Edinburgh Women’s Fiction Festival (SCIO) is committed to ensuring the privacy of its members and customers. This Privacy Policy explains how we use your personal information. It may change occasionally so please check this statement from time to time.

Who we are

We are Edinburgh Women’s Fiction Festival (SCIO), a registered charity in Scotland SCO52494 (‘EWFF’).  We are a Scottish Charitable Incorporated Organisation. This Privacy Policy encompasses the activities of EWFF.

What information EWFF collects

We collect personal information from you through you creating an account with us and buying tickets to EWFF events, subscription to our newsletter(s) or membership schemes, competition entry, 

Website data and cookies

Our website keeps track of usage data, such as the source address of the page request (ie your IP address, domain name), date and time of the page request, the referring website (if any) and other parameters in the URL (eg search criteria).

The shopping basket sections of the website use cookies to enable the association of a Basket with the user's computer, thereby enabling the Basket to "remember" the contents of the Basket during a browsing section.

Cookies are placed in the browser file of your computer. You can delete these cookies from your computer or mobile device, however you may find that you are not able to receive the best experience while on our website. To find out how to allow, block, delete and manage the cookies on all standard web browsers, go to www.aboutcookies.org and select the browser and version you are using.

Links to other websites

Our website and social media may contain links to other websites. If you follow a link to any other website from https://www.edwomensficfest.co.uk/ or from our social media, please be aware that the third-party websites and services are not governed by this Privacy Policy. Please check third-party website policies before submitting personal data or using their services.

What EWFF does with your personal information

We use personal information that you give us to answer your enquiries and provide you with information you have requested. We also use this information to better understand website usage and audience attendance so we know what areas of our website and what activities and events customers prefer. Website data is stored in log files and is used for aggregated and statistical reporting but cannot be attributed to you as an individual.

We may use your personal information to keep you informed about EWFF’s events and activities and may contact you from time to time about these. If you have given us permission to do so, we may use your information to email you ebulletins, programme updates and alerts.

We also hold information about you so that we can respect your preferences for being contacted by us.

We may also contact you to send you survey and feedback requests to help us improve our services to you and where we have a legitimate interest to do so – for instance, if you have attended the Edinburgh Women’s Fiction Festival and we are seeking your views about your visit.

We will not share any information we store about you with any third party.

Legal basis for using your information

In some cases, we will only use your personal information where we have your consent (for example, signing up to our mailing list) or because we need to use it to fulfil our contract with you (for example, you have booked tickets with us). We may also need to collect and process your personal data for a legal obligation (for example, when investigating criminal activity).

EWFF may also process your data when it is in our legitimate interests to do so, and when these interests do not override your rights. This means your personal data may be used to help us continue to run EWFF. For instance, we may provide you with information about our launch dates, programme content and other events we may put on, inform you about our membership schemes, advance booking options or fundraising activities.

Legitimate interests

We use several legal bases for processing your personal information including ‘legitimate interest’. Legitimate interest means we may process your information if we have a genuine and legitimate reason and it is not harming your rights and interests. It applies to us using your data in a way you would reasonably expect and that has a minimal privacy impact.

For instance, if you have recently booked a ticket to the festival we may use your data to send you useful information relating to your visit; if you attended the Festival last year, we may send you a copy of the programme this year; if we have a long-standing and on-going relationship with you we may send you information about new event or fundraising activities. Before we use your personal data in this way, we will balance our legitimate interests against your rights and freedoms.

We may inform you about future EWFF events, changes to our festival programme and fundraising activities – all of which help to support and develop the EWFF and allow us to continue to programme events and put on the EWFF in its current form. You have the right to object to this at any time.

Festival authors, participants and traders

If you are participating in our the main EWFF programme or in events at other times of the year, we may use your information to:

• Contact you regarding your event

• Invite you to participate in future events

• Contact you in case of emergencies or last-minute alterations to the festival programme

• Carry out our obligations arising from any contracts entered into by you and us

• Seek your views and comments regarding the EWFF and our services

• Process your ticket bookings

Information regarding your nationality and country of residence is optional, and is anonymised for statistical reporting, monitoring purposes and for funding applications.

Volunteers (Includes Trustees)

If you apply to volunteer with EWFF we may use your information to:

• Contact you with information regarding volunteering roles at EWFF

• Invite you to accept a volunteering role at EWFF

• Contact you with information regarding your specific role for example profile timetables, rotas

• Contact you to invite you to training activities and meetings

• Seek your views and comments regarding the EWFF and our services

• On occasion we may need to share volunteer information with others on request, for example auditors.  We will not do this without first seeking consent by letter or email.

Personal information will be kept until your volunteer role ends, at which point it will be destroyed, unless you have asked us to retain it for longer by written request. 

Children’s privacy

Children will attend and could contribute to the EWFF and their privacy is of the utmost importance to us. Any child under the age of 14 should always ask a parent or teacher for permission before making any type of online enquiry.

Compliance with law

We will release personal information where we are required to by law or by the regulations and other rules (including auditing requirements) to which we are subject. We may also exchange information with other companies and organisations for fraud protection and credit risk reduction.

Your rights

You have the right to:

• be informed about how we use your personal information

• require us to correct any inaccuracies in your information

• withdraw your consent at any time (if you have given consent)

• obtain and reuse your personal data for your own purpose

• not to be subject to a decision based on automated processing (automated decision-making and profiling)

• be forgotten and have your personal data erased (in certain circumstances). You can make this request verbally or in writing and we will respond within one month

• object to our processing of your personal information where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground

• object to our processing of your personal information for marketing and communication purposes

Updating your personal information and preferences

If you wish to update your details:

• Click unsubscribe in any email communication that we send you

• Contact us directly, in writing to: Edinburgh Women's Fiction Festival, 29 Howe Street, Edinburgh, EH3 6TF or by email edinburghwomensfictionfestival@gmail.com 

Retaining your information

We will only keep your personal data for as long as is reasonable and necessary. Some retention periods will be determined by legal or professional guidelines and others by our internal policies. At the end of a retention period we will review and delete data as required.

Use of photographs

Each year we commission a photographer to take images of people at the EWFF. Some of the resulting images are used on this website and in our printed materials to promote the festival, its services and activities. We take every measure to ensure the subjects of the photographs (or a parent/carer) grant permission for the image/s to be used by us to promote the EWFF at the time the photograph is taken. Should you believe that an image should not be used for any valid reason please contact us and we will remove it.

Where your data may be processed

All the personal data we collect and handle is processed by us in the UK however for website hosting and maintenance your information may be situated outside of the European Economic Area (EEA). Any transfer of your personal data will follow applicable laws and we will treat the information under the guiding principles of this privacy notice.

Further information

If you need any additional information or explanation, or have any concerns about the information we hold about you, please email us at edinburghwomensfictionfestival@gmail.com

Last updated June 2024