Privacy Policy

About the Hashtag Business Services Privacy Policy

Our Privacy Policy and Cookie Policy

Hashtag Business Services Limited is committed to respecting and protecting your privacy. This privacy policy applies to each Hashtag Business Services Limited website, event, app and other services (each, a “Service”) that refers or links to this privacy policy. This privacy policy may be supplemented by additional privacy statements, terms or notices provided to you. The Hashtag Business Services Limited company that owns or administers the Service, as identified therein, is the primary controller of your personal information provided to, or collected by or for, the Service. For more information on Hashtag Business Services Privacy Policy please contact us or apply to be forgotten from our systems.

Information We Collect

We collect information about you in three ways: (1) from your input through our web forms, ticket scanners, app forms and other mechanisms, (2) from third-party sources, and (3) through automated technologies.

Data You Provide To Us

The types of personal information that we collect directly from you depends on how you interact with us and the Service and may include:

Contact details, such as your name, email address, postal address, social media handle and phone number;
Account login credentials, such as usernames and passwords, password hints and similar security information;
Other account or event registration and profile information, such as educational, employment and professional background, dietary and accessibility requirements, and photo;
Payment information, such as credit or debit card number;
Comments, feedback and other information you provide to us, including information that you send to customer support and messages, appointment inquiries and other information that you wish us to share with our exhibitors, visitors, partners and others; and/or
Interests and communication preferences, including matchmaking and event planning and networking choices.

Data From Other Sources

We also may obtain personal information about you from other third parties, including:

Service providers that help us determine a location based on your IP address in order to customise certain products to your location;
Partners with which we offer co-branded services or engage in joint marketing activities; and/or
Publicly-available sources and data suppliers from which we obtain data to validate or supplement the information we hold.

Data From Service Use

Our Service may automatically collect information about how you and your device interact with the Service, including:

Computer, device and connection information, such as IP address, browser type and version, operating system, platform and other software installed on your device, unique device identifier and other technical identifiers, error reports and performance data;
Usage data, such as the features you used, the settings you selected, your URL clickstream data, including date and time stamp and referring and exit pages, and pages you visited on the Service; and/or
For location-aware Services, your location, such as where you are located..

We collect this data through our servers and the use of cookies and other technologies. You can control cookies through your browser’s settings and other tools. However, if you block certain cookies, you may not be able to register, login, or access certain parts or make full use of the Service. For more details, visit the cookie notice of the Service.

How We Use Your Information

Depending on how you interact with us and the Service, we use your personal information to:

Provide, activate and manage your access to and use of the Service;
Process and fulfill a request, order, download or other transaction;
Provide technical, product and other support and to help keep the Service working, safe and secure;
Enhance and improve the Service and our other products and services and to develop new products, services and benefits;
Offer you customised content and other personalization to make the Service more relevant to your interests and geography;
Respond to your requests, inquiries, comments and concerns;
Notify you about changes, updates and other announcements related to the Service and our other products and services;
Deliver targeted advertisements, promotional messages, notices and other information related to the Service and your interests;
Provide you with promotional messages and other information about products, events and services of ours, our affiliates and third parties, such as exhibitors, sponsors and media partners;
Invite you to participate in user testing and surveys as well as sweepstakes, competitions and similar promotions;
Identify usage trends and develop data analysis, including for purposes of research, audit, reporting and other business operations, including determining the effectiveness of our promotional campaigns and evaluating our business performance; and/or
Comply with our legal obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce our agreements.

Sharing of Your Information

Our Service Providers

Depending on the Service provided, we share personal information with:

Our affiliates, trading names and divisions within the Hashtag Business Services Limited group of companies worldwide and certain companies that provide technology, customer service and other shared services functions; and/or
Our service providers, suppliers, agents and representatives, including but not limited to, payment processors, venue providers, onsite event contractors, customer support, email service providers, IT service providers, mailing houses and shipping agents,
Our exhibitors, sponsors and speakers at our events

to process the information as necessary to provide the Service, complete a transaction or fulfil your request or otherwise on our behalf based on our instructions and in compliance with this privacy policy and any other appropriate confidentiality and security measures.

Your Choices

We share your personal information with our affiliates and with exhibitors, sponsors, media partners, joint venture partners and other third parties, including entities for which we are acting as an agent, licensee or event manager, that wish to send you information about their products and services that may be of interest to you, as determined by your choices in managing your communications preferences and other settings.

The Service may let you post and share personal information, comments, materials and other content. Any such contributions you disclose publicly may be collected and used by others, may be indexed by search engines, and might not be able to be removed. Please be careful when disclosing personal information in these public areas.

Legal Reasons

We will disclose your personal information if we have a good faith belief that such disclosure is necessary to:

meet any applicable law, regulation, legal process or other legal obligation;
detect, investigate and help prevent security, fraud or technical issues; and/or
protect the rights, property or safety of Hashtag Business Services Limited, our users, employees or others;

and as part of a corporate transaction, such as a transfer of assets or an acquisition by or a merger with another company.

Your Communications Preferences

You can customise and manage your communications preferences and other settings when you register with the Service, by updating your account features and preferences, by using the ‘opt-out’ or unsubscribe mechanism or other means provided within the communications that you receive, or by contacting us. We reserve the right to notify you of changes or updates to the Service whenever necessary.

Accessing and Updating Your Information

Your Account

The Service may allow registered users to directly access and review their account information and make corrections or updates at any time. Keeping such information up to date is solely the responsibility of the user. Registered users may also close their account directly through the Service or by contacting the Service’s customer support.

Your Rights

You may have the right under European and certain other privacy and data protection laws, as applicable, to request free of charge:

access to and correction or deletion of your personal information;
restriction of our processing of your personal information, or to object to our processing; and
portability of your personal information.

If you wish to exercise any of these rights, please contact us through the contact address provided below. We will respond to your request consistent with applicable laws. To protect your privacy and security, we may require you to verify your identity.

Data Retention

We retain your personal information for as long as necessary to provide the Service and fulfill the transactions you have requested, or for other essential purposes such as complying with our legal obligations, maintaining business and financial records, resolving disputes, maintaining security, detecting and preventing fraud and abuse, and enforcing our agreements.

Children’s Privacy

We do not knowingly collect information from children under the age of 13 or target the Service to children under 13.

Data Security

We take precautions to safeguard your personal information against loss, theft and misuse and unauthorized access, disclosure, alteration and destruction through the use of appropriate technical and organizational measures.

Locations of Processing

Your personal information may be stored and processed in your region or another country where Hashtag Business Services Limited affiliates and their service providers maintain servers and facilities, including the European Union, the United Kingdom, Canada, South Africa and the United States. We take steps, including through contracts, intended to ensure that the information continues to be protected wherever it is located in a manner consistent with the standards of protection required under applicable law.

Where personal information is transferred from the European Economic Area (“EEA”) or Switzerland to a country that has not received an adequacy decision by the European Commission, we rely on appropriate safeguards, such as the European Commission-approved Standard Contractual Clauses and EU-U.S. and Swiss-U.S. Privacy Shield Frameworks, to transfer the data.

Grounds for Processing under the Hashtag Business Services Limited Privacy Policy

When we collect from you any personal information within the scope of European data protection laws, we do so:

where necessary to provide the Service, fulfil a transaction or otherwise perform a contract with you or at your request prior to entering into a contract;
where necessary for our compliance with applicable law or other legal obligations;
where applicable, with your consent; and/or
as necessary to operate our business, protect the security of our systems, customers and users, detect or prevent fraud, enable our customers to comply with legal obligations, or fulfill our other legitimate interests as described in the “Information We Collect”, ”How We Use Your Information” and “Sharing of Your Information” clauses above, except where our interests are overridden by your privacy rights.

Where we rely on your consent to process personal information, you have the right to withdraw your consent at any time, and where we rely on legitimate interests, you may have the right to object to our processing.

Changes

We will update this privacy policy from time to time. Any changes will be posted on this page with an updated revision date. If we make any material changes, we will provide notice through the Service or by other means.

Contact

If you have any questions, comments, complaints or requests concerning this privacy policy or our processing of your information, please contact: Data Protection Officer, Hashtag Business Services Limited dataprotection@hashtag-events.co.uk. You also may lodge a complaint with the data protection authority in the applicable jurisdiction.

Anti-spam policy

1. Introduction

1.1 In the context of electronic messaging, “spam” means unsolicited, bulk or indiscriminate messages, typically sent for a commercial purpose.
1.2 We have a zero-tolerance spam policy.

2. Credit

2.1 This document was created using a template from SEQ Legal (https://seqlegal.com).
You must retain the above credit. Use of this document without the credit is an infringement of copyright. However, you can purchase from us an equivalent document that does not include the credit.

3. Spam filtering

3.1 Our messaging systems automatically scan all incoming email and other messages and filter out messages that appear to be spam.
3.2 We may also report incoming email as spam. This can result in IP addresses and domain names being blacklisted.

4. Spam filtering issues

4.1 No message filtering system is 100% accurate, and from time to time legitimate messages will be filtered out by our systems.
4.2 If you believe that a legitimate message you have sent has been filtered out by our systems, please advise the message recipient by another means.
4.3 You can reduce the risk of a message being caught by the spam filters by:
(a) sending the message in plain text (instead of, or in addition to, HTML);
(b) removing any message attachments;
(c) avoiding the terminology and text styling typically used by spammers; and/or
(d) ensuring that your messages are scanned for malware before dispatch.

5. User spam

5.1 We provide a facility that enables users to send email messages OR private messages OR live chat and social media messages to others.
5.2 Users must not use our messaging facility or any of our other services to store, copy, send, relay or distribute spam.
5.3 Full provisions concerning the use of our messaging facility are set out in our website terms and conditions of use.

6. Receipt of unwanted messages from us

6.1 In the unlikely event that you receive any message from us or sent using our systems that may be considered to be spam, please contact us using the details below and the matter will be investigated.

7. Variation

7.1 We may amend this policy at any time by publishing a new version on our website.

8. Our details

8.1 This website is owned and operated by Hashtag Business Services Limited.
8.2 Our principal place of business is at 9 Manor Grange, North Broomhill, Morpeth, Northumberland, NE65 9YP.
8.3 You can contact us:
(a) by post, to the postal address given above;
(b) using our website contact form;
(c) by telephone, on the contact number published on our website from time to time; or
(d) by email, using the email address published on our website from time to time.