York Professionals ("we", "us", "our") is committed to protecting and respecting your rights to privacy and data protection and complying with all application data protection legislation and regulations.

This Privacy Policy ("Policy") may change from time to time. Please check this page for the latest version.

1. Important information and who we are

Privacy policy

This Policy explains how we collect and use personal data when you visit our website, https://www.york-professionals.co.uk/ (the "Website"), register as a member with us, sign up to our monthly newsletter or submit news stories to us.

This Website is not intended for children and we do not knowingly collect data relating to children. If you believe a child has provided us with personal data, please contact us using our contact details at paragraph 10 so we can delete it.

Controller

We are the data controller of your personal data collected via the Website and in the course of our activities described in this Policy. Our company number is 04157901, and our registered office is C/O Azets Triune Court, Monks Cross Drive, Huntington, York, England, YO32 9GZ.

If you have any questions about this Policy, including any requests to exercise your legal rights as detailed in paragraph 9, please contact us using our contact details at paragraph 10.

2. The types of personal data we collect about you

Personal data means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified.

We may collect, use, store and transfer different kinds of personal data about you, which we have grouped together as follows:

  • Identity Data: your names, unique identifiers, photographs or videos;
  • Contact Data: your email addresses, telephone numbers, social media accounts, websites and associated organisation (e.g. your company or employer);
  • Technical Data: your internet protocol address, login data, browser type and version, time zone setting and location, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform, device ID and other technology on the devices you use to access this Website;
  • Profile Data: your interests, preferences, feedback, responses to our membership application form and news stories; and
  • Marketing and Communications Data: your preferences in receiving monthly newsletters and notifications, and communication preferences.

3. How is your personal data collected?

We use different methods to collect data about you, including through voluntary interactions and automated technologies.

You may voluntarily give to us your Identity Data, Contact Data, Profile Data and Marketing and Communications Data via:

  • our Website: our membership application form or by signing up to our monthly newsletter;
  • our social media accounts: Facebook, LinkedIn or X;
  • our events website: Eventbrite;
  • corresponding with us by phone, email or otherwise; or
  • referrals: we may also receive your name or email address from other contacts in your business. Your referrals shall only provide your personal data to us where they have confirmed that you consent to our collection and processing.

We may also automatically collect your Technical Data via:

  • automated technologies or interactions: when you interact with our Website.

4. How we use your personal data

Legal basis

The law requires us to have a legal basis for collecting and using your personal data. We rely on one or more of the following legal bases:

  • performance of a membership contract with you: where we need to perform the membership contract we are about to enter into or have entered into with you;
  • legitimate interests: we may use your personal data where it is necessary to conduct our business and pursue our legitimate interests, for example to prevent fraud and enable us to give you the best and most secure membership experience. We make sure we consider and balance any potential impact on you and your rights (both positive and negative) before we process your personal data for our legitimate interests. We do not use your personal data for activities where our interests are overridden by the impact on you (unless we have your consent or are otherwise required or permitted to by law);
  • legal obligation: we may use your personal data where it is necessary for compliance with a legal obligation that we are subject to. We will identify the relevant legal obligation when we rely on this legal basis; or
  • consent: we rely on consent only where we have obtained your active agreement to use your personal data for a specified purpose, for example if you subscribe to our monthly newsletter or submit news stories to us.

Purposes for which we will use your personal data

We have set out below, in a table format, a description of all the ways we plan to use your personal data, and which of the legal bases we rely on to do so. We have also identified what our legitimate interests are where appropriate.

Purpose/Use

Type of data

Legal basis

To administer and protect our business and this Website

(a) Identity

(b) Technical

(a) Necessary to comply with a legal obligation (e.g. complying with applicable laws to secure your personal data)

(b) Necessary for our legitimate interests (e.g. for running our business, provision of administration and IT services, network security, and to prevent fraud)

To provide you with membership services

(a) Identity

(b) Contact

(c) Profile

(d) Marketing and Communications

(a) Performance of a membership contract with you

(b) Necessary to comply with a legal obligation (e.g. complying with applicable laws to secure personal data)

(c) Necessary for our legitimate interests (e.g. to keep our records updated and to manage your membership with us)

To send you our monthly newsletter, and to notify you of any information, news and future events

(a) Identity

(b) Contact

(c) Marketing and Communications

(a) Necessary for our legitimate interests (e.g. only if we have to send you any service or administrative notifications) 

(b) Consent, having obtained your prior consent to receive promotional material (e.g. our monthly newsletter and notifications)

To publish news stories related to you or your associated organisation

(a) Identity

(b) Contact

(c) Profile

Consent, having obtained your prior consent to publish your news stories on our Website

Opting out of our monthly newsletter and notifications

You can ask us to stop sending you our monthly newsletter and notifications at any time by following the opt-out links within any emails sent to you.

If you opt out of receiving our communications, you may still receive service-related communications that are essential for administrative or membership purposes.

Withdrawing consent for a published news story on our Website

You may also withdraw your consent for a published news story at any time by contacting us using our details at paragraph 10. We will remove the news story from our Website within a reasonable period of time.

Withdrawal of consent will not affect the processing of your personal data before the withdrawal. Please note that we cannot control removal of news stories that has been re-shared by third parties.

Cookies

Our Website uses the following essential cookies, which do not require your consent:

Cookie

Name

Purpose

Essential/Functional

PHPSESSID

This cookie stores your unique session ID to distinguish you from other users of our Website. 

It is deleted when all your browser windows are closed.

5. Disclosures of your personal data

We may share your personal data where necessary with the parties set out below for the purposes set out in the table within paragraph 4:

  • General Public: when we publish news stories relating to you or your associated organisation on our Website;
  • Internal Third Parties: our designated third party intermediary such as Azets (to receive letters and packages on our behalf), and our marketing advisors such as Jo.P. Communications;
  • External Third Parties: our IT and hosting providers such as See Green (to operate the Website and store data), email marketing platforms such as Mailchimp (to send monthly newsletters and notifications), and third party websites for events such as Eventbrite (to administer registrations and attendance at our events); or
  • Board of Directors: if a change occurs within our Board of Directors, then the new Board of Directors may use your personal data in the same way as set out in this privacy policy.

We require all third parties to respect the security of your personal data and to treat it in accordance with the law. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes and only permit them to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.

6. International transfers

 We may transfer your personal data to service providers, such as Eventbrite and Mailchimp, that carry out certain functions on our behalf. This may involve transferring personal data outside the UK to countries which have laws that do not provide the same level of data protection as the UK.

Whenever we transfer your personal data out of the UK to service providers, we ensure a similar degree of protection is afforded to it by confirming that the service provider has implemented the appropriated safeguards, such as the International Data Transfer Addendum to the European Commission's Standard Contractual Clauses or obtained certification under the UK Extension to the EU-US Data Privacy Framework. We keep these safeguards under regular review.

7. Data security

We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal data to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal data on our instructions and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

We will notify you and any applicable regulator of a personal data breach where we are legally required to do so.

8. Data retention

How long will you use my personal data for?

We will only retain your personal data for as long as reasonably necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, regulatory, tax, accounting or reporting requirements. In particular, if you are a member with us, we will retain your personal data as long as you are a member for the purpose of satisfying our membership contract with you. 

We may retain your personal data for a longer period in the event of a complaint or if we reasonably believe there is a prospect of litigation in respect to our relationship with you.

To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal, regulatory, tax, accounting or other requirements.

If you do not renew your membership with us, we will delete your personal data at the end of the financial year once our annual reports and accounts have been finalised.

In some circumstances you can ask us to delete your personal data, please see paragraph 9 below for further information.

9. Your legal rights

You have a number of rights under data protection laws in relation to your personal data.

You have the right to:

  • request access to your personal data (commonly known as a “subject access request”). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it;
  • request correction of the personal data that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate data we hold about you corrected, though we may need to verify the accuracy of the new data you provide to us;
  • request erasure of your personal data in certain circumstances. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal data where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal data where you have successfully exercised your right to object to processing (see below), where we may have processed your information unlawfully or where we are required to erase your personal data to comply with local law. Note, however, that we may not always be able to comply with your request of erasure for specific legal reasons which will be notified to you, if applicable, at the time of your request;
  • object to processing of your personal data where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) as the legal basis for that particular use of your data (including carrying out profiling based on our legitimate interests). In some cases, we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process your information which override your right to object;
  • you also have the absolute right to object any time to the processing of your personal data for direct marketing purposes (please refer to paragraph 4 for details on how to opt out of our monthly newsletter and notifications);
  • request the transfer of your personal data to you or to a third party. We will provide to you, or a third party you have chosen, your personal data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format. Note that this right only applies to automated information which you initially provided consent for us to use or where we used the information to perform a membership contract with you;
  • withdraw consent at any time where we are relying on consent to process your personal data (please refer to the table within paragraph 4 for details of when we rely on your consent as the legal basis for using your data). However, this will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before you withdraw your consent. If you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide certain services to you. We will advise you if this is the case at the time you withdraw your consent; and
  • request restriction of processing of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your personal data in one of the following scenarios:
  • if you want us to establish the data’s accuracy;
  • where our use of the data is unlawful but you do not want us to erase it;
  • where you need us to hold the data even if we no longer require it as you need it to establish, exercise or defend legal claims; or
  • you have objected to our use of your data but we need to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to use it.

If you wish to exercise any of the rights set out above, please contact us using our contact details at paragraph 10.

No fee usually required

You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal data (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request is clearly unfounded, repetitive or excessive. Alternatively, we could refuse to comply with your request in these circumstances.

What we may need from you

We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your personal data (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is a security measure to ensure that personal data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it. We may also contact you to ask you for further information in relation to your request to speed up our response.

Time limit to respond

We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month. Occasionally it could take us longer than a month if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests. In this case, we will notify you and keep you updated.

10. Contact details

If you have any questions about this Policy or about the use of your personal data or you want to exercise your privacy rights, please contact us in one of the following ways:

  • email address: admin@york-professionals.co.uk; 
  • postal address: c/o Azets, Triune Court, Monks Cross Drive, Huntington, York, YO32 9GZ; or
  • telephone number: 07977 636038.

11. Complaints

You have the right to make a complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office ("ICO"), the UK regulator for data protection issues (www.ico.org.uk). However, before doing so please ensure you have first made your complaint to us or asked us for clarification if there is something you do not understand. The ICO will expect you to have done this before reviewing your complaint. To submit a complaint to us, please refer to our contact details at paragraph 10.

12. Changes to the privacy policy and your duty to inform us of changes

We keep our Policy under regular review. This version was last updated on 24th August 2026.

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, e.g. a new name or email address.

13. Third-party links

This Website may include links to third-party websites, plug-ins and applications. Clicking on those links or enabling those connections may allow third parties to collect or share data about you. We do not control these third-party websites and are not responsible for their privacy policies. When you leave our Website, we encourage you to read the privacy policy of every website you visit.