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Privacy Policy

We value your privacy. This policy sets out your privacy rights and how we collect, use, disclose, transfer, and store your personal data.

Last updated: 17th January 2025

1. Introduction

This privacy notice explains in detail the types of personal data we may collect about you when interacting with us. It also explains how we store and handle it and keep it safe. This privacy notice aims to inform you about how we collect and process any information that we collect from you, or that you provide us. It covers information that could identify you (“personal information”) and information that could not. In the context of the law and this notice, “process” means collect, store, transfer, use or otherwise act on information. It tells you about your privacy rights and how the law protects you.

This policy is issued to comply with the General Data Protection Regulation, which came into effect on 25 May 2018. We hope that the following sections will answer any questions that you have, but if not, please do get in touch with us. You can find our contact details at the bottom of this notice.

2. What is The WOW! Awards

• The WOW! Awards is a trading name of The WOW Awards Limited, a company registered in the UK, which we will refer to as the Company in this document.
• Our Client(s) are organisations contracted with The WOW! Awards to provide the services detailed below and are referred to as such in this document.
• The Company provides a unique employee recognition programme to its Clients. We do this by providing systems for our Clients’ customers to tell us (i.e. nominate) when they have received excellent customer service. By recognising the achievements of individuals, teams and companies that have been nominated, we encourage people to take pride in their work and deliver more great service in the future.

3. Explaining the legal bases that we rely on for keeping data

The law sets out a number of different reasons for which we may collect and process personal data.

a. Consent

In specific situations, we collect and process your data with your consent. For example, if you tick a box to receive information from us. We will always make it clear what your data will be used for.

b. Contractual obligations

We may process your personal data to comply with our contractual obligations. For example, if you are a customer, Client, or supplier to the Company, we will process your personal data to meet our contractual obligations.

c. Legal compliance

In some cases, we may be required by law to collect and process your data.

d. Legitimate interest

In this situation, we require your data to pursue our legitimate interests in a way that would be considered reasonable to the running of our business, and which does not affect your rights, freedom, or interests.

4. When do we collect and process your personal data?

• When you make a nomination for The WOW! Awards.
• When you contact us through our website
• When you become a customer, Client or supplier.
• When you engage with us on social media.
• When you contact us by any means with queries or requests.
• When you make an appointment with us or attend an event.
• When you choose to complete any survey that we send to you.
• When you have given a third-party permission to share your information with us.

5. Third Party websites

Our platform may contain links to other websites, but that doesn’t mean we endorse those websites. We encourage you to review the privacy policies for these third-party websites because their procedures for collecting, handling, and processing personal data might be different to ours.

6. What personal data do we collect and how do we use it?

• If you have made a nomination for The WOW! Awards, we will ask you for your name and email address and/or telephone number on behalf of our Client. We will also collect details of the person you are nominating. If you choose to do so and provided, we have your consent, we may also collect digital images that you have uploaded.
• The nomination will be processed by The WOW! Awards, and any information you have chosen to provide will be shared with our Client and the person(s)/team you nominated.
• The WOW! Awards, our Client or trusted partners may show your name and digital images only with the nomination on a certificate, online and in our communications and marketing eg press releases, publications, training materials and books.
• If you ask us not to, we will not publish your name online.
• We will never sell your data to third parties, and you will never be added to any marketing lists without your express consent.
• If you are someone we trade with or have expressed an interest in trading with us, we will keep your name and contact details and record any communication with you. We may use this data to keep you informed of services and events that we feel would be of value to you. We do not share your data with any other party.
• If you wish to change how we use your data, please see “What are my rights?” section below.
• If you choose not to share your personal details with us, or refuse contact permissions, then we might not be able to provide you with some of the services that you’ve asked for.
• Sometimes, we may need to share some of your details with a third party, for example, to arrange a delivery. Without sharing your data, we may be unable to fulfil your requests.

7. Combining your data for personalised direct marketing

We may receive and use data from third parties to whom you have given your consent to pass that data onto us, for example organisers of conferences that you have attended. We may combine this data with information that we have received directly from you.

8. Third Party processors

We may undertake marketing activities to promote the Company’s services to new clients.

We periodically appoint digital marketing agents to conduct marketing activity on our behalf, such activity may result in the compliant processing of personal information about you.

9. How we protect your personal data

We know how important data security is to all our customers and contacts. With that in mind we will treat your data with the utmost care and respect.

• All transactional areas of our websites are protected with “Https” technology.
• Access to all data is password-protected.
• We do not store any sensitive data.
• We regularly review our systems to ensure that your data is safe and protected from any possible attack. We also regularly train all our people on the importance of data security and our procedures for protecting your data.

10. How long will we keep your personal data?

We will only keep your data for as long as is reasonably necessary and for the purpose for which it was collected.

• Sensitive data such as credit card details are never retained beyond the processing of a transaction.
• If you have made a nomination for The WOW! Awards, your personal data collected when making a nomination will be retained for a maximum of 36 months unless you request that it be deleted beforehand.
• Client data, including the Client’s employee data, will be retained until the client provides an update and for the period we continue to provide services to the Client.
• At the point where The WOW! Awards cease to provide services to the Client, an agreement will be reached on how all personal data associated with the Client and the Client’s customers will be retained by The WOW! Awards, but in any event, it will not be retained for more than 2 years from the point of termination.

11. Who do we share your personal data with?

• We may share your personal details with trusted third parties, such as a delivery company, if we are sending you something. We will only provide the information that they need to complete their specific service.
• We may work with trusted third parties such as IT companies who support our website and business systems. All third-party suppliers will be required to complete a Supplier Questionnaire to confirm that their people are adequately trained in Data Protection Compliance and that they would treat any data they have access to in accordance with our own standards and will not retain any data beyond the specific purpose for which they have been engaged.
• We may occasionally be required to share data with law enforcement bodies for example if a fraud is believed to have occurred.
• We will never share your data with any other third party without your consent.

12. Where your personal data may be processed?

Your data is stored on our servers in the UK or European Economic Area (EEA). Some of our people may be working outside of the UK or EEA and processing your data. We will ensure that all data processing outside of the UK or EEA receives the same protection as if it were being processed inside the UK or EEA.

13. What are your rights over your personal data?

You have the right to request:

• Access to the personal data that we hold about you without charge.
• The correction of your personal data when incorrect, out of date or incomplete.
• That we stop using your personal data for direct marketing.
• That we stop any consent-based processing of your data after you withdraw that consent.
• That we review any decision made based solely on automatic processing of your data (ie where no person has yet reviewed the outcome and criteria for the decision)

You can contact us to exercise any of these rights at any time:

• To ask for your personal data, please contact The Data Protection Officer, The WOW! Awards Ltd, Stevenage Arts & Leisure Centre, Lytton Way, Stevenage, Hertfordshire, SG1 1LZ, United Kingdom or email dpo@thewowawards.co.uk. To ask for your information to be amended, please contact our customer support team on 01438 567213. If you are dialing from outside of the UK, please call us on +44 1438 567213.
  If we refuse to action any request, we will explain the reasons for our refusal.
• When you have given us consent to use your personal data, you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time.
• Where we rely on legitimate interest you can ask us to stop processing your personal data for reasons connected to your individual situation. We must then do so unless we have a legitimate overriding reason to continue in which case, we will explain our reason to you.
• You have the right to stop the use of your personal data for direct marketing and we will always comply with your request.
• To protect your confidentiality, we will ask you to verify your identity before proceeding with any request that you make under this privacy notice. If you have asked a third party to submit a request, then we will ask them to prove that they have your permission to act on your behalf.

14. How can you stop the use of your personal data for direct marketing?

• If you click the unsubscribe link on any email communication that we send you, we will stop all further emails.
• Please note that you may continue to receive communications from us for a short while after changing your preferences.

Contacting the Regulator

If you feel that your data has been handled incorrectly or you are unhappy with any response to your requests regarding your personal data, you have the right to make a complaint to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). You can contact the ICO on 0303 123 1113 or go online to www.ico.org.uk/concerns.

If you are outside of the UK, you have the right to make a complaint to the relevant data protection regulator in your country.

Any questions?

We hope that this Privacy Notice is helpful in explaining how we work with personal data to protect your best interests and your legal rights. If you have any questions on any matter that has not been covered, please contact our Data Protection Office who will be pleased to help you.

• Email dpo@thewowawards.co.uk
• Or write to us at: The Data Protection Officer, The WOW! Awards Ltd, Stevenage Arts & Leisure Centre, Lytton Way, Stevenage, Hertfordshire, SG1 1LZ, United Kingdom.

Cookies Policy

We use cookies to measure performance and provide you with a better experience.

About this policy

This Cookie Policy explains what cookies are and how we use them. You should read this policy to understand what cookies are, how we use them, the types of cookies we use i.e, the information we collect using cookies and how that information is used and how to control the cookie preferences. For further information on how we use, store and keep your personal data secure, please refer to the section of the page titled ‘Privacy Policy‘.

You can at any time change or withdraw your consent from the Cookie Declaration on our website.

Your consent applies to this website, www.thewowawards.co.uk.

What are cookies?

Cookies are small text files that are used to store small pieces of information. The cookies are stored on your device when the website is loaded on your browser. These cookies help us make the website function properly, make the website more secure, provide better user experience, and understand how the website performs and to analyze what works and where it needs improvement.

How do we use cookies?

As with most online services, our website uses first-party and third-party cookies for a number of purposes. The first-party cookies are mostly necessary for the website to function the right way, and they do not collect any of your personally identifiable data.

The third-party cookies used on our website:

1. help us to understand how the website performs and how you interact with it
2. help to keep our services secure
3. help us to provide providing advertisements that are relevant to you
4. and generally just provide you with an improved user experience.

What types of cookies do we use?

The below list details the cookies used in our website.

Controlling your cookie preferences

You can manage your cookies preferences by clicking on the “Choose cookies” link in the prompt that pops up when you visit our website. Here you can enable or disable cookie categories according to your preferences. If you wish to change your preferences, you can use the link below to access the settings popup.

In addition to this, different browsers provide different methods to block and delete cookies used by websites. To find out more out more on how to manage and delete cookies, visit www.allaboutcookies.org.