Our Privacy Policy
We will always keep your data safe and secure. This policy explains what information we collect about you and how we use it.
We are a community, marketing and events consultancy, which also provides courses and community membership to our Clients. This privacy policy is owned and operated by Serena G Consulting Limited T/A Sense and Forum®.
This Privacy Policy was posted on August 30th 2021. Therefore the policy takes effect for all our Clients from this date.
This policy complies with the UK General Data Protection Regulations (“UK GDPR”) and the Data Protection Act 2018. We therefore process your data securely and transparently.
In most cases, Sense and Forum is a Data Processor, by providing our Client with advice and consultancy support around marketing, events and community and thereby will only process data provided to us with the Client’s consent.
The Client will in most circumstances be identified as the Data Controller for GDPR purposes, who determines the purpose of the data and the means of the same.
Our privacy notice is in accordance with UK GDPR legislation and outlines the type of personal data that we collect and hold about you as a Client. This will include the Client’s full name and business name, contact details including email address, postal address and contact number. It may also include contact details for the Client’s employees or best point of contact.
This is required for the sole purpose of providing our marketing and community consultancy to our Client.
Our privacy notice also explains how we use this information, how long the data is kept for and any other relevant information about your personal data.
1. Data Controller details
Serena G Consulting Ltd T/A Sense and Forum (“Sense and Forum”)
Registered address: 71-75 Shelton Street, London, Greater London, WC2H 9JQ, UK
Email: hello@senseandforum.com
Website: www.senseandforum.com
Contact number: +74 (0)77692296
Company number: 12212578
2. Data protection principles
In relation to personal data, we will:
Process it fairly, lawfully and in a clear, transparent way;
Collect personal data only for specific and legitimate reasons;
Only use it in the way that we have told you about;
Ensure it is correct and up to date;
Keep your data for only as long as we require it;
Process it in a way designed to ensure it will not be lost, destroyed or used for anything that you are not aware of.
3a. Types of data we collect
The types of data that we collect include:
Your personal details including your full name (point of contact name and also, the full business name), address, email address and a phone number.
We collect personal information from you including any electronic devices (such as mobile phones, tablets and desktops) you use when you:
Provide information to us on our contact us page;
Provide us with information on our website when booking a discovery call;
Complete paperwork concerning Client information and retainers;
Update information for your account profile with us and/or when you communicate with us.
We collect this information either because it is necessary so that we can perform our contract of providing our consultancy services to you, it is in our legitimate interests to do so or to meet our legal obligations.
Our Clients must make payments via our website platform for booking one of our services (events and courses) and thus you will be asked to provide this information on our website. The retainer fees are processed in line with the terms and conditions provided within the Client retainer.
3b. How we collect your data
If you are our Client, we collect data about you or your business only, as supplied by you when you sign up for one of our services whether or not listed on our website. This will be collected via our website and any other social media platforms, where applicable. For example, when you book a discovery call with us, any forms we send across for you to complete or through other electronic communications such as emails.
IT Systems
Personal data is held securely on our digital website and our email systems. We ensure all paperwork and written communications is filed away safely and as securely as possible. Access to the above information is solely limited to the owner, employees and assigned agents of Sense and Forum who require access to it to undertake their job duties and in order to provide our marketing, events and community platform.
Our website is overseen and managed by our web host/provider Namecheap.
Marketing correspondence
If you have subscribed to our newsletter via our website or other electronic platform such as social media (Instagram, Twitter and/or Linkedin), we will send you newsletter updates by email to share any news and information on our services and to keep you updated of what we are up to. This is the only time we will send you marketing updates and emails. In order to subscribe to our newsletter we will only ask you to provide us with your first name and your email address.
You can stop receiving marketing newsletters/emails from us at any time by contacting us directly or by clicking unsubscribe on our mailing platform.
Ways to opt out
By clicking on the ‘unsubscribe’ link included in marketing emails/newsletters.
By emailing us at hello@senseandforum.com advising us you opt out. Simply saying “opt out” in the subject line or the body of an email that you send to us is sufficient and we will remove you from our mailing list.
We will never disclose your personal information to third parties.
4. Why we collect your data
To fulfil and deliver our services ensuring we comply with relevant legal obligations to provide our services to our Client.
To let you know of any special offers/news at the time. This is in our legitimate interests to do so to enhance our services and also to grow our business. We, of course, provide the option of opting out of receiving our marketing and newsletters at any time you wish.
To allow you to use our online and/or face to face services fully.
To prevent and detect fraud against either you or us.
5. Why we process your data
Sense and Forum can process your data only for specific purposes due to UK GDPR and data protection law:
So that we can perform a legal contract that we are a party to with our Client;
To ensure we can carry out legally required duties and/or
To ensure we can promote the legitimate interests of Sense and Forum and our Clients, where necessary.
All of the data processing carried out by Sense and Forum falls into one of the permitted reasons. We will need to collect your personal data in order to carry out the contract that we have entered into with you.
We also process data to ensure we can carry out activities that are in the legitimate interests of Sense and Forum.
6. If you do not provide your data to us
Our main reason to process your data is so that we can carry out our contractual duties agreed with you as a Client using our website and our services.
If you do not provide us with the data in order to be able to carry out our contractual duties, we cannot perform our contractual obligations in providing our services to you, specifically and may not be able to proceed with a contract of service.
If you are a party to the contract, we must process your data to comply with our legal obligations, as the Data Processor.
7. Sharing your data
Your data will only be shared with internal colleagues/freelancers recruited by Sense and Forum, if any, to provide our services and in order for them to undertake their duties. We also will not share your personal data with bodies or third parties outside of the European Economic Area.
Sharing your information
We will never share or sell any of your data/personal information with any third party subject to the below specific exceptions.
Exceptions
We may share your data with the following companies, as an essential part of being able to provide our services to you for these specific purposes only:
Professional service providers, such as our software host/web designer/web provider who help us with managing our website;
Our online booking platform provider such as Calendly.
We may also be required to share some of your data with others for the below reasons:
If we are requested by the police or either a regulatory or government authority investigating illegal activities to provide such information concerning your activities whilst using our services, we shall be legally obliged to do so.
8. Protecting your data
We acknowledge our obligation to ensure your data is protected against accidental loss or disclosure, destruction and abuse. We have implemented safeguarding processes for this.
Sense and Forum has taken the following steps to protect personal data of all customers, which it holds or to which it has access:
i. It may appoint or employ individuals with specific responsibilities for:
· Processing and controlling of data.
· The comprehensive reviewing and auditing of its data protection systems and procedures.
· Overseeing the effectiveness and integrity of all the data that must be protected.
ii. It provides its employees/freelancers (if any) with information and training to make them aware of the importance of protecting personal data, to teach them how to do this, and to understand how to treat information confidentially.
iii. It can account for all personal data it holds, where it comes from, who it is shared with and also who it might be shared with.
iv. It carries out risk assessments to identify any vulnerability in its personal data handling and processing, and to take steps in reducing the risks of mishandling and potential breaches of data security.
The process includes an assessment of the impact of both the use and potential misuse of personal data.
v. It recognises the importance of seeking individuals’ consent (where appropriate) for obtaining, recording, using, sharing, storing and retaining their personal data, and regularly reviews its procedures for doing so, including the audit trails that are needed and are followed for all consent decisions.
Sense and Forum understands that consent given by potential and current Clients must be freely given, specific, informed and unambiguous.
Sense and Forum will seek consent on a specific and individual basis, where appropriate. Full information will be given regarding the activities about which consent is sought. Relevant individuals/businesses have the absolute and unimpeded right to withdraw that consent at any time.
It has the appropriate safeguarding processes for detecting, reporting and investigating suspected or actual personal data breaches, including where these are caused by security breaches. It is aware of its duty to report breaches that cause significant harm to the affected individuals to the Information Commissioner's Office and to the Data Subject, and is aware of the possible consequences in failing to do so.
To understand the implications of the transfer of personal data internationally. Where access to your data is required, the following apply:
The principle of legal privilege is always applicable. Therefore those with access to such data will only have the minimum amount of access to a resource that is required for them to undertake their role.
Access to personal data is protected safely. Passwords that are used must meet the specified complexity requirements and must be kept confidential to the user and not shared with anyone else including our colleagues (if any).
We will monitor our software system for possible vulnerabilities and attacks.
Where we share your data with third parties, we have a written agreement with them to ensure that your data is held securely and in line with UK GDPR requirements.
Third parties must implement appropriate technical and organisational measures to ensure the security of your data.
Protecting your information
As you know, the internet is not a 100% secure method for communication and so we are unable to guarantee absolute security of information you send to us (or we send to you) via the internet but we do take great care in doing so. We are not responsible for any damages which you, or others, may suffer as a result of the loss of confidentiality of such information. We take every reasonable precaution to protect your information. We cannot ensure or warrant the security of any information you transmit to us, and you do so at your own risk. We use our best endeavours to ensure it is secure on our systems as has been outlined above.
9. How long do we keep your data?
Sense and Forum keeps your data only for as long as it is necessary for us to keep the same. You are entitled to exercise your right to erasure of this data by making a request verbally or in writing to us (via post or email) though we recommend doing this in writing, where practical.
Once we no longer need your data, we will take steps to delete it. Sense and Forum conducts annual checks of personal data that we hold to ensure everything has been deleted at the end of its retention period. Furthermore, you can remove us within 7 days and transfer all administrative (“admin”)/moderator rights, otherwise we will remove ourselves as admin/moderators from your communities and platforms.
10. Automated decision making
No decision will ever be made about you solely on the basis of ‘automated decision making’ (where a decision is taken about you using an electronic system without human involvement) which has a significant impact on you or your business.
11. Your rights in respect of your data
UK Data protection law and GDPR rules provide you with specific rights in relation to the data we hold about you. These rights are set out as follows in summary:
The right to be informed. This means that we must tell you how we use your data and this is the purpose of this privacy notice.
The right of access. You have the right to access the data that we hold on you. To do so, you should make a data subject access request to the company director: Serena Gasparani by email to hello@senseandforum.com. This information will be provided free of charge, unless a request is manifestly unfounded or excessive, particularly, if it is repetitive. In such circumstances, Sense and Forum may charge a reasonable fee to respond and we will advise you of this, otherwise we may refuse the request.
The right for any inaccuracies to be corrected. If any data that we hold about you is incomplete or inaccurate, you are able to require us to correct it.
The right to have information deleted. If you would like us to stop processing your data, you have the right to ask us to securely delete or destroy it from our systems where you believe there is no reason for us to continue processing it.
The right to restrict the processing of the data. For example, if you believe the data we hold is incorrect, we will stop processing the data (whilst still holding it) until we have ensured that the data is correct.
The right to data portability. You may transfer the data that we hold on you for your own purposes.
The right to object to the inclusion of any information. You have the right to object to the way we use your data where we are using it for our legitimate interests.
The right to regulate any automated decision-making and profiling of personal data. You have a right not to be subject to automated decision making in a way that adversely affects your legal rights. Where you have provided consent to our use of your data, you also have the unrestricted right to withdraw that consent at any time.
Withdrawing your consent means that we will stop processing the data that you had previously given us consent to use. There will be no consequences for withdrawing your consent. However, in some cases, we may continue to use the data where so permitted by having a legitimate reason for doing so such as our obligations for providing our services.
If you wish to exercise any of the rights explained above, please contact us as soon as possible, via email at hello@senseandforum.com.
12. Amendments to our privacy policy
We reserve the right to amend our privacy policy, whilst of course ensuring it complies with relevant GDPR legislation and UK laws. We will ensure that our policy shows the most up to date information and may notify you of such changes by including the revised privacy policy on our website or announcing the same for marketing such as social media platforms that we use.
13. If you wish to make a complaint
We hope that you will be happy with all aspects of our services. In the event that you are unhappy with any of our services or wish to make a complaint, please contact Serena by emailing hello@senseandforum.com so that we can investigate your complaint as soon as possible. We will try our best to provide you with an amicable resolution, where possible within 7 days. If you prefer to speak over the phone about any concerns then please let us know in your email and we will be happy to communicate accordingly.
14. Data Protection Officer
Our Data Protection Officer is Serena Gasparini who can be contacted at hello@senseandforum.com
Cookies Policy
What is a cookie?
A cookie is a piece of data sent from a website and stored on your computer’s hard drive. When you use the same website such as ours again in the future, the data stored in the cookie can be retrieved by the website to notify the same site of your previous activity.
In order to be able to either contact us, book a call or one of our services with us, you must have your cookies enabled.
Our cookies do not store personal information such as your name, contact number, email address and postal address. However, cookies may allow us the ability to access this information once you are logged into your account with us or contacting us via our website, for very specific and legitimate reasons below.
www.senseandforum.com uses cookies for many reasons:
To identify you when you visit our website or when you contact us via our website;
To remember your preferences and past activity on our site;
To allow you to share our services and information on our website with your own social media platforms;
To improve the use of our website, the content and our services;
To offer you a better customer service experience with Sense and Forum.
How can you manage your cookies on our website?
To check your cookies setting or if you prefer to limit, block or delete your cookies from our website, you need to use your browser to access the “Managing your cookies” section of our website. Here you will be able to update your options accordingly.