Our Principles
The Lowry Privacy Policy
Not withstanding the other provisions of this policy the details of each booker will be retained for 14 days from the date if the event you are attending and if required will be shared with the NHS track and trace service.
The Lowry is committed to protecting your privacy. We will use the information that we collect about you in accordance with the Data Protection Act 2018, the General Data Protection Regulation 2016 and the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003.
Who We Are
The Lowry is a national arts organisation and a registered charity. We receive 5.5% of our funding from Arts Council England and Salford City Council. The rest of our income comes from sponsorships, donations and commercial activities such as ticket sales (although a high proportion of our artistic programme is free), conferences and events, catering and retail.
The Lowry Centre Trust, Pier 8, The Quays, Salford M50 3AZ is a company limited by guarantee (registration number 3168108) and a registered charity (charity number 1053962). Its subsidiary company The Lowry Centre Limited, which is a private limited company (registration number 3255905) undertakes commercial activities for the benefit of the group.
The Lowry also acts as Data Controller for the following:
Quaytickets, which is a trading name of The Lowry Centre Limited;
northwestdance, The Lowry’s youth dance partnership; and
Quays Culture, the home of inspiring digital, interactive art at MediaCityUK, Salford Quays.
Our Privacy and Data Principles
• To provide clear, honest and open information about how we use your data
• To give you the choice about how we use your data
• To use your data appropriately and in a way that would be reasonably expected by you
• To only share your data with other organisations where you have given your consent for us to do so, or where we need to do so in order to fulfil our contract with you.
• To be accountable and responsible: to take active steps to protect your data from harm, and to have separate and enhanced procedures for the use of sensitive data (such as data relating to children or disability)
• To ensure our staff, volunteers and partners (suppliers and artists) understand these principles and their responsibilities in delivering them
What Information We Collect
Buying Tickets
You give us your information when you buy a ticket, buy something on our website, sign up for one of our events, make a donation or Gift Aid declaration, or communicate with us. If you have signed up to our Access Register (as outlined in further detail here), we will also note this in your customer record.
The information you give us may include:
• Name
• Address
• Email Address
• Contact Telephone Number(s)
We maintain a record of your transaction history, but we never store your card number (although we may keep a note of the last four digits to help us identify transactions).
Email, Web Activity and Social Media
We keep a record of the emails we send you, and we may track whether you receive or open them so we can make sure we are sending you the most relevant information. We may then track any subsequent actions online, such as buying a ticket.
Like most websites, we receive and store certain details whenever you use The Lowry website. We use “cookies” to help us make our site – and the way you might use it – better. Cookies mean that a website will remember you and enable online transactions. It also helps us understand how you use our website, where we can make improvements and how best to tell our audiences about events they might be interested in. For more information on our Cookie Policy click here.
We use social media to broadcast messages and updates about events and news. On occasion we may reply to comments or questions you make to us on social media platforms. You may also see adverts from us on social media that are tailored to your interests. Depending on your settings or the privacy policies on social media and messaging services like Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter, you might give third parties (like The Lowry) permission to access information from those accounts or services.
From Third Parties
Your information may be shared with us by other organisations and websites, but only when you have indicated that you give your consent to hear from us. You should check their Privacy Policy when you provide your information to understand fully how they will process your data.
Information Available Publicly
This may include information found in places such as Companies House, your biography on your work website or information that has been published in articles/ newspapers.
Sensitive Data
Any data regarding children, disability or medical need, religion, political affiliation, sexuality or ethnicity is regarded as sensitive, and we take steps to ensure that any such information is only collected where necessary (for example when you ask us to record dietary requirements). We only collect sensitive data where we have gained your explicit consent, for example where you wish to join our Access Register. It is subject to enhanced security measures, used only for the purposes agreed, and erased when no longer necessary.
CCTV
The Lowry operates CCTV both inside and outside our buildings with the purpose of reducing the threat of crime generally, protecting The Lowry’s premises and helping to ensure the safety of all our staff, volunteers and visitors, consistent with respect for the individuals’ privacy.
What We Do With Your Data
We use our legitimate business interest or the performance of a contract between us and you, to use the information we hold about you to select and inform you of other relevant events or activities we think may be of interest to you, as well as opportunities to support our work as an Arts Charity.
We use your data to:
• Provide you with tickets you have booked or respond to information you have asked for
• Administer your ticket sale or donation, including processing Gift Aid
• Contact you if there are any important changes to your booking
• Keep a record of your relationship with us
• Ensure we know how you prefer to be contacted
• Occasionally undertake customer research to help us understand how we can improve our services or information
• Tell you about changes in our services or new services, events, offers, and opportunities to support us that we think you’ll find of interest
• Analyse your personal information to create a profile of your interests and preferences so that we can contact you with information most relevant to you
If you would rather NOT receive direct marketing communications by post, telephone or email from us about our facilities, events and opportunities to support our work, you can ask us to stop contacting you for that purpose at any time by using the contact details in the ‘Contact Us’ section below.
When supplying your email address as part of a booking, you will be given the option to ‘opt-out’ of marketing communications about similar goods and services (performances, exhibitions, events, workshops, The Lowry Shop and Pier Eight Bar & Restaurant), and unless you do so we will continue to send you information of this kind by email in accordance our legitimate business interest. You can unsubscribe at any point, using the link on each email, or by contacting us.
Where we rely on our legitimate business interest to process your personal data, we confirm that we have identified a legitimate interest, have identified that the processing is necessary to achieve it and we have balanced this interest against your individual interests, rights and freedoms. We have also undertaken a legitimate interest assessment to justify our decision.
Information Available Publicly and Data Profiling
We may combine information you provide to us with information available from external sources in order to gain a better understanding of our audiences, visitors and supporters to improve our fundraising and marketing methods.
To ensure our fundraising is appropriate, we may use additional information from third party sources when it is available. Such information is compiled using publicly available data about you, for example addresses, listed Directorships or typical earnings in a given area.
This type of profiling allows us to target our resources effectively, to understand the background of the people who attend our theatres and galleries, and who support us. This helps us to make appropriate requests to customers and supporters who may be able and willing to give more than they already do. Importantly, it enables us to raise more funds, sooner, and more cost-effectively, than we otherwise would. If you would prefer us NOT to use your data in this way, you can ask us not to.
Sharing Your Data With Third Parties
We will not share any personal details with any other third parties without your agreement, unless required in order to fulfil our contract with you, or allowed by law.
In general, the third-party providers used by us to fulfil our contract with you will only collect, use and disclose your information to the extent necessary to allow them to perform the services they provide to us. These providers include our Ticketing and Events Systems providers, Email and Mail distribution services. We have agreements in place with each to ensure that your data is secure at all times, and cannot be accessed or used for any other purpose.
We may share personal information with other organisations, particularly The Audience Agency, and UK Theatre who use this to analyse ticket sales for national and regional research into patterns of Arts attendance in England. This assists with reporting to funders and strategic planning, helping us to make better business decisions. Your personal data is never used by them to contact you, nor passed or sold on to any other agencies or companies, and we have agreements in place to ensure this.
We use Counting What Counts as our Processor to power selected evaluations each year. We have signed a legally-binding agreement with NPO and Arts Council England confirming CWC will only collect and store information about you according to our instructions, based on how we use their self-serve platform. CWC has taken steps to minimise the amount of personal data it can see or access when processing on our behalf and to make sure it’s appropriately secured. See the CWC Privacy Policy.
When booking a ticket you may be given the choice to also hear from the artistic company you have booked to see. Where you explicitly agree for us to do so, we will pass your data to the relevant company and they will be in touch with you to communicate their own Privacy and Data Policy. Should you then wish not to hear from them, please get in touch with them directly.
How We Keep Your Data Safe
Your personal data will be held and processed on The Lowry’s systems. We maintain secure systems to hold contact details and a record of your interactions with us such as ticket purchases, donations, memberships, queries, complaints and attendance at special events. Where possible we aim to keep a single record for each customer.
Your data is always held securely. Access to customer information is strictly controlled and can only be accessed by people who need it in order to do their job. Certain data, for example sensitive information, is additionally controlled and is only made visible to members of staff who have a reason to work with it.
We may need to disclose your details if required to by the police, regulatory bodies or legal advisors.
We will only ever share your data in other circumstances if we have your explicit and informed consent as detailed above.
All information received by us is retrieved using secure technology. In order to provide a safe and secure environment for your personal information we use up to date technology with a view to protecting that information against loss, misuse or unauthorised alteration.
Data is held by us for as long as is legally or practically necessary for our business. Once that necessity is past we have a regular programme of data suppression and deletion. This ensures that your data is not held indefinitely on our systems.
To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal requirements.
Data Transfers
Where personal data must be transferred outside the European Economic Area, we ensure that adequate security measures are in place. Where we must transfer data to America, with providers such as, but not limited to, Facebook, Shopify, Twitter, Sprout Social and MailChimp, we ensure that they are registered under the EU-US Privacy Shield.
Giving You Control
Unless you ask us not to, we will use our Legitimate Business Interests to tell you about events, priority booking, ticket offers and opportunities to support us for up to ten years after your last ticket purchase. You can opt out from these communications at any time via your online account, or by contacting us directly (see below).
If you have opted out of marketing or fundraising communications, we will only get in touch with you regarding your enquiry, booking or contract with us. For example, we may email you to give you important information about the show you’ve booked for with any changes that affect you.
If you have an online account, you can control your communication preferences in the ‘Account Information’ tab of your account. You can also ask The Lowry’s ticket sales agents to update your preferences whenever you make a booking in person or on the telephone.
Your Rights
You have the following rights related to your personal data:
• The right to withdraw consent at any time
• The right to request a copy of personal information held about you
• The right to request that inaccuracies be corrected
• The right to request us to stop processing your personal data
• The right to lodge a complaint with supervisory bodies such as the Information Commissioner’s Office or Fundraising Regulator
• The right to erasure of personal data
• The right to restriction of processing
• The right to data portability
If you wish to exercise any of the rights set out above, please contact us using the details below. If you are unhappy with how we are processing your personal data, you have the right to complaint to the ICO. The Information Commissioner can be contacted at:
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
Contact Us
Please contact us if you have any questions about how your data is used, data retention periods, or wish to be removed from any communications or data processing activities:
Email us on data@thelowry.com
Or write to us at: The Data Team, The Lowry, Pier 8, Salford Quays, M50 3AZ
Updates to this policy
- Updated Tue 9 July 2019
- Updated Thu 5 September 2019
- Updated Tue 7 January 2020