Privacy Policy

Introduction

This Privacy Policy, which forms part of our Terms of Use, relates to our use of any personal information (referred to throughout this Privacy Policy as your “personal data”) we collect from you via the following online services:

• any Visit Belfast website or service that links to this Privacy Policy
• social media or official Visit Belfast content on other websites
• mobile applications (“apps”)
• interactive touchscreens in the Visit Belfast Welcome Centre and at other locations within Northern Ireland
• public WiFi in the Visit Belfast Welcome Centre.

It also relates to our use of any personal information you provide to us by phone, SMS, email, in letters and other correspondence and in person.

In order to provide you with a full range of Visit Belfast services, we sometimes need to collect information about you.

This Privacy Policy explains the following:

• what personal data Visit Belfast may collect about you;
• how Visit Belfast will use personal data we collect about you;
• whether Visit Belfast will disclose your personal data to anyone else;
• your choices regarding the personal data you provide to us;
• the use of cookies on Visit Belfast websites and how you can reject cookies.

Whenever you provide personal information, we are legally obliged to use your information in line with all applicable laws concerning the protection of personal data, including the Data Protection Act 1998 up until 24 May 2018, and on and from 25 May 2018 the General Data Protection Regulation (“GDPR”).

Please read the following carefully to understand our view and practices regarding your personal data and how we will treat it.

Contact Us

This website and Visit Belfast’s other online services are being offered to you by:

Visit Belfast (a trading name of Belfast Visitor and Convention Bureau)
9 Donegall Square North
Belfast
BT1 5GB

Telephone: +44 (0)28 9024 6609

Email: reception@visitbelfast.com

Visit Belfast is the Data Controller of the personal data it holds about you.

What information will Visit Belfast collect about me?

Information that you provide to us

The personal data that we collect and process about you may include:

1. Personal data that you provide by participating in, accessing or signing up to any of Visit Belfast’s services, partnership, activities or online content, such as newsletters, competitions, requesting material via post and further services or creating an account with Visit Belfast’s online registration system to use Visit Belfast’s websites, apps and content management systems.
   • This data can consist of information such as your name, email address, postal address, telephone or mobile number, business name, job title, gender and date of birth.
   • We may also ask you for information, for example when you report a problem with our site.
2. If you contact us, we may keep a record of that correspondence.
3. We may ask you to complete surveys or provide feedback about Visit Belfast’s websites and apps, which we use for research purposes, although you do not have to respond to them.

Information we collect in relation to social media networks

Where we provide personalised services, we may ask your permission to review third party data about you, for example, your Twitter or Facebook feeds, to get to know you better and to provide more effective personalisation.

Some of our services enable you to sign-in via a third party service, such as Facebook. If you choose to sign-in via a third party app, you will be presented with a dialog box which will ask your permission to allow Visit Belfast to access your personal information (eg. your full name, date of birth, email address, profile picture and location). Please note that any information that is not required by the particular service you have opted to use will not be retained by Visit Belfast.

Please note, you can withdraw your permission for Visit Belfast to review any of the information set out above by contacting us by emailing reception@visitbelfast.com or phoning 028 9023 9026.

Information we collect when you use websites, products, services or applications from us

In order to improve and provide a better a user experience, Visit Belfast collects information about how you use Visit Belfast websites, apps, interactive touchscreens, products, services and other Visit Belfast online content, and the device(s) you use to access the services.

This includes:

• Unique online identifiers such as IP addresses, which are numbers that can uniquely identify a specific computer or other network device on the Internet. We may use your IP address to determine your location or country of origin.
• Details of your usage patterns and the content (including any advertisements) that you view and interact with. For example, when you use our websites, we may collect information about your visit, such as your browser software, which pages you view and which items you clicked on.
• Service, product or server logs, which hold technical information about your use of our service, product or websites, such as domain, device and application settings, errors and hardware activity.
• Device information such as your device ID(s), including information about where your device is physically located. For example, when you are using a geo-location service or application and you have given consent to your location being shared.
• Interests and preferences that you specify during set up or registration of any product or service.

How will Visit Belfast use the information it collects about me?

We may use the personal information you provide to us, or which we collect, for a range of purposes including:

General

Visit Belfast will use your personal information to:

• provide our services, activities and online content, to provide you with information about them and to deal with your requests and enquiries.
• provide services to fulfill a contract.
• provide you with the most user friendly online experience.

Visit Belfast account

If you create an account with Visit Belfast’s online registration system to use Visit Belfast’s websites, apps or content management systems, we may contact you for service administration purposes eg. to provide you with password reminders, to notify you that the service has been suspended for maintenance or to notify you of updates to our Privacy Policy, Cookies Policy or Terms of Use.

We can use your personal data in this way because we cannot provide our services to you unless you do.

Marketing communications

We may use your information to provide you with product and service updates, email newsletters and other communications about existing and/or new products and services by post, email, telephone, in-device messaging and/or text message (SMS).

We may personalise the message content based on information you have provided to us and your use of Visit Belfast’s platforms.

We may use information which we hold about you to show you relevant advertising on third party sites (e.g. Facebook, Google, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter). This could involve showing you an advertising message where we know you have used a Visit Belfast product and service.

If you don’t want to be shown targeted advertising messages from Visit Belfast, some third party sites allow you to request not to see messages from specific advertisers on that site in future.

We use your personal data in this way because you have consented to us doing so. You can change your mind at any time in the future by contacting us by emailing reception@visitbelfast.com or phoning 028 9023 9026.

IP addresses

We track IP addresses and device identifiers to identify the location of users, to establish the number of visits from different countries, and to determine whether you are accessing the services from the UK or not. If you are accessing services from outside the UK, you may be re-directed to the international versions of the Visit Belfast website.

We can use your data in this way because it is in our interest in promoting and managing our business to do so. We balance this interest with the impact on you and it will assist us to provide the best service to you.

Personalised content, recommendations and advertisements

We may use the information we collect and/or any information which you share with us to personalise our websites, apps, services, content, recommendations and adverts, and provide a more relevant, tailored service.

You may notice this personalisation when you use our products and services, when we send you marketing communications and when you visit our own and third party websites that show advertisements from us or our advertising partners (for example, you might see an advertisement for a product that you have recently viewed on one of our websites).

For instance, we could use your viewing history on www.visitbelfast.com to provide personalised recommendations of things to do, events and places to stay in Belfast.

Some of the personalisation that you see on our websites or in our online advertisements makes use of cookies set by us or our third party advertising partners. Please see our Cookies Policy for more information.

If you are subscribed to email newsletters, you may receive a personalised service. If you don’t want to receive these services you can unsubscribe from email newsletters by clicking on the unsubscribe link in the footer of the email.

Analysis and research

We use your information for analysis and research purposes so that we may improve the services offered by Visit Belfast. We may also use and disclose information in aggregate (so that no individuals are identified) for marketing and strategic development purposes.

We can use your data in this way because it is in our interest in promoting and managing our business to do so. We balance this interest with the impact on you and it will assist us to provide the best service to you.

Will Visit Belfast share my personal information with anyone else?

Visit Belfast does not sell or pass on your personal details to third parties without your consent, except in the following, highly unlikely, instances:

• where it is required by applicable law or pursuant to a court or similar order
• where it is required urgently to prevent serious loss or damage to property of Visit Belfast
• where it is required for the purposes of obtaining legal advice or for the purposes of, or in the course of, legal proceedings to which Visit Belfast is a party or a witness.

Generally, we will use your information within Visit Belfast and will only share it outside Visit Belfast where you have requested it or given your consent. However, we may share with third party sites (e.g. Facebook, Google, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter) some data, with appropriate security measures, to show you relevant advertising on third party sites.

Sometimes Visit Belfast uses third parties to process your information on our behalf, for example to provide services or analysis. Visit Belfast requires these third parties to comply strictly with its instructions and Visit Belfast requires that they do not use your personal information for their own business purposes, unless you have explicitly consented to the use of your personal information in this way.

Where we store your information

The data that we collect from you may be transferred to, and stored at, a destination outside the European Economic Area (“EEA”). It may also be processed by staff operating outside the EEA who work for us or for one of our suppliers. By submitting your personal data, you consent to this transfer, storing or processing. We will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that your data is treated securely and in accordance with this Policy. The safeguards in place with regard to the transfer of your personal data outside of the EEA are the entry by us into appropriate contracts with all transferees of such personal data.

All information you provide to us is stored on our secure servers. Where we have given you (or where you have chosen) a password which enables you to access certain parts of our websites or apps, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential. We ask you not to share a password with anyone.

Cookies

Visit Belfast uses cookies to distinguish you from other users of our website and online services. This helps us to provide you with a good user experience when you browse our site and also allows us to improve our site. For detailed information on the cookies we use and the purposes for which we use them, please see our Cookie Policy.

Access to information we hold on you

You can contact us for one of the following reasons by emailing reception@visitbelfast.com or by writing to:

Visit Belfast
9 Donegall Square North
Belfast
BT1 5GB

To ask us to fix information about you that is wrong or incomplete, this is known as a right to rectification.

To ask us to delete information about you, this is known as the right to erasure.

To tell us you no longer agree to us using information about you and ask us to stop, this is known as a right to object.

To tell us to stop using information about you to sell you products and services, which is known as the right to restrict processing.

To make a “subject access request” – which is a request for us to send you the information we have about you.

To ask us to provide you or someone else (on your request) in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format with the information you have provided to us about yourself. This is known as a “data portability” right.

To ask us not to use information about you in a way that allows computers to make decisions about you based solely on automated processing.

Sometimes we will not stop using your information when you ask us to, for the reasons described in this notice, but we will tell you about this if you make a request.

In other cases, if we stop using your information we will not be able to provide the services that you are asking us to give you. We will tell you about this if you make a request.

Security

Visit Belfast takes appropriate measures to ensure the security, integrity and privacy of personal information submitted to our sites, apps, interactive touchscreens and services and periodically updates its security measures in light of current technologies.

You need to be aware, however, of inherent risks associated with the transmission of information via the Internet. Visit Belfast cannot guarantee or warrant the security of any personal information you submit to our sites. If you have concerns in this regard, Visit Belfast has other ways of obtaining and providing information such as post or telephone. Contact us by emailing reception@visitbelfast.com for more information.

Visit Belfast sites may also be linked to websites operated by third parties. These links are meant for your convenience only. Links to third party sites do not constitute endorsement on the part of Visit Belfast of those sites and we are not responsible for the privacy practices of the owners and operators of those sites. We encourage you to review the privacy policies and practices on each site which asks you to submit personal information.

How long will Visit Belfast keep information about me

We are only allowed to keep our information if we need it for one of the reasons we describe above.

We will keep it for up to 2 years since our last engagement with you.

Complaints

If you are not happy with the way we are processing your personal data, you can contact us by emailing reception@visitbelfast.com or phoning 028 9023 9026 and we will discuss your consents.

You also have the right to complain about how we treat your personal data to the Information Commissioner’s Office (“ICO”). The ICO can be contacted at https://ico.org.uk/global/contact-us.

Conditions of use and revisions

Visit Belfast’s function may change in the future and Visit Belfast reserves the right to amend this Privacy Policy at our discretion. Any modifications that do occur will be effective upon such time as the amendments are posted on the website. Users shall be deemed to accept the modified policy by continuing to access Visit Belfast’s site or services on or after the date of modification.

Review

We keep this Privacy Policy under regular review.

Queries

If you have any queries regarding this Privacy Policy, you can contact us by emailing reception@visitbelfast.com.

Updated: April 2023