Privacy Policy

1. WHAT THIS POLICY APPLIES TO

This Privacy Policy applies to all personal data we process about individuals in the course of our business and our public relations, media and marketing activities, including:

• our clients and prospective clients, and their employees and representatives;
• contractors, freelancers and other service providers we engage;
• individuals who contact us through the Website or otherwise;
• journalists, media contacts and other individuals we speak to as part of our work.

This policy does not apply to third party websites that may be linked to from the Website. We are not responsible for the privacy practices of those third parties, and we encourage you to review their privacy policies.

2. PERSONAL DATA WE COLLECT

"Personal data" means any information relating to an identified or identifiable living individual. Depending on your relationship with us, we may collect and process the following categories of personal data:

• Contact and identity data: name, job title, employer or organisation, business and personal contact details (including email address, telephone number and postal address).
• Client and business data: information provided in connection with the services we provide, including correspondence, briefing materials, project details and account details.
• Contractor and freelancer data: information necessary to engage and pay contractors and freelancers, including bank or payment details, invoices and tax-related information.
• Media and journalist data: contact details and professional information about journalists, editors and other media contacts we engage with as part of our public relations work.
• Website and technical data: information collected automatically when you use the Website, including IP address, browser type, device information, pages viewed and usage data collected via cookies and analytics tools (see the Cookies and analytics clause).
• Marketing and communications data: your preferences in receiving marketing from us and your communication preferences.

We generally do not collect special category data (such as data revealing health, ethnicity or political opinions). If we do need to collect special category data, we will only do so where we have a lawful basis and an appropriate condition under Article 9 of the UK GDPR.

3. HOW WE COLLECT YOUR PERSONAL DATA

We collect personal data in a number of ways, including:

• directly from you, when you contact us, engage our products or services, provide services to us as a contractor or freelancer, correspond with us, or complete forms on the Website;
• automatically, when you use the Website, through cookies, server logs and analytics tools;
• from third parties and publicly available sources, including your employer or organisation, referrals, publicly available media directories and professional networks.

4. HOW WE USE YOUR PERSONAL DATA AND OUR LAWFUL BASES

We only process your personal data where the law allows us to. The lawful bases we rely on under the UK GDPR include performance of a contract, our legitimate interests, compliance with a legal obligation and, where required, your consent. The purposes for which we use personal data, and the lawful bases we rely on, are set out below.

• To provide our services and manage our relationship with clients: we process contact, client and business data to deliver our public relations, media and marketing services, respond to enquiries and administer our engagements. Lawful basis: performance of a contract and our legitimate interests in running our business.
• To engage and pay contractors and freelancers: we process contractor and freelancer data to manage engagements, make payments and meet our record-keeping obligations. Lawful basis: performance of a contract, legal obligation and our legitimate interests.
• To carry out our media and public relations work: we process media and journalist data to make contact, distribute materials and manage press and media relationships. Lawful basis: our legitimate interests in carrying out our business activities.
• To operate and improve the Website: we process website and technical data to maintain security, understand how the Website is used and improve our services. Lawful basis: our legitimate interests and, for non-essential cookies, your consent.
• To comply with legal and regulatory obligations: we process personal data where necessary to comply with applicable laws, including tax, accounting and regulatory requirements. Lawful basis: compliance with a legal obligation.

5. MARKETING

We may use your contact and marketing data to send you information about our services, industry updates and other communications we think may be of interest to you.

• Where required by law, we will only send you marketing communications with your consent. In other cases, including business-to-business marketing to corporate contacts, we may rely on our legitimate interests in promoting our services.
• You can opt out of marketing communications at any time by using the unsubscribe link in any marketing email or by contacting us using the details in the Contact clause. Opting out of marketing will not affect communications relating to a service we are providing to you.

6. COOKIES AND ANALYTICS

The Website uses cookies and similar technologies to function properly, remember your preferences and help us understand how the Website is used.

• We use Google Analytics to collect information about how visitors use the Website, including pages viewed and general usage patterns. This helps us improve the Website and our services. Google processes this data on our behalf under Google's Ads Data Processing Terms. We also use Lead Forensics, which identifies the organisation a visitor is browsing from using the visitor's IP address, so that we can understand which types of organisation are interested in BridgePacks. It does not use cookies and does not identify individuals; we rely on our legitimate interests as the lawful basis.
• We advertise in ChatGPT. When you arrive on the Website from one of those adverts and accept advertising cookies, OpenAI's measurement pixel sets cookies that record which advert you clicked, so that we can tell whether our advertising leads to sample requests or orders. If you type your email address into a form on the Website, the pixel may also send OpenAI a securely hashed (scrambled) version of it to help match that action to an advert. Your email address itself is never sent. The pixel only runs if you accept advertising cookies, and you can withdraw that consent at any time through our cookie banner.
• Non-essential cookies, including analytics and advertising cookies, are only used with your consent, which you can give or withdraw through our cookie banner or your browser settings. You can also set your browser to refuse some or all cookies, although this may affect how the Website works. For more information, please see our cookies policy at https://lionbridgepr.com/cookie-policy.

7. SHARING YOUR PERSONAL DATA

We do not sell your personal data. We may share your personal data with the following categories of recipients where necessary for the purposes described in this policy:

• our staff, contractors and freelancers who need access to perform their roles;
• service providers and processors who provide services to us, such as IT, hosting, payment, email and analytics providers;
• professional advisers, including lawyers, accountants and insurers;
• regulators, law enforcement and other authorities where required by law; and
• a buyer or successor in the event of a sale, merger or reorganisation of our business.

Where we share personal data with processors, we put in place written agreements requiring them to process personal data only on our instructions and to keep it secure.

8. INTERNATIONAL TRANSFERS

Some of our service providers are located outside the United Kingdom, which means your personal data may be transferred to and processed in countries outside the UK. The main processors we currently use include:

• Anthropic (AI processing services);
• Stripe (payment processing);
• Neon (database hosting);
• HubSpot (CRM)
• Resend (email delivery);
• Google (analytics, under Google's Ads Data Processing Terms);
• OpenAI (measuring the results of our advertising in ChatGPT);
• Lead Forensics (website visitor organisation identification); and
• CookieYes (cookie consent management, storing consent records including an anonymised IP address).

Where we transfer personal data outside the UK, we ensure appropriate safeguards are in place, such as an adequacy decision by the UK Government, the UK International Data Transfer Agreement (IDTA), or the EU Standard Contractual Clauses together with the UK Addendum. You can contact us for more information about these safeguards using the details in the Contact Us section below.

9. HOW LONG WE KEEP YOUR PERSONAL DATA

We only keep your personal data for as long as necessary for the purposes for which it was collected, including to satisfy any legal, accounting, tax or reporting requirements.

• When deciding how long to keep personal data, we consider the amount, nature and sensitivity of the data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure, the purposes for which we process it, and applicable legal requirements.
• When we no longer need your personal data, we will securely delete or anonymise it. In some circumstances we may retain anonymised information indefinitely for statistical or research purposes.

10. SECURITY

We take appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect your personal data against unauthorised or unlawful processing and against accidental loss, destruction or damage. These measures include access controls, secure storage and appropriate agreements with our service providers.

While we take reasonable steps to protect your personal data, no method of transmission over the internet or method of electronic storage is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.

11. YOUR RIGHTS

Under the UK GDPR, you have a number of rights in relation to your personal data. Subject to certain conditions and exemptions, these include:

• the right to be informed about how we use your personal data;
• the right to access the personal data we hold about you;
• the right to have inaccurate personal data corrected;
• the right to have your personal data erased in certain circumstances;
• the right to restrict or object to our processing of your personal data;
• the right to data portability; and
• the right to withdraw consent at any time where we rely on consent.

To exercise any of these rights, please contact us using the details in the Contact clause. We will respond to your request within the time limits set out in the UK GDPR. We will not normally charge a fee, although we may charge a reasonable fee or refuse to act on a request that is manifestly unfounded or excessive.

12. COMPLAINTS

If you have any concerns about how we handle your personal data, please contact us first using the details in the Contact clause so that we can try to resolve the matter.

You also have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), the UK data protection regulator, at www.ico.org.uk or by calling 0303 123 1113. We would, however, appreciate the opportunity to address your concerns before you approach the ICO.

13. CHANGES TO THIS POLICY

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices or legal requirements. Any updated version will be published on the Website and will take effect from the date of publication. We encourage you to review this policy periodically.

14. CONTACT US

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or the way we handle your personal data, please contact us: