Privacy Policy

We’ll collect information from you in several different ways. Most of the information comes directly from you and with your consent when you buy a ticket on the website, in person or over the phone. We also gather some information when you browse our website, answer a survey, or email us with feedback.

We will collect your personal information when:

• You buy tickets or gift vouchers for our productions
• You request to join our mailing lists
• You participate in one of our projects
• You become a member
• You make a donation to support us

We will always make it clear what data we are collecting from you during these transactions.

Sometimes we may be given your information from third parties, such as other cultural organisations and co-producers who have asked your permission to share your data.

If your data is provided to us by another person because they feel you may be interested in our work (for example a recommendation by a friend) or from a publicly accessible source (such as a website), we will contact you to tell you where we obtained the information.

The following data and information may also be collected automatically when you visit our website:

• IP address
• Referring website
• Web browser and device
• Cookies
• Time and date
• Web pages visited
• Geographical location

Depending on your own privacy settings you may give us permission to access information from your social media apps.

The Royal Exchange Cookie Page explains what internet cookies are, how we use them and how you can manage your own personal permissions.

We may also capture your image in photography or in the video recording of a production or special event.

We also use CCTV recording equipment in and around our premises to safeguard our staff, customers, and visitors to the building. Images from the CCTV are securely held for 30 days and if there is an incident they may be shared with the police.

We only collect personal information that is essential to our operation as a business and which allows us to fulfil our obligations to our customers, provide good customer service; maintain our records and accounts and to develop and promote our work, on and off stage.

Most of the information we collect is obtained directly from you and may include:

• Prefix and name
• Gender
• Email address
• Date of Birth / age
• Ethnicity (We recognise that this is senstivie data. This data is only collected with your explicit consent)
• Contact phone number(s)
• Payment card details
• Delivery address(s)
• Billing address
• Transaction History
• Any donations made to the Royal Exchange and Gift Aid status, where applicable and as required by HMRC
• Records of communications sent to you by the Theatre or received from you
• Records of any volunteering by you on behalf of the Theatre
• Photos, film and audio recordings of projects or performances

If you are a student, we may also collect:

• Name and location of college/university
• Name and location of community group
• Name of course
• Dates of course

If you are a participant in one of our community groups, workshops or productions we may also collect:

• Contact details for parent or guardian
• Dietary requirements or any other sensitive information if required to enable your successful participation

We analyse and combine personal information with other publicly available information to better understand the interests, influence and affluence of our supporters and donors, to identify potential supporters and to make appropriate requests for gifts.

If you do not wish us to use your data in this way please email the Data Team.

This may include newspaper websites and archives, housing market websites and the electoral roll as well as official websites of companies, charities, and other arts organisations to collect information about age, place of residence, occupation and professional activities, recreations and interests, professional and personal networks, personal wealth and donations to other charities.

We may also use information which is publicly available from officially registered information providers, such as:
• Companies House, which provides information on company officials
• Charity Commission, which provides information on Charity Trustees
• Trust Funding, a database of grant-giving UK trust and foundations.

We may use publicly-sources images to help us identify individuals who attend fundraising or networking events.

We do not currently use third party wealth screening companies to analyse our data.

Sensitive Personal Information

On occasion we may collect sensitive classes of information. Examples of this might include a disability or the racial or ethnic origin of a person. This data is only collected with the explicit consent of the individual.

If you have a disability we may also process information which will help us make sure that you have the best experience possible when visiting the theatre, this could include:

• Your request to use assisted hearing
• That you bring an assistance dog
• You use a wheel chair
• You require a seat for a personal assistant.

Where this data is processed for purposes of monitoring and reporting it is always done so anonymously.

We process personal information to fulfil a contract with you (e.g. to provide you with a ticket for one of our plays), where we have your consent to do so, where we are legally obliged to and where there is a legitimate interest. For example, we may use your information to:

• Deliver information and process transactions with you
• Improve the service we offer you
• Understand how you want to be contacted. i.e. email, post, phone
• Contact you about what’s on, membership, news, and topics you’ve asked to hear more about.
• Provide you with information about other goods and services we offer similar to those you have already purchased or enquired about.
• Provide you with information on goods and services by other theatre companies whose work you may have seen here, where we have your consent to do so.
• Understand your interests and preferences so that when we contact you the information is relevant to you.
• Create mailing lists to share information about our activities
• To conduct research to understand the geographical location and demographics of our audience
• Notify you about practical issues that could affect your booking (like traffic problems or a change to our programme).
• Gather feedback from you directly or by survey
• To alert you to opportunities to support the Royal Exchange through making a donation or becoming a member
• To carry out basic research to estimate your interest in supporting the Royal Exchange as a charity
• To invite you to participate in research surveys, discussion groups or interviews to understand your opinions about our work
• To efficiently administer and renew any membership you may have.
• To make sure any communications we send you about supporting the Royal Exchange are appropriate.

We will never share your personal information with any third parties for marketing purposes without your prior consent. We will never sell, rent or trade your personal information.

We protect all the personal information we collect. Our computer network is protected, and information given in our online accounts are encrypted.

To fulfil our contract with you it’s sometimes necessary for third party providers to have access to your data so that they can perform services on our behalf (for example, MasterCard processes all card payments for us, we use DotDigital to send out email information).

We’ll only keep information for as long as is reasonably necessary for the purposes set out in this notice and to fulfil our legal obligations. We’ll never keep more information than we need.

If you ask us to stop sending you direct marketing communications, we will; you can change your preferences at any time.

We may need to share personal information with:

• Service providers who work on our behalf for the fulfilment of a contract we enter into with you, for example processing card payments, mailing houses, marketing agencies, database services, website hosting or email delivery services.
• Research companies who help us to understand our audience to enable us to improve our service.
• Third party advertisers (such as Facebook or Google).
Anyone who provides a service on our behalf will enter into an agreement with us and will meet our data security standards. They will only use your data for the clearly defined service that they are providing.
• The police or a regulatory or government authority investigating illegal activities.

Some of the services on offer on our website may use servers that are located outside the European Economic Area (EEA), this means that the personal information you provide could be transferred to countries outside the EEA. If your personal information is transferred outside of the EEA in this way, we will take steps to ensure that your privacy rights are protected as outlined here.

Although we will do our best to protect your personal data, we cannot guarantee the security of the data you transmit to our site as no transmission over the internet is 100% secure; any transmission of your data to us is therefore at your own risk.

Every email you get from us will include details about how to change your communications preferences and how to unsubscribe from future communications.

You have the right to ask us to amend or stop how we use your personal information including for marketing purposes. You can do this by phoning, emailing, or in writing using the contact details below.

You have the right to get the information we hold on you corrected. If you have any concern about the accuracy of your personal data, please let us know using the details below.

You have the right to be forgotten; if you would like us to remove the personal information we hold about you, please contact us using the details below.

You can request details of personal information the we hold about you by contacting the Data Team (details below) and providing a description of the information you would like to see, together with proof of your identity.

It is easy to access and amend the personal information that we hold on you. You can do this over the phone, via email, or in writing using the following details;
• by phone, 0161 833 9333 – and ask for a member of the Data Team
• by email, data@royalexchange.co.uk
• by post to, The Data Team, Royal Exchange Theatre, St Ann’s Square, Manchester, M2 7DH.

You have the right to lodge a complaint with The Information Commissioner’s Office.

The royalexchange.co.uk website is owned and operated by The Royal Exchange Theatre Company LTD (registered charity No. 255424). For the purpose of the Data Protection Act 1998 and EU GDPR the data controller is The Royal Exchange Theatre Co LTD, St Ann’s Square, Manchester, M2 7DH ICO Registration Z5774745.

This notice was significantly updated in May 2018. It may be necessary to update it from time to time to reflect changes to our business operations or to legislation. Updates will be posted on this page – please check back from time to time. We may also inform you directly of any changes.

Further information on data protection regulations and laws can be found here:
• Data Protection
• Fundraising regulator

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