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The interior of the Purcell Room at the Southbank Centre; seats face an empty stage

Privacy & cookie policy

Privacy policy

The Southbank Centre is committed to protecting your privacy. We will process your personal information in accordance with applicable laws and regulations in the United Kingdom (as amended from time to time).

The purpose of this policy is to inform you about how we will use any personal information we collect about you, the rights you have over any personal information we hold about you, and to tell you about the policies and procedures that we have in place to respect your privacy and keep your personal information secure.

Who we are

The Southbank Centre is a national arts organisation and a registered charity registered in England and Wales with number 298909. Its trustee is Southbank Centre Limited, a company limited by guarantee registered in England and Wales with company number 2238415.

How to contact us

Please contact us if you have any questions about our privacy policy, or the personal information we hold about you.

  • By email: [email protected]
  • By post at: Data Protection, Customer Services, Southbank Centre, Belvedere Road, London, SE1 8XX
  • By phone on: 020 3879 9555 (open Monday to Friday, 10am – 5pm; weekends, 12 noon – 5pm)
  • In person at our Ticket Office

Who does this Privacy Policy apply to?

This policy applies whenever we collect your personal information. Examples of when we might collect your personal information include:

  • Visitors attending at the Southbank Centre site;
  • Persons purchasing tickets for events at the Southbank Centre site, or events sponsored by Southbank Centre at other venues;
  • Persons accessing our website at southbankcentre.co.uk;
  • Persons accessing any physical or digital loans from our libraries or archives;
  • Persons registering to use the Southbank Centre guest Wi-Fi;
  • Any individual who contacts Southbank Centre for any reason;
  • Any individual who applies for a job at Southbank Centre or for a scheme operated by Southbank Centre; and
    Members, donors and supporters of Southbank Centre.

What information do we collect?

Generally, we collect your information when you decide to interact with us. We only collect the information that is necessary to carry on our business, to provide the particular product or service you have requested, to keep you informed of matters connected to the Southbank Centre and to operate our premises safely.

The personal information that we collect depends on purpose for which you have interacted with us and the data may include the following:

When you purchase a ticket or other merchandise from us, sign up to our mailing lists, become a member or register an account with us, make a donation, register for an event, apply for a job, chat with us via our website, sign up for Wi-Fi, message us on social media, complete a survey or use any of our other services, we will ask for your personal information to the extent that this is required and appropriate for the delivery of the service:  

  • Name, title, date of birth and gender.
  • Contact details including postal address, email, phone numbers and links to social media accounts.
  • Transaction history and payment details (we never store your whole card number, although we may keep a note of the last four digits to help us identify transactions).
  • In connection with resources available via the National Poetry Library, for example maintaining records of any physical or digital loans.
  • Health and wellbeing for access requirements (for example if you require wheelchair access, audio description, BSL interpretation, or any other access requirement) and whether you have a disability defined by the Equality Act 2010.
  • Where you have made a donation to us, we will also ask you if you are a taxpayer and would like us to claim Gift Aid on your donation, and record this information so that we can claim the Gift Aid. We will also record where you tell us not to claim Gift Aid.
  • Access Scheme:  If you have signed up to our Access Scheme, we will note this in your customer record. More information on Access Scheme
  • Special category (sensitive personal) data, including information about race, ethnicity, sex and sexual orientation (you have the right to decline to provide us with this information).
  • Other background personal information you provide to us (for example when you apply for a job, tell us your story, provide a reason for making a donation or correspond with us).

When you access our website:

  • Details of visits to our website including traffic data, location data, operating system, browser usage, and the resources that you access.
  • We use ‘cookies’ and other similar technology on our website. This is to allow us to understand how you use our site which informs how we can both improve our site and your personal experience when visiting it. To amend your settings head to our website footer and select ‘Cookie Settings’.
  • We may collect your IP address. A public IP address is a unique number which allows a computer, group of computers or other internet-connected device to browse the internet. The log file records the time and date of your visit, the pages that were requested, the referring website (if provided) and your internet browser version.

When you visit the Southbank Centre:

  • Image and likeness (as captured on our CCTV cameras and in photographs and videos we use for promotional purposes).
  • We use CCTV recording equipment in and around our premises for monitoring and security purposes. CCTV cameras operate on public access points and in the ‘front of house’ public areas, such as terraces, bars and foyers. They do not operate in private areas such as washrooms.

Other:

  • From time to time, we may also get data about you from third parties – please see the ‘Why we collect your personal information and how we use it’ section for more details. This could include other artistic venues where you have seen artists or work performing at the Southbank Centre or partners that we have run competitions with.
  • If you are involved in an incident that relates to our premises or business, we may collect information from you for incident reporting and investigation purposes (including by sharing such information with our insurers and the police or other authorities) and in order to meet our health and safety and security obligations.
  • We keep a record of the emails we send you, and we may track whether you receive or open them so we can make sure we are sending you the most relevant information. We may then track any subsequent actions you undertake online, such as buying a ticket.

Information we obtain from third parties:

We may obtain personal information about you from other sources, such as if a family member or friend contacts us on your behalf. Where this occurs and it is not practical for us to provide you directly with a copy of our privacy policy, we may ask the person who provided us with your information to make this privacy policy available to you.

We may receive information from external sources which enables us to gain a better understanding of our audiences, visitors and supporters and to improve our fundraising and marketing methods.

We may combine information you have given to us with additional information available from external sources. This will only be done when you give permission to the relevant third-party organisations to share the data they hold on you, or if the data is already publicly available.

These external sources may include:

Third-party organisations: Your information may be shared with us by independent fundraising sites like JustGiving or Virgin Money Giving if you make a donation to the Southbank Centre, but only when you have indicated that you give your consent to hear from us. You should check their Privacy Policy when you provide your information to understand fully how they will process your data.

Social media: We use social media to broadcast messages and updates about events and news. On occasion, we may reply to comments or questions you make to us on social media platforms. You may also see adverts from us on social media that are tailored to your interests.

Depending on your settings and the privacy policies used by social media and messaging services like Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter, we may share and/or receive non-personally identifying demographic or analytical information from these services that enables us to better understand the reach and effectiveness of our advertising.

Information available publicly: We may retain and use information that is publicly available, such as information found in places such as Companies House, your biography on your work website or social media sites such LinkedIn or information that has been published in articles/newspapers.

How we keep your details safe and secure

We are committed to protecting your personal information. We adopt robust and appropriate technologies and policies to protect it from unauthorised access and improper use.

Your personal data will be held and processed on the Southbank Centre’s systems or systems managed by suppliers on behalf of the Southbank Centre. We maintain a customer relationship management (CRM) system to hold contact details and a record of your interactions with the Southbank Centre such as ticket purchases, donations, memberships, complaints and attendance at special events and when you contact us for general customer service and other queries, where we also use automated digital tools to manage your queries. Where possible we aim to keep a single record for each customer.

We always seek to hold your personal information securely. Access to your personal information is strictly controlled. The CRM system can only be accessed by people who need it to do their job. Certain data, for example sensitive information is additionally controlled and is only made visible to those who have a reason to work with it.

In addition, whenever we transfer your personal information out of the European Economic Area (EEA), we ensure a similar degree of protection is afforded to it as it would have in the EEA. As part of the services offered to you, the personal information you provide may be transferred to countries outside the EEA. By way of example, this may happen if any of the computer servers used to host our websites are located in a country outside of the EEA. If we transfer your personal information outside of the EEA in this way, we will take steps to ensure that your privacy rights continue to be protected as outlined in this Privacy Policy.

Our basis for processing your personal information and what we use it for

We aim to be clear when we collect your data and not to do anything you wouldn’t reasonably expect. The main reasons we collect your data are to provide a service you have requested, to keep you up to date with news and events, to personalise your communications, or to contact you if we need to obtain or provide additional information (for example, changes to an event or travel disruption). The information we collect about our audiences also helps us understand how we can best meet their needs.

We will use your information for the purposes listed below on the basis of:

  • our performance of our contract with you and the provision of our services to you;
  • your consent (where we request it);
  • our need to comply with a legal or regulatory obligation; or
  • our legitimate interests.

In particular, we will use your personal information to:

  • fulfil ticket, merchandise, donation and membership requests (on the basis of performing our contract with you);
  • process payments (on the basis of performing our contract with you);
  • provide good customer service at the Southbank Centre, by phone, or by email (on the basis of performing our contract with you and/or on the basis of our legitimate interests to provide you with customer service); and
  • contact you with important information relating to your booking or purchase, such as confirming your order, reminding you of an upcoming performance you have booked for or letting you know about changes to the performance or event, safety procedures, travel disruption or changes to event times that may affect your visit (on the basis of performing our contract with you and/or on the basis of our legitimate interests to provide you with service information).

To send you marketing communications: We will use your personal information to:

  • keep you up-to-date with news, offers, talks and events, products and information, and let you know about opportunities to support our work at the Southbank Centre and across the UK (where you have provided your consent or on the basis of our legitimate interests to provide you with marketing communications where we may lawfully do so). You can tailor your preferences at any time by logging into your account or by contracting us directly (as set out below).
  • send information by email where we have consent or by post about how you can support the Southbank Centre (on the basis of our legitimate business interests to seek support); and
  • provide you with special assistance, if required (on the basis of our legitimate interests to provide you with assistance or where you have provided your consent when you have provided sensitive information about your health).

To personalise your experience with the Southbank Centre: On the basis of our legitimate interests to present you with the right kinds of products and services, we will use your personal information to:

  • help us target our marketing communications so that they’re more relevant to you. You can opt-out of personalised communications by logging into your account or contacting us direct.
  • keep track of your interests and preferences so that we can contact you with information that is relevant to you. You can opt-out of this by logging into your account or contacting us direct;
  • show you advertising on social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram or via other third-party advertising that may appear on other websites you use;
  • help make the experience of using our websites better and to personalise the service you receive from us – this means we will remember your previous visits and track the pages on our websites that you visit; and
  • understand your interests and personalise communications to you.

To conduct research: On the basis of our legitimate interests to improve our products, services and customer service, we will use your personal information to:

  • classify our audiences into groups or segments, using information from bookings and digital interactions, and publicly available information. We do this to better understand our audience and tailor messaging accordingly;
  • measure and understand how our audiences respond to a variety of marketing activity so we can ensure our activity is well targeted, relevant and effective;
  • undertake audience research via an online or telephone survey or in person. Participation in these is entirely voluntary, so you can choose whether or not to disclose any information requested. We will make it clear whether your response to surveys is anonymous or not and, should you provide any further information, the Southbank Centre will inform you how it will be used;
  • analyse and continually improve the services we offer, including our artistic programme, our websites and our other products;
  • help us run the test versions of our websites that we use internally to pilot new features and ensure the smooth running of our web services;
  • help diagnose and manage our websites, to audit the geographical make-up of users, and to establish how they have arrived at our websites; and
  • supporting our reporting obligations to bodies such as Arts Council England who provide grant funds to us.

To ensure safety and security of our premises and protect our business interests: In certain circumstances, we use your information to ensure the safety and security of our services, buildings, and people, including to protect against, investigate and deter fraud, incidents or accidents related to our premises or business, unauthorised or illegal activities, systems testing, maintenance and development (on the basis of our legitimate interests to operate a safe and lawful business or where we have a legal obligation to do so).

To comply with our legal obligations: In certain circumstances, we will need to use your information to comply with our legal obligations, for example to comply with any court orders or subpoenas, carry out due diligence in accordance with statutory regulations or keep our database accurate and relevant (on the basis of our complying with a legal obligation).

To identify individuals for memberships and philanthropic support: On the basis of our legitimate interests to seek support, promote fundraising or legacy campaigns to selected supporters, and issue invitations to some of our fundraising events.

We are a registered charity (no. 289909) and rely heavily on voluntary contributions from our audience and other funders for our work. Based on the frequency of visits and purchasing patterns, we may promote our memberships to you or ask you for additional support for our work.

We may also receive personal data, including email addresses, from third parties who provide services in order to facilitate the Southbank Centre’s communication with and understanding of potential donors and funders.

Please see section below on research, profiling and ‘wealth screening’ for further details.

For the purposes of credit risk reduction or fraud prevention: When you apply to pay for a membership by direct debit, we will check that the name and account details you have provided match an open and existing bank account.

Third-party interests: We may also use your information to further the legitimate interests of others, such as other partner organisations we work with or the general public.

Films, photographs and audio recordings: the Southbank Centre records and uses film, photographs and audio from performances and events across the Southbank Centre site for promotional purposes on its website, social media accounts and other formats under its legitimate interests basis for processing where it would not be necessary, appropriate or practicable to obtain your specific consent (we may at our discretion seek specific consent for prominent or impactful uses, but typically not for group shots, background inclusion or internal use).

Sensitive personal data: We may process your personal data (including sensitive personal data) where:

  • it is necessary for medical purposes (for example, in a medical emergency)
  • it is necessary to protect your or another person’s vital interests
  • we have your consent to do so (for example to monitor the diversity of visitors to the Southbank Centre). We will also ask for your consent to provide you with information about products and services and fundraising activities which may be of interest to you (apart from where it is appropriate for us to rely on our legitimate interests to do so).

Giving you control

Our communications to you may tell you about events, concerts, shop offers, priority booking and information about our site (for example when our Queen Elizabeth Hall Roof Garden opens, or updates on building works on site). Occasionally, we may include information in these communications from partner organisations or organisations who support us. Even if you have opted out of marketing communications, we may still get in touch with you – for example, we may email you to give you important information about the events you’ve booked.

You can update us on how and/or what you want to hear from us at any time. There are a number of ways you can do this:

  • by logging onto your Southbank Centre account via our website and updating your preferences there.
  • by contacting us via any of the routes highlighted in the ‘How to contact us’ section at the beginning of this Policy.

In addition, you can opt out from receiving further marketing communications at any time – every email sent to you will tell you how to do this.

Children

We do not intentionally collect any information on persons under 16 years of age without the consent of their parent/guardian.  If you are under 16, please ensure that you obtain your parent/guardian’s consent beforehand whenever you share your personal information with us.

The Southbank Centre as a charity and how we respect our donors

The Southbank Centre relies on charitable support to maintain our world-class programme and to make this available to everyone.

You can opt in to receive information about supporting the Southbank Centre. You can do this:

  • by logging onto your Southbank Centre account via our website and updating your preferences there.
  • by contacting us via any of the routes highlighted in the ‘How to contact us’ section at the beginning of this Policy.

We will tell you about our current campaigns that we think are most relevant to you, ways that you can make a real difference to our education programmes, and invitations to events where you and your family can get closer to our artistic programme by joining one of our Supporters Circles or Patrons Groups.

We invite some people who might be interested in joining one of our supporter groups to special events, for example, drinks receptions or rehearsals or to tell you about extra benefits including priority booking. Guests we invite might include current supporters, Members, people who have given donations in the past, audiences who attend concerts and events regularly, audiences who have identified specific programme interest in the preferences section of their Southbank Centre account, friends of current supporters, our Board and staff.

Research, profiling and ‘wealth screening’

Our donors tell us that tailored and relevant communication is a priority for them and we constantly review this and listen to feedback received to make sure we are getting this right.

We want to ensure our communications to our supporters are personal, relevant and timely, and we want to give you an enhanced experience when you attend events by introducing you to artists or members of staff that we think you might enjoy meeting. To ensure that our communications are relevant to you and your interests and to assess your likely ability to make, and interest in making, donations to the Southbank Centre, we may use additional information such as geographical information and measures of affluence where available from external sources to assist us. This will be a combination of publicly-available information, for example drawn from company resources and news media, with what you have provided to us, such as past donations and career information. We may use the services of external screening/profiling companies, and publicly available data from social media sites like LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, depending on your privacy settings and/or interaction with us.

The Southbank Centre may hold personal data that has been created by us from other personal data that we already hold about you, either from internal or external research/profiling. This may be carried out by automated or manual processes, and enables us to better understand you as our supporter and make appropriate requests for support.

We use a number of different publicly available sources to aid us in our fundraising activities, including newspaper websites and archives, housing market websites and the electoral roll as well as official websites of companies, charities and other arts organisations. This could also include data analysis to interpret your data and predict how likely you are to be interested in particular areas of our work. In addition to general use of the internet, we also make use of company, director and shareholder information from publicly available information providers. A list of publicly available sources of information used by the Southbank Centre for the purposes detailed is available on request.

If you do not wish the Southbank Centre to undertake this activity, please contact us via any of the routes highlighted in the ‘How to contact us’ section at the beginning of this Policy.

Please note that before seeking or accepting donations we may be required to conduct a minimum level of due diligence, including reviewing publicly available personal data. Due diligence is conducted in accordance with the Southbank Centre’s gift acceptance policy.

Third parties who may process your information on our behalf

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

We may ask for your consent to share personal information with arts organisations who have collaborated with us on shows you have seen.

Some of our service providers may have access to your information in order to perform services on our behalf or in connection with services we are providing to you. This could include:

  • a payment process provider;
  • ticket sales service provider;
  • a third-party supplier fulfilling your order on our behalf;
  • a named third-party organisation which is running an event in partnership with us so that they can help run the event;
  • named third-party organisations who have staged or promoted an event for which you bought a ticket;
  • a third-party venue where you are attending a performance or event that is not taking place at the Southbank Centre site so that you can receive any specific venue information you need before you attend the performance;
  • our catering providers; and/or
  • data processing providers acting in an accordance with our instructions, and subject to confidentiality obligations.

We may disclose personal information to appropriate third parties to assist in anti-fraud checks and investigations.

We make sure anyone who provides a service for the Southbank Centre enters into an agreement with us and meets our standards for data security. They will not use your data for anything other than the clearly defined purpose relating to the service or advice that they are providing.

We may also share your information with third parties in the following circumstances:

  • where we require a third party to advise us (such as legal advisors);
  • in order to comply with any legal or regulatory obligations to which the Southbank Centre is subject. This includes the police and other crime protection and detection agencies or regulatory bodies; and/or
  • for the purposes of regulatory or inspection compliance. This includes the Charity Commission of England & Wales and the Information Commissioner’s Office.

Where you have given your consent, we may transfer your data at some point during the six months after the event, however we cannot confirm at what specific point during that time we will do so.

If you want to withdraw your consent please email us with your request at the following address, including your name and the name and date of the event: [email protected]

Please note, you will only be able to withdraw your consent provided we receive your email no later than 3 full working days before we have transferred your data.

Our Resident Orchestras – Aurora Orchestra, Chineke! Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, London Sinfonietta, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and Philharmonia Orchestra: We sell tickets on behalf of our Resident Orchestras. If you buy a ticket from us or via southbankcentre.co.uk for a Resident Orchestra’s performance, your name, contact details and record of the tickets you have bought will be visible to that orchestra. The orchestra will use your data for customer service and analysis. If you select either the Email or Post option to consent to receive information about events, news and offers from one or more of our Resident Orchestra(s) you may additionally be contacted for marketing purposes.

In addition, we share our customer relationship database with London Philharmonic Orchestra, London Sinfonietta, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and Philharmonia Orchestra.

How long do we keep your information?

We will keep your information only for as long as is reasonably necessary for the purposes set out in this Privacy Policy and to fulfil our legal obligations. 

The retention period will vary according to the purpose for which we hold your information.  For example, if you purchase a ticket from us, we will typically keep your information for up to ten years from the date of your last transaction. If you have consented to receive marketing communications, we will retain your information and continue to send you marketing information until you notify us that you are withdrawing your consent.

We take steps to ensure that we do not retain more information than we need.

You are able at any time to contact us to find  what information we hold and to update your instructions to us in connection with that information.  Any requests to delete your personal information are acted upon following such request.

Changes to your personal data

It is important that the personal data we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your personal data changes during your relationship with us.  You can do this:

  • by logging onto your Southbank Centre account via our website and updating your information there.
  • by contacting us via any of the routes highlighted in the ‘How to contact us’ section at the beginning of this Policy

Your rights

Under data protection law you have the following rights:

  • Your right of access – to obtain access to, and copies of, the personal data that we hold about you, in a reasonable format specified by you, including for the purpose of you transmitting that personal data to another data controller
  • Your right to restriction of processing – to require us to restrict our data processing activities in certain circumstances, and, where our processing is based on your consent, you may withdraw that consent, without affecting the lawfulness of our processing based on consent before its withdrawal
    • to require that we cease processing your personal data if the processing is causing you damage or distress
    • to require us not to send you marketing communications
  • Your right to rectification – to require us to correct the personal data we hold about you if it is incorrect
  • Your right to erasure – to require us to erase your personal data
  • Your right to object to processing – to object, on grounds relating to your particular situation, to any of our particular processing activities where you feel this has a disproportionate impact on your rights
  • Your right to data portability – you have the right to ask that we transfer the personal information you gave us to another organisation, or to you, in certain circumstances.

Please note that the above rights are not absolute, and we may be entitled to refuse requests where exceptions apply.

You can also complain to the UK Information Commissioner’s Office if you are unhappy with how we have used your personal information.

The ICO’s address:
Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

Helpline number: 0303 123 1113

ICO website

Changes to this Privacy Policy 

We may make changes to this Privacy Policy from time to time. We will post any changes to our website.