This policy was last updated on 4 February 2022.
The Barbican Centre (as part of the City of London Corporation) and the Barbican Centre Trust Ltd ("we", "us" and "our") are committed to upholding your privacy and taking care of the personal information that you may volunteer as part of ticket bookings, online purchases, membership or donation forms, e-newsletters or event sign-ups and visitor surveys.
This policy deals with how both the Barbican Centre and the Barbican Centre Trust collect and share information about you. This policy seeks to clarify those activities for which the Barbican Centre will be responsible for the use of your personal information, and those activities for which the Barbican Centre Trust will be responsible.
This policy explains how we each collect, use, and share personal information in the course of our activities, including:
- The information we collect and process
- How we use your information and what legal basis we rely on
- Information about our marketing and fundraising activities
- Others we might share your information with
- How we keep your information safe
- How we keep your information up to date
- Your legal rights
- How to contact us or exercise your rights
You can find out more about both the Barbican Centre and the Barbican Centre Trust by contacting us using the information in the contact us section.
We may amend this notice from time to time to keep it up to date with legal requirements and the way we operate. Please regularly check this page for the latest version of this notice.
You might find external links to third party websites on our website. This privacy notice does not apply to your use of a third party site.
The Barbican Centre and the Barbican Centre Trust
The following information applies to the Barbican Centre’s and Barbican Centre Trust’s use of your personal information. Where one organisation is solely responsible, we will make that clear in this policy.
What personal information do we collect and process?
We will ask for personal information when you register, sign up to a mailing list, make a booking, join as a member, make an enquiry, register for a learning activity, or order products and services from us. We will also ask for personal information when you make a donation, enquire about a giving programme, purchase fundraising event tickets, sign up to receive supporter updates through the Barbican Centre’s box office or the Development Department.
When you buy from us or make a donation
We will retain information such as your name, contact details and contact preferences when you make a purchase from our box office, make a donation or otherwise buy products from us.
For donations, we keep a record of the details of the gift (amount, date, purpose) and your Gift Aid status. The Barbican Centre Trust may ask you to provide details about your current interests and activities, and the details of your family and spouse/partner where appropriate.
For all transactions, we keep a record of your bank or credit card details used to make the purchase, but only temporarily and solely to process your transaction.
See also
When you join as a corporate subscriber or a Foundation Administrator
If you are a corporate subscriber or Foundation Administrator, we may ask about the organisation for whom you work/with which you are affiliated.
When you provide us information in relation to an event that you are attending, we may ask you about your access requirements and dietary preferences
As part of your participation in some of our programmes, we may use your data differently than is set out in this policy. We will provide you with any additional information about how we will use your personal information when you join these programmes.
When you use our website
Your IP address (a unique number that can be associated with your internet connection) is processed by our website, and by any third-party services that your computer connects to when you use our website. Our website also uses cookies to enable online transactions, understand how people use our website and inform our digital advertising. We will only connect you to non-essential third-party services if you give your consent when prompted. For more on cookies, see below.
What we use your information for and what legal basis we rely on
We will only collect, use and share your personal information where we are satisfied that we have an appropriate legal basis. Depending on the preferences you have indicated and your relationship with the Barbican Centre or the Barbican Centre Trust, we will use the personal information you have provided to:
Purpose |
Barbican Centre |
Barbican Centre Trust |
To provide goods and services to you or your organisation, process donations including Gift Aid, process payments for fundraising events or auction items, or to respond to enquires
|
To perform a contract |
To perform a contract |
To send you communications by post, telephone or electronic means in order to inform you of other products, services or events related to the Barbican, or to inform you of the impact of your donation, programme priorities, and other giving opportunities. This may include emails containing relevant news or competitions from our sponsors. |
Consent;
To perform a public task |
Consent;
Legitimate interest |
To ask you to participate in evaluation surveys and market research to help us better serve your needs or refine our fundraising programmes |
To perform a public task |
Legitimate interest |
To conduct fundraising activities and ensure our fundraising resources are used in the most effective and efficient manner and that any communications we may send are appropriate and of interest to you |
n/a |
Consent;
Legitimate interest |
To improve our understanding of our audience and supporters through profiling, tracking of your activity on our site and your response to direct marketing activity |
To perform a public task |
Legitimate interest |
To notify you of changes and improvements to events, services, our website and this privacy policy
|
To perform a public task |
Legitimate interest |
Marketing and fundraising communications
Depending on your preferences the Barbican Centre will contact you to let you know about upcoming events, offers from our shop and restaurants, updates on our plans and progress we are making, and to ask you to join as a member. Additionally, the Barbican Centre Trust will contact you about the impact of your gift, upcoming events, updates on our plans and progress, and to ask you to make a donation or consider other types of support. Occasionally, the Trust may include information about other supporters or sponsors in these communications.
We make it easy for you to tell us how you want to receive communications in a way that suits you. We always use clear marketing preference questions and we include information on how to opt out when we send you marketing. If you don’t want to hear from us, that’s fine. Just let us know when you provide us with your information or change your preferences at any time by changing the relevant settings in the My Account section of our website or contacting [email protected].
With your consent we may also share your data for marketing purposes with partner companies (see below).
Sharing data with partner companies
Many of the events at the Barbican are presented with partners, including London Symphony Orchestra (LSO), the Guildhall School of Music & Drama (GSMD) and the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC). The Barbican sells tickets on behalf of our partners on barbican.org.uk, over the phone and in person.
When you buy tickets from us, we may share some of your personal data with our partners in the following ways:
- We share our customer database with the LSO, our resident orchestra. Your name, contact details and a record of the tickets you have bought will be visible to the London Symphony Orchestra, who may use your data for customer services and analysis.
- When you book for a Guildhall School event, your name, contact details and a record of the tickets you have bought will be transferred to the Guildhall School from time to time. The Guildhall School may use your data for customer services and analysis.
- If you opt in to receive marketing emails from the LSO, GSMD or any other partner company, we will give them your email address for this purpose.
If you opt in to marketing email from one of our partners and wish to opt out in the future, please do this directly with the relevant partner. Our partners will always tell you how you can unsubscribe in any marketing email you get from them.
Further details about how our partners use your personal information can be found within in their own privacy policies: LSO privacy policy, Guildhall School privacy policy and Royal Shakespeare Company privacy policy.
See also Cookies and Tracking below.
Building an understanding of audiences, members and supporters and improving communications
We use various techniques including market research and audience profiling to help us understand our audiences, customers, members, donors and potential supporters.
We do this because it allows us to send appropriate communications and make appropriate requests to those who may be able and interested in attending or giving more than they already do.
For similar reasons, we may hire the services of a third party company in order to enrich the data we have collected from you with information from publicly available sources. This may include, for example, information about education, professional activities, geographic and demographic information, interests, preferences, charitable interests, activities and capacity to support the Barbican Centre Trust, a registered charity and, where not otherwise available, the information listed in the ‘What personal information do we collect and process’ section above.
We do comprehensive checks on any third parties we work with; additional information on this is stated under the 'Who we might share your personal information with' section below.
Who we might share your personal information with
Your personal information might be passed to a third party if they need it to fulfil your order(s) for our goods and services, to execute the communications we send to you, to conduct market research and audience profiling outlined above, to process a donation, or where you have otherwise consented to being contacted by selected third parties, such as artistic partners and associates. We do comprehensive checks on these companies before we work with them, and put a contract in place that sets out our expectations and requirements, especially regarding how they manage the personal information they have collected or have access to.
Examples of these third parties include our bank (in order to process Direct Debit and other payments), mailing houses (for distributing our events guides), our bulk email distribution service provider, and audience analyses and data cleansing suppliers, for example to access the Post Office National Change of Address (NCOA) database.
Except as set out in this policy, we shall not disclose your personal information unless obliged to, or allowed to do so by law, or where we need to in order to run our business (e.g. where other people process information for us). In such circumstances, we ask those people to give us confidentiality, non-disclosure or other relevant compliance undertakings.
We will not share your information other than as described in this policy without your express consent.
Creative Learning
If you take part in a Creative Learning project, we use your name and email address to identify you and your work, and to contact you about your involvement with the project. We sometimes collect your home borough or the first part of the postcode for evaluation and research purposes.
When we work with you individually (rather than through a school, for example) or over a sustained period of time, we may need to collect additional information from you. This could include socio-demographic information, medical details, educational attainment, details of prior artistic experience and details of any learning difficulties or special access requirement. This information will be used by our project team in order to plan and deliver the very best artistic and educational experiences for you, to keep participants safe throughout their experience with us, and may be passed to emergency services for use should any emergency situation arise. This data will also be used to monitor and evaluate our projects for reporting to external funders and government bodies. Where projects are run with the Guildhall School, your data may be shared with the Guildhall School whose privacy notices can be found at gsmd.ac.uk/privacy. The Guildhall School and the Barbican share the same data controller, the City of London.
We will always seek your consent for the above at the time we collect your information, and, where we need to collect this information in respect of children or young people, we will ask parents or guardians to provide the information and consent to its use for the purposes described. If you are under 18, we will ask you to confirm that you have your parent/guardian’s permission to provide with this personal data and, where applicable, to engage in a contractual relationship with the Guildhall School. If you are under 13, you should not provide us with personal data and should ask your parent/guardian to complete any forms on your behalf.
Sensitive or 'special category' Information
When you provide us with information in relation to an event that you are attending, we may ask you about your access requirements and dietary preferences. Some of the information which we collect from you may constitute sensitive personal data. We will only ever use this in accordance with this policy and shall maintain necessary measures to protect this information and its confidentiality.
Whenever we ask you to provide your personal information, we will let you know why we are asking, and how we will use your information, by directing you towards this notice.
How do we keep your personal information safe?
We ensure that there are appropriate technical controls in place to protect your personal information; for example, any information which we transfer is encrypted and password protected, and all of our staff receive data protection and security training. The personal information that you provide will be held securely and will not be used for any other purpose than as provided for in this policy.
Some of our suppliers run their operations outside the European Economic Area (EEA). Although they may not be subject to the same data protection laws as companies based in the UK, we will take steps to make sure they provide an adequate level of protection in accordance with UK data protection law. To this end, we obtain contractual commitments from them to protect your personal information. Some of these assurances are well recognized certification schemes like the EU - US Privacy Shield for the protection of personal information transferred from within the EU to the United States.
You have a right to contact us for more information about the safeguards we have put in place (including a copy of relevant contractual commitments) to ensure the adequate protection of your personal information when this is transferred as mentioned above.
Where we have given you (or where you have chosen) a password which enables you to access certain parts of our site, you are responsible for keeping this password confidential. We ask you not to share a password with anyone.
Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. Although we will do our best to protect your personal information, we cannot guarantee the security of your information transmitted to our site; any transmission is at your own risk. Once we have received your information, we will use strict procedures and security features to try to prevent unauthorised access.
We will store your personal information for as long as is reasonably necessary for the purposes for which it was collected, as explained in this notice. In some circumstances we may store your personal information for longer periods of time, for instance where we are required to do so in accordance with legal, regulatory, tax, accounting requirements, such as our requirements to report on the sources of our funding and donations received. We may also store information as a requirement to report on audience activities and expenditure to one or more of our funders.
In specific circumstances we may store your personal information for longer periods of time so that we have an accurate record of your dealings with us in the event of any complaints or challenges, or if we reasonably believe there is a prospect of litigation relating to your personal information or dealings.
How do we keep your information up to date?
We endeavour to keep your personal information accurate and up to date. If you become aware of errors or inaccuracies, please email [email protected] or update the information we hold about you by using the ["My Account" section of our website].
Where possible, we use publicly available sources to keep your records up to date; for example, the Post Office National Change of Address (NCOA) database and information provided to us by other organisations as described in this policy.
We would really appreciate it if you could let us know if your contact details change.
Your legal rights
Subject to certain exemptions, and in some cases dependent upon the processing activity we are undertaking, you have certain rights in relation to your personal information. We may ask you for additional information to confirm your identity and for security purposes, before disclosing the personal information requested to you. We reserve the right to charge a fee where permitted by law, for instance if your request is manifestly unfounded or excessive.
You can exercise your rights by contacting us using the contact details below. Subject to legal and other permissible considerations, we will make every reasonable effort to honour your request promptly or inform you if we require further information in order to fulfil your request.
We may not always be able to fully address your request, for example if it would impact the duty of confidentiality we owe to others, or if we are legally entitled to deal with the request in a different way.
Right to access personal information
You have a right to request that we provide you with a copy of your personal information that we hold and you have the right to be informed of; (a) the source of your personal information; (b) the purposes, legal basis and methods of processing; (c) the data controller’s identity; and (d) the entities or categories of entities to whom your personal information may be transferred.
Right to rectify or erase personal information
You have a right to request that we rectify inaccurate personal information. We may seek to verify the accuracy of the personal information before rectifying it.
You can also request that we erase your personal information in limited circumstances where:
- it is no longer needed for the purposes for which it was collected; or
- you have withdrawn your consent (where the data processing was based on consent); or
- following a successful right to object (see right to object); or
- it has been processed unlawfully; or
- to comply with a legal obligation to which we are subject
We are not required to comply with your request to erase personal information if the processing of your personal information is necessary:
- for compliance with a legal obligation; or
- for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims
Right to restrict the processing of your personal information
You can ask us to restrict your personal information, but only where:
- its accuracy is contested, to allow us to verify its accuracy; or
- the processing is unlawful, but you do not want it erased; or
- it is no longer needed for the purposes for which it was collected, but we still need it to establish, exercise or defend legal claims; or
- you have exercised the right to object, and verification of overriding grounds is pending
We can continue to use your personal information following a request for restriction, where:
- we have your consent; or
- to establish, exercise or defend legal claims; or
- to protect the rights of another natural or legal person
Right to object to the processing of your personal information
You can object to any processing of your personal information which has our legitimate interests as its legal basis, if you believe your fundamental rights and freedoms outweigh our legitimate interests.
If you raise an objection, we have an opportunity to demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate interests which override your rights and freedoms.
Right to obtain a copy of personal information safeguards used for transfers outside your jurisdiction
You can ask to obtain a copy of, or reference to, the safeguards under which your personal information is transferred outside of the European Union.
We may redact data transfer agreements to protect commercial terms.
Right to lodge a complaint with your local supervisory authority
The Information Commissioner is the UK's independent authority set up to uphold information rights and data privacy for individuals. You have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner if you are dissatisfied with any aspect of the way that we collect and use your personal information.
The Information Commissioner's website can be found at www.ico.org.uk or you can call their helpline on 0303 123 1113.
We ask that you please attempt to resolve any issues with us first, although you have a right to contact your supervisory authority at any time.
How to contact us or exercise your rights
Depending on which of us is using your personal information in accordance with the above, either the Barbican Centre or the Barbican Centre Trust will be 'data controller' in relation to your personal information, i.e. either of us will determine the purposes for which your personal information is processed, and how that information is processed.
If you would like any further information about our approach to data protection and privacy, or to request details about the information we hold, or exercise any of the rights listed above, please contact us by email at [email protected].
The City of London has appointed a Data Protection Officer, who can be contacted by email at [email protected].
Changes to this policy
Our privacy policy may change at any time, so you may wish to check it each time you visit our website. Any changes will apply from the time that they are posted to this page. If we make any significant changes in the way we treat your personal information we will make this clear on our website or by contacting you directly.
If you have any questions at all about the ways in which we collect and use your personal information please contact us at [email protected] at any time.