disclose that information.

How we use your information

We are committed to maintaining your privacy in all your interactions with us.  Your data will be held on a secure server and access within our company will be limited to those who need to know.  You have a right to see any personal information we hold.

We are required by law to protect the public funds that we administer. Information provided to us may be shared with other bodies responsible for auditing or administering public funds or where undertaking a public function, to prevent and detect fraud.
All Building Control applications are held on a register for a minimum of 15 years.  In some instances, building data along with personal data pertaining to that building may be archived.

We may use your information in several ways and for a number of purposes depending on your interaction with us including:

  • To provide you with information, services that you have requested from us or that we feel may be of interest to you where you have consented to being contacted
  • To provide you with information about our work or our activities where you have consented to receive communications from us
  • To invite you to participate in research or collaborative industry activities
  • For administrative purposes (for example, we may contact you regarding an event for which you have registered)
  • For internal record-keeping relating to any feedback or complaints
  • To invite you to participate in one of our networks, for example as a speaker or contributor
  • To contact you where you have been identified as a contact person for an organisation (either a member or non-member), (if we obtain your contact details in this way, we will only use them to contact you in your capacity as a representative of that organisation)
  • To analyse and improve the operation of our website
  • To comply with legal and regulatory requirements

Marketing

We may use the information you have provided us with to contact you for marketing purposes by email if you have specifically provided your consent to for us to do so. We may also send you service communications via email, for example where you submit an application for our services. 

We promise to make all reasonable efforts to keep your details secure and as required by law, we will never share your details with other organisations to use for their own or marketing purposes unless we have specifically obtained your consent to do so.

You can withdraw your consent to be contacted by Broste Rivers Ltd (incorporating Hertfordshire Building Control, BCC and Build Inight at any time. All of our communications provide a clear route for you to opt-out and should you wish to change your communication preferences, you can do this at any time, either via unsubscribing on an email we have sent you, emailing marketing@hertfordshirebc.co.uk, or writing to us at Campus East, Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, AL8 6AE.

Sharing of your information

Broste Rivers Ltd incorporating Hertfordshire Building Control does not share or sell personal information about any member, collaborator or customer with third parties for the purposes of marketing. 
We may disclose your personal information to third parties when permitted by law including:

  • with your consent
  • to our suppliers for them to help us provide our services to you, this includes:
  • our provider of file storage and management services if you email us directly
  • our payment services provider, processes your payment when you make a purchase 
  • event venue providers for registration and dietary requirement confirmation

If you register to attend any event or training course, to enable you to gain maximum benefit from networking opportunities, on occasion we publish and share a delegate list with registered attendees. If you do not wish your details to be added to the delegate list, please let us know in writing. 

Attendance of any online event or training course using either Zoom or Teams will, as a default, allow other attendees and hosts to be able to identify you as an individual, through showing your video image attached to your name.  We are happy to accommodate the anonymisation of your attendance if this is requested in writing and in advance. All delegates are notified that a webinar will be recorded and provided with an opportunity to not supply consent to be identified.

Broste Rivers Ltd requires all suppliers with access to personal information collected or maintained by Broste Rivers Ltd to demonstrate compliance with the relevant legislation. 

  • if we sell or buy any business or assets, in which case we may disclose your information to the prospective seller or buyer of such business or assets, provided that they continue to use your information substantially in accordance with the terms of this Privacy Policy
  • if all, or substantially all of our assets, are acquired by a third party provided that they continue to use your information substantially in accordance with the terms of this Privacy Policy, in which case information held by us will be one of the transferred assets
  • if we are under a duty to disclose or share your information to comply with any legal obligation, or to enforce or apply our Terms and other agreements; or to protect our rights, property, or safety, our users, or others. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organisations for the purposes of fraud protection and credit risk reduction.

Cookies, Privacy and Data Protection

Find out more cookies and how you can control them below.

What are ‘cookies’?

‘Cookies’ are small text files that are stored by the browser (e.g. Internet Explorer or Safari) on your computer or mobile phone. They allow websites to store such things as user preferences. For example, you may not have to enter a username, address etc. on subsequent visits made from the same computer.

How does Hertfordshire BC use cookies?

Whenever a person visits our website we collect basic information about their behaviour on our site.  This includes things like what pages have been visited and how they found our website.  The information we gather for these purposes does not identify anyone and we make no attempt to find out who has been to our site.

We use this information to gain a better understanding of our website and their needs of users so we can improve their online experience.

We use the following cookies:

When using our website you may be presented with cookies from third party sites such as Hubspot, Twitter, Facebook or YouTube etc. We do not control the dissemination of these cookies and you should check the relevant third party website for more information about these.

How do I turn cookies off?

Hertfordshire BC will not use cookies to collect personally identifiable information about you. However, if you wish to restrict or block the cookies which are set by us or indeed any other website, you can do this through your browser settings.

These settings can be found in the ‘options’ or ‘preferences’ menu of your browser. In order to understand these settings, the following links may be helpful, otherwise you should use the ‘Help’ option in your browser for more details.

Cookie settings in Internet Explorer
Cookie settings in Firefox
Cookie settings in Chrome
Cookie settings in Safari

Alternatively, you may wish to visit www.aboutcookies.org which contains comprehensive information on how to do this on a wide variety of browsers.

For information on how to do this on the browser of your mobile phone you will need to refer to your handset manual.

Please be aware that restricting cookies may impact on the functionality of many websites.

Useful Links

If you would like to find out more about cookies and their use on the Internet, you may find the following links useful:

Microsoft Cookies guide
All About Cookies

For further legal information about privacy issues, you may find these links useful:

Data Protection Act 1998
The Information Commissioner’s Office

Concerns?

If you have any concerns about our use of your personal information, you contact us at Broste Rivers Ltd, Campus East, Welwyn Garden Court, Hertfordshire, AL8 6AE.

For any additional advice about data protection and the GDPR, you can contact the Information Commissioner’s Office.
ICO website: https://www.ico.org.uk