TOPICS

1. Introduction and General Terms

Chokolit™ is committed to protecting you and your family's personal information when you are using Chokolit™ services. We want our services to be safe and enjoyable environments for our audience. This Privacy Policy relates to our use of any personal information you provide to us through the chokolit.co.uk website.

In order to provide you with the full range of Chokolit™ services, we are sometimes required to collect information about you.

This privacy policy explains the following:

  • - what information Chokolit™ may collect about you;
  • - how Chokolit™ will use information we collect about you;
  • - when Chokolit™ may use your details to contact you;
  • - whether Chokolit™ will disclose your details to anyone else;
  • - your choices regarding the personal information you have provided to us;
  • - the use of cookies on the Chokolit™ website and how you can reject these cookies.

As set out above, Chokolit™ is committed to safeguarding your personal information. Whenever you provide such information, we are legally obliged to use your information in line with all laws concerning the protection of personal information, including the Data Protection Act 1998 (these laws are referred to collectively in this Privacy Policy as the “data protection laws”).

The websites contains hyperlinks to websites owned and operated by third parties. These third party websites have their own privacy policies, including cookies, and we urge you to review them. They will govern the use of personal information you submit or are collected by cookies whilst visiting these websites. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the privacy practices of such third party websites and your use of such websites is at your own risk.

Skip to top

2. What information will Chokolit™ collect about me?

When you sign up to participate in or receive a service from any chokolit.co.uk website, such as newsletters, competitions or message boards, we may ask for personal information about you. This can consist of information such as your name, e mail address, postal address, telephone or mobile number or date of birth.

By entering your details in the fields requested, you enable Chokolit™ and its service providers to provide you with the services you select.

Please note that sometimes on particular webpages we will require you to provide additional personal information, and sometimes sensitive personal information. When we do this we will specify further on these webpages why we are collecting your information and how we will use it.

Chokolit™ also uses cookies (see paragraph 8 below for details) and collects IP addresses (an IP address is a number that can uniquely identify a specific computer or other network device on the internet). We use analysis software to look at IP addresses and cookies for the purpose of enhancing your user experience. This information is not used to develop a personal profile of you and the log files are regularly purged.

We also use your IP address to determine whether you are accessing the services from the UK or not. If not, you will be re-directed to the international version of the chokolit.co.uk site.

Skip to top

3. How will Chokolit™ use the information they collect about me?

Chokolit™ will use your personal information for a number of purposes including the following:

  • - for “service administration purposes”, which means that Chokolit™ may contact you for reasons related to the service you have signed up for, (e.g. to provide you with password reminders or to notify you that a particular service has been suspended for maintenance);
  • - to contact you about a submission you have made to the websites, including any content you provide.
  • - IP addresses are used to identify the location of users, the number of visits from different countries and also to block disruptive use; and to analyse and improve the services offered on chokolit.co.uk. e.g. to provide you with the most user-friendly navigation experience.

Where Chokolit™ proposes using your personal information for any other uses we will ensure that we notify you first. You will also be given the opportunity to withhold or withdraw your consent for your use other than as listed above.

Skip to top

4. Will I be contacted for marketing purposes?

Chokolit™ won't contact you for marketing purposes, or promote new services to you unless you specifically agree to be contacted for these purposes.

Skip to top

5. Will Chokolit™ share my personal information with anyone else?

We will keep your information confidential except where disclosure is required or permitted by law (for example to government bodies and law enforcement agencies) or as described in paragraph 6 below. Generally, we will only use your information within Chokolit™. However, sometimes Chokolit™ uses third parties to process your information. Chokolit™ will require these third parties to comply strictly with its instructions and Chokolit™ will require that they do not use your personal information for their own business purposes.

Please note that if you are accessing Chokolit™ from outside the UK and you make a comment or complaint regarding any element of advertising then Chokolit™ may forward your correspondence to others only for the purposes of responding to you.

Skip to top

6. Offensive or inappropriate content on the Chokolit™ website

If you post or send offensive, inappropriate or objectionable content anywhere on or to bbc.co.uk, or otherwise engage in any disruptive behaviour on chokolit.co.uk, Chokolit™ may use your personal information to stop such behaviour.

Where Chokolit™ reasonably believes that you are or may be in breach of any of the laws of England or Wales (e.g. because content you have posted may be defamatory), Chokolit™ may use your personal information to inform relevant third parties such as your employer, school e-mail/Internet provider or law enforcement agencies about the content and your behaviour.

Skip to top

7. How long will Chokolit™ keep my personal information?

We will hold your personal information on our systems for as long as is necessary for the relevant service, or as long as is set out in any relevant contract you hold with Chokolit™ or Chokolit™'s corporate retention schedule (this is a database that defines which documents should be kept and for how long). In the case that you wish to cancel your registration as a chokolit.co.uk member, once an account is deleted a red flag goes on the database and, while people cannot use the personal information, it stays on the system for a period of one year for administration purposes before being deleted automatically.

Where you contribute to chokolit.co.uk Chokolit™ will generally only keep your content for as long as is reasonably required for the purpose(s) for which it was submitted. For example, Chokolit™ will only keep copies of entries to a photographic competition for the duration of the competition. However other projects (e.g. the People's War website) are likely to have a longer, or even permanent, duration.

Chokolit™, as a publicly funded organisation, also has an obligation to record snapshots of history which may include some User Generated Content i.e. content provided by users. Therefore, some content submitted to or shared with Chokolit™ may be retained for prolonged periods of time or potentially indefinitely in the Chokolit™'s Archive, which is true of News contributions which are published. There may also be rare instances where we will share your contribution with third parties in the interests of maintaining historical archives (e.g. contributions about people's experiences in the World War II were given to the Imperial War Museum). Where possible, we will endeavour to inform you upfront or let you know at a later date where we are likely to keep content indefinitely or pass it onto an approved historical archive.

Skip to top

8. Can I find out what personal information Chokolit™ holds about me?

Under the Data Protection Act you have the right to request a copy of the personal information Chokolit™ holds about you and to have any inaccuracies corrected. (We charge £10 for information requests and will require you to prove your identity with 2 pieces of approved photographic identification.) We will use reasonable efforts to supply, correct or delete personal information about you on our files.

Skip to top

9. Changes to Chokolit™'s Privacy Policy

This privacy policy may be updated from time to time so you may wish to check it each time you submit personal information to any bbc.co.uk website. The date of the most recent revisions will appear on this page.

Skip to top

10. Cookies Policy

a. What is a cookie?

A cookie is a small amount of data, which often includes a unique identifier that is sent to your computer or mobile phone (referred to here as a “device”) browser from a website's computer and is stored on your device's hard drive. Each website can send its own cookie to your browser if your browser's preferences allow it, but (to protect your privacy) your browser only permits a website to access the cookies it has already sent to you, not the cookies sent to you by other sites. Many sites do this whenever a user visits their website in order to track online traffic flows.

Cookies record information about your online preferences and allow us to tailor the websites to your interests. Users have the opportunity to set their devices to accept all cookies, to notify them when a cookie is issued, or not to receive cookies at any time. The last of these means that certain personalised services cannot then be provided to that user and accordingly you may not be able to take full advantage of all of the bbc.co.uk features. Each browser is different, so check the “Help” menu of your browser to learn how to change your cookie preferences.

During the course of any visit to chokolit.co.uk, the pages you see, along with a cookie, are downloaded to your device. Many websites do this, because cookies enable website publishers to do useful things like find out whether the device (and probably its user) has visited the website before. This is done on a repeat visit by checking to see, and finding, the cookie left there on the last visit.

b. How does the BBC use cookies?

Information supplied by cookies can help us to analyse the profile of our visitors and help us to provide you with a better user experience. For example: if on a previous visit you went to our education pages, we might find this out from your cookie and highlight educational information on your second and subsequent visits.

Chokolit™ also use a number of independent measurement and research companies. They gather information regarding the visitors the Chokolit™ site on our behalf using cookies, log file data and code which is embedded on our website. Chokolit™ use this type of information to help improve the services it provides to its users. Chokolit™ strictly require that third parties do not use any information for their own business or other purposes (see paragraph 5 above).

Skip to top

11. Contacting Chokolit™ about this Privacy Policy

Chokolit™ Ltd,
Unit 5, Faraday Drive,
Bridgnorth,
Shropshire.
WV15 5BB

Skip to top