Privacy Notice

StudioFolk Architects (“SF”, “we”, “us” or “our”) is committed to ensuring that when we collect and use information about visitors to our website we do so in accordance with applicable data privacy laws. This Privacy Policy explains how we may use information that we obtain about you through your use of our website. You do not have to give us any information in order to use our website. However, we may need to collect certain details from you if, for example, you want to apply for a job or enquire about our services.

This Privacy Policy sets out the basis on which SF processes your personal data and is designed to aid compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”).

Scope

This Privacy Policy applies generally and to our website and any other website created or hosted by us from time to time on which this Privacy Policy appears, or on which a link to this Privacy Policy is provided.

How we collect your personal data

Your personal data may be collected by us in a number of ways, including:

  • through direct communications and automated technologies or interactions including, without limitation:

    • our provision of services to you, your employer or the organisation you represent;

    • during the course of dealings with you for or on behalf of a client;

    • when you provide us with information in relation to your attendance at any hosted events;

    • when you provide information to us by filling in forms on this website;

    • when you contact us, for example, to enquire about our services or a job vacancy; and

    • through your interactions with our website (including through ‘cookies’, server logs and other similar technologies);

  • through third parties or publicly available sources including, without limitation:

    • when we collect publicly available information about you or your business (including through electronic data sources); and

    • when we collect your personal data from our clients, consultants, suppliers and other advisers.

Type of personal data that we may collect

The categories of your personal data that we may collect includes the following:

  • identity and contact details (including names, postal addresses, email addresses and telephone numbers);

  • professional information such as job titles, previous roles, and professional experience and qualifications;

  • where you provide the information to us, financial or transactional data, or information concerning your interests both business and personal;

  • marketing and communications data including details regarding your attendance at our events, training events and CPD (Continuous Professional Development) events;

  • profile and usage data including details of your visits to our website including, but not limited to, traffic data, location data, and web logs; and

  • images captured by us relating to our offices or projects (including site photographs and CCTV images) and images or footage for office or project promotion.

We may also collect, use and share aggregated data such as statistical or demographic data for any purpose. Aggregated data could be derived from your personal data (e.g. ‘cookies’) but is not considered personal data in law as this data will not directly or indirectly reveal your identity. For example, we may aggregate your usage data to calculate the percentage of users accessing a specific website feature.

We do not collect any Special Categories of Personal Data about you (this includes details about your race or ethnicity, religious or philosophical beliefs, sex life, sexual orientation, political opinions, trade union membership, information about your health, and genetic and biometric data). Nor do we collect any information about criminal convictions and offences.

Use of personal information

We process personal information about you for the following purposes:

  • to register you as a client and provide you with information and services that you request from us or which we feel may interest you as permitted under applicable law;

  • to improve the content and methods of delivery of our website;

  • to manage, maintain and develop our relationship with you;

  • for research, planning, service development, security or risk management;

  • to carry out services we have agreed to provide to you;

  • to allow you to use or access secure areas of our website;

  • to comply with legal and professional obligations; and

  • to disclose your information as set out below.

Where we need to collect personal data by law, or under the terms of a contract we have with you, and you fail to provide that data when reasonably requested, we may not be able to perform the contract we have or are trying to enter into with you (for example, to provide you with goods or services). In this case, we may have to cancel a product or service you have with us but we will notify you if this is the case at the time.

We will only use your personal data for the purposes 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 data 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 data without your knowledge or consent, in compliance with the above rules, where this is required or permitted by law.

Marketing

You have the right to ask us not to process your personal information for marketing purposes. When we collect contact information from you (for example, when you provide us with your business card or when you are our client or the person instructing us on the client’s behalf), we may add your details to our contacts database and to our mailing lists. You can exercise the right to withdraw your personal data at any time by sending us an email to hello@studiofolkarchitects.com.

We will get your express opt-in consent before we share your personal data with any third party for marketing purposes.

Cookies

We may use ‘cookies’ to identify you when you visit our website to build a demographic profile. A ‘cookie’ is a small piece of information sent by a web server to a web browser, which enables the server to collect information back from the browser. ‘Cookies’ are frequently used on websites and you can choose if and how a cookie will be accepted by configuring your preferences and options in your browser.

We will not cross-match information collected through ‘cookies’ with other personal information to determine who you are or your e-mail address. However, if you disable ‘cookies’ you may not then be able to access all functions of our website.

Transfer and use of your personal information

We do not sell on or rent out the information collected via our website, or otherwise provided to us.

We may disclose your information to third parties in the following circumstances:

  • we are under a legal, regulatory or professional obligation to do so (for example, in order to comply with anti-money laundering requirements);

  • you have consented to us sharing your information in this way;

  • it is relevant in the circumstances to disclose the information to our website service providers such as hosting, storage fulfilment and disaster recovery, only to the extent necessary, subject to appropriate technical systems and on a limited use basis only;

  • if we believe your use of our website has violated or may violate any law, regulation or if we believe you are or may be a threat to safety, security, property, interests or rights of us or others;

  • if we use a third party service provider to provide services that involve data processing, translation, technology, research, banking and payment, client contact, data entry and processing, litigation support, marketing and security services and other similar services; and

  • in order to investigate or respond to or resolve problems or inquiries or defend our interests (including, but not limited to, professional indemnity insurers, brokers, auditors and other legal and professional advisors).

SF and some of the third parties with whom we share information, may be located outside your country or the country from which the data is provided. Those countries to which your data may be transferred may not have well developed data protection legislation. However, for the processing of your data we will at all times use our reasonable endeavours to ensure a data protection level equal to the one in the European Economic Area (“EEA”).

Retention

We will only retain your personal data for as long as reasonably necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, regulatory, tax, accounting or reporting requirements. We may retain your personal data for a longer period in the event of a complaint or if we reasonably believe there is a prospect of litigation in respect to our relationship with you.

To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal, regulatory, tax, accounting or other requirements.

In some circumstances we will anonymise your personal data (so that it can no longer be associated with you) for research or statistical purposes, in which case we may use this information indefinitely without further notice to you.

The internet

This website may, from time to time, contain links to other websites which are outside of our control and are not covered by this Privacy Policy. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for other sites’ privacy policies. If you access other websites using the links provided, please check their policies before submitting any personal information.

Security

Using the internet to collect and process personal information necessarily involves the transmission of information on an international basis. The transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure; any transmission is at your own risk. Although we do our best to protect personal information, we cannot guarantee the security of your information transmitted to this website or otherwise sent to us electronically. Once we have received your information, we will use appropriate procedures and security features to try to prevent unauthorised access.

If you are an employee and/or have a username and password and suspect that someone else may be using them, you should stop using both and notify us immediately.

We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed.

It is our policy to virus check documents and files before they are posted on any website. However, we cannot guarantee that documents or files downloaded from our website will be free from viruses and we do not accept any responsibility for any damage or loss caused by any virus. For your own protection, you should use virus-checking software when using our website. You must not post or provide to us via any website any document or file which you believe may contain a virus. You must virus check any document or file which you intend to post or provide to us via any website.

Your consent

By submitting or providing to us your personal information you consent to the use of that information as set out in this Privacy Policy.

Access to, updating and correcting your information

GDPR and other similar privacy laws give individuals the right to access and amend their personal information. Under certain circumstances, you may have the right to receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you and the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner's Office, the UK regulator for data protection issues (www.ico.org.uk). If you would like to request a copy of your information, would like to change the information we hold about you or would like to ask that your information be deleted, please contact us.

We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month. Occasionally it could take us longer than a month if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests. In this case, we will notify you and keep you updated.

You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal data (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request is clearly unfounded, repetitive or excessive. Alternatively, we could refuse to comply with your request in these circumstances.

We want to ensure that your information is accurate and up to date. If any of the information that you have provided to us changes, for example if you change your email address or name, please let us know the correct details by sending an email to your SF contact or hello@studiofolkarchitects.com.

You may ask us, or we may ask you, to correct information you or we think is inaccurate, and you may also ask us to remove information which is inaccurate.

This privacy policy

We may need to revise this Privacy Policy in future. If we change our Privacy Policy we will post the changes on this page so that you may be aware of the information we collect and how we use it at all times. This Privacy Policy was last updated in June 2022. You should therefore review this page regularly to ensure that you are aware of any changes to its terms. If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, please contact hello@studiofolkarchitects.com.