Welcome to the Pitch Publishing Limited's privacy notice.

This privacy notice provides information on how Pitch Publishing Limited collects and processes your personal data when you interact with us, such as visiting our website, signing up for a newsletter or where you are provided services by us or you are purchasing a product.

It is important that you read this privacy policy together with any other privacy policy or fair processing policy we may provide on specific occasions when we are collecting or processing personal data about you so that you are fully aware of how and why we are using your data. This privacy policy supplements other notices and privacy policies and is not intended to override them.

1. Important information and who we are

Pitch Publishing Limited is the controller and responsible for your personal data. 

We have appointed a data privacy manager. If you have any questions about this privacy notice or our data protection practices please contact the data privacy manager.  Our full details are:

Full name of legal entity: Pitch Publishing Limited

Name or title of data privacy manager: Jane Camillin

Email address: privacy@pitchpublishing.co.uk

Postal address: 9 Donnington Park, 85 Birdham Road, Chichester, West Sussex, England, PO20 7AJ

You have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues (www.ico.org.uk). We would, however, appreciate the chance to deal with your concerns before you approach the ICO so please contact us in the first instance.

2. The data we collect about you

We may collect, use, store and transfer different kinds of personal data about you as follows:

  • Identity Data includes first name, maiden name, last name, username or similar identifier, marital status, title, date of birth and gender.
  • Contact Data includes billing address, delivery address, email address and telephone numbers.
  • Transaction Data includes details about payments to and from you and other details of products or services you have purchased from us.
  • Technical Data includes internet protocol (IP) address, your login data, browser type and version, time zone setting and location, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform, and other technology on the devices you use to access this website.
  • Profile Data includes your username and password, purchases or orders made by you, your interests, preferences, feedback and survey responses.
  • Usage Data includes information about how you use our website and products.
  • Marketing and Communications Data includes your preferences in receiving marketing from us and our third parties and your communication preferences.
  • 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.

We use different methods to collect data from and about you including through:

  • Direct interactions. You may give us your Identity, Contact and Financial Data by filling in forms or by corresponding with us by post, phone, email or otherwise. This includes personal data you provide when you:
  • purchase or enquire about our services;
  • request marketing to be sent to you; or
  • give us feedback or contact us.
  • Automated technologies or interactions. If you interact with our website, we will automatically collect Technical Data about your equipment, browsing actions and patterns.
  • Contact and Transaction Data from providers of technical, payment and delivery services.

We do not hold financial data about you, ie, bank account and payment details.  We collect details from you about the relevant bank account that you use for payments of royalties, etc, to be made to you, but these details are placed directly into our Bank’s payment records and held within their secure payment records and we will not hold any such details in our systems.  If you have sent these details to us by email or other method, such communication will be securely destroyed by us so that we do not hold such records.

How we use your personal data

We will only use your personal data for the purpose for which we collected it which include the following:

  • To register you as a new author / customer of our services.
  • To process and deliver our services to you or for delivery of any product to you.
  • To manage your relationship with us.
  • To enable you to participate in a prize draw, competition or complete a survey.
  • To improve our website, products/services, marketing or customer relationships.
  • To recommend products or services which may be of interest to you.

We will only use your personal data when the law allows us to. Most commonly, we will use your personal data in the following circumstances:

  • Where we need to perform the contract we are about to enter into or have entered into with you.
  • Where it is necessary for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests.
  • Where we need to comply with a legal obligation.

Generally, we do not rely on consent as a legal basis for processing your personal data although we will get your consent before sending third party direct marketing communications to you via email or text message. You have the right to withdraw consent to marketing at any time by contacting us.

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 you wish to get an explanation as to how the processing for the new purpose is compatible with the original purpose, please contact us.

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.

3. How we share your personal data

We may share your personal data with external third parties. These include: -

  • BooksOnix, who administer our cloud-based title management system.
  • Digital marketing platforms, such as SendinBlue.
  • Various retailers that we work with, here in the UK.
  • Third party subcontractors / freelancers who assist in providing our back-office services.
  • Bank account details will be shared with our Bank to hold in their secure banking records, but will not be retained by us, as detailed above.

4. International transfers

We do not transfer your personal data outside the UK.

5. Data Security

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. In addition, we limit access to your personal data to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal data on our instructions, and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected personal data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so.

6. Data 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.

By law we have to keep basic information about our customers (including Contact, Identity and Transaction Data) for six years after they cease being customers for tax purposes.

7. Your legal rights

  • Request access to your personal data (commonly known as a "data subject access request"). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.
  • Request correction of the personal data that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate data we hold about you corrected, though we may need to verify the accuracy of the new data you provide to us.
  • Request erasure of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal data where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal data where you have successfully exercised your right to object to processing (see below), where we may have processed your information unlawfully or where we are required to erase your personal data to comply with local law. Note, however, that we may not always be able to comply with your request of erasure for specific legal reasons which will be notified to you, if applicable, at the time of your request.
  • Object to processing of your personal data where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground as you feel it impacts on your fundamental rights and freedoms. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal data for direct marketing purposes. In some cases, we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process your information which override your rights and freedoms.
  • Request restriction of processing of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your personal data in the following scenarios:
    • If you want us to establish the data's accuracy.
    • Where our use of the data is unlawful but you do not want us to erase it.
    • Where you need us to hold the data even if we no longer require it as you need it to establish, exercise or defend legal claims.
    • You have objected to our use of your data but we need to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to use it.
  • Request the transfer of your personal data to you or to a third party. We will provide to you, or a third party you have chosen, your personal data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format. Note that this right only applies to automated information which you initially provided consent for us to use or where we used the information to perform a contract with you.
  • Withdraw consent at any time where we are relying on consent to process your personal data. However, this will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before you withdraw your consent. If you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide certain products to you. We will advise you if this is the case at the time you withdraw your consent.

PITCH PUBLISHING LIMITED. NOVEMBER 2022.