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Statement of Intent
From time to time, you will
be asked to submit personal information about yourself (eg name and email address etc) in order to receive
or use services on our website. Occasionally, you may be asked to provide us with information regarding
your personal, professional interests and more detailed personal information.
By entering
your details in the fields requested, you enable DRD to provide you with the services you select. Whenever
you provide such personal information, we will treat that information in accordance with this policy.
Our services are designed to give you the information that you want to receive. DRD will act in accordance
with current legislation and aim to meet current Internet best practice.
Information
on visitors
During the course of any visit to the DRD site, the pages you see,
along with something called a cookie, are downloaded to your computer (see point 3 for more on this).
Most, if not all, websites do this, because cookies allow the website publisher to do useful things
like find out whether the computer (and probably its user) has visited the site before. This is done
on a repeat visit by checking to see, and finding, the cookie left there on the last visit.
Any
information that is supplied by cookies can help us better understand your needs in order to provide
you with a better service and it assists us to analyse the profile of our visitors. For example: if
on a previous visit you went to, say, the Regional Planning pages, then we might find this out from
your cookie and highlight Regional Planning information on a subsequent visit.
What
is a cookie?
When you enter a site your computer will automatically be issued with
a cookie. A cookie is a software tag used to identify visitors to our site. Cookies are text files and
their purpose is to remember user preferences by identifying your computer to our server. Cookies in
themselves do not identify the individual user, just the computer used. Many sites do this whenever
a user visits their site in order to track traffic flows.
Cookies themselves only record
those areas of the site that have been visited by the computer in question, and for how long. Users
have the opportunity to set their computers to accept all cookies, to notify them when a cookie is issued,
or not to receive cookies at any time. The last of these, of course, means that certain personalised
services cannot then be provided to that user
Submitting personal
information
When you supply any personal information to DRD we have legal obligations
towards you in the way we process and handle that data. We must collect the information fairly (see
the notices on particular webpages that let you know why we are requesting the information); we must
let you know how we will use it; and we must tell you in advance if we decide to pass the information
on to anyone else. We will hold your personal information on our systems for as long as you use the
service you have requested, and remove it in the event that the purpose has been met, or, in the case
of a personalised service, when you no longer wish to continue your registration as a personalised user.
Where personal information is held for people who are not registered users of the site, that information
will be held only as long as necessary to ensure that the service is run smoothly. We will ensure that
all personal information supplied is held securely, in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998.
Access
to your personal information
You have the right to request a copy of the personal
information DRD holds about you and to have any inaccuracies corrected. Please address requests to the
Department using the contact address available on our website.
Direct
marketing and user surveys
As DRD’s services expand, there will be more opportunities
to enhance the services provided to you. From time to time we may send you details of other DRD services
that may be of interest to you. We may also offer you the opportunity to participate in surveys carried
out by the DRD, or its agents, that help our research into the types of service we offer. DRD will keep
a record of information provided by you. Please note that any information you provide to DRD will only
be used within DRD. It will never be supplied to third parties without first obtaining your consent
unless we are obliged by law to disclose information.
Users under
18
If you are under 18, please get your parent/guardian's permission beforehand
whenever you provide personal information to the DRD’s website. Users without this consent are not allowed
to provide us with personal information.
