We respect your right to privacy — this document describes our privacy policy, and our information-gathering and dissemination practices.

At Hello Scotland we respect your right to privacy. Our relationship with you is valuable and we understand the importance you place on the privacy and security of information that personally identifies you. In that respect, and whether you are a first time visitor to our website or a regular guest, we take your privacy seriously. Please read the following in order to learn more about our privacy policy and our information gathering and dissemination practices.

The information we collect and what we use it for
Hello Scotland collects personally identifiable information when you register with us and when you use our services. We may also receive information about you from our business partners or marketing firms. We ask you for personal data only when it is needed to provide you with access to restricted areas of our site, with goods or services, or to respond to your requests. Our registration process involves providing us with your name, organisation name, address, telephone and fax number and e-mail address. We also receive and record information by tracking user traffic patterns throughout our pages to maintain a record of the movements of visitors to our site such as the page visited and the service requested.

Hello Scotland uses this information in order to customise the advertising and content you see on our pages, to fulfil your request for certain products and services, to communicate with you generally and to contact you about special offers, promotions, competitions or new products.

What information do we share?
There are times when we require to share the information we learn from you with other parties. However, the information we hold on our customers is an important part of our business and it is not our business to sell or rent this information to others. We will send personally identifiable information about our customers to other companies or people, however, in the following situations:
· Agents: We employ other companies and individuals to perform functions in certain situations on our behalf. Examples of these functions include sending postal mail and e-mail, providing marketing assistance and data analysis, handling credit card transactions, fulfilling orders and providing customer service. These agents have access to the personal information required in order to perform their functions but may not use it for any other purpose.
· Subsidiaries and strategic partners : We share customer information with subsidiaries or group companies under our control and also with our affiliated businesses but we only share customer information relating to a transaction with that business.
· Competitions and/or Promotional Offers: Other companies sometimes ask us to market their products and/or services on our site or offer prizes for our competitions. We sometimes send details of offers and/or competitions to our customers on behalf of these other businesses. When we do this, we do not give that business your name and address unless you respond to the promotional offer or enter the competition. If you don't want to receive these details, please let us know by e-mailing us at feedback@helloscotland.com
· Sponsors: We sometimes receive sponsorship for our site from third parties and we sometimes share your contact details with these sponsors. If you do not wish you details to be shared with our sponsors please email us at feedback@helloscotland.com.
· Business Transfers: We are continually trying to expand and improve our business and we may sell or buy businesses or assets in these transactions. Customer information is generally one of the transferred business assets in these situations and in the event that Hello Scotland or substantially all of its assets are acquired, customer information may be one of the transferred assets.
· Compliance with law: We will release personal information on our customers where we are required to by law. We may also exchange other information with other companies and organisations for fraud protection and credit risk reduction.
· Customer consent: Other than in the above situations you will receive notice from us when your personal information might go to third parties and you will have the opportunity to decide not to share that information.

Security
In order to provide a safe and secure environment for your personal information we try to use up to date technology with a view to protecting that information against loss, misuse or unauthorised alteration. The effectiveness of our safety measures can be enhanced by you creating passwords that cannot be easily accessed, guessed or reproduced by unauthorised persons. Hard copy and other back ups of the data you store on our website are also made on a regular basis for disaster recovery purposes but we cannot guarantee the current version of any work or other data you send to or store on our website will be recoverable.

Cookies
A cookie is a small data file that certain web sites write to your hard drive when you visit them. The only personal information a cookie can contain is information a user supplies him or herself. A cookie can't read data off your hard disk or read cookie files created by other sites. Cookies, however, enhance our web site performance in a number of ways including providing a secure way for us to verify your identity during your visit to our website and personalising your experience on our site making it more convenient for you. Hello Scotland therefore uses cookie technology to track or record information about visitors to our site these cookies are "session specific" and are not used to record personal information or to associate personal information with the use of the Hello Scotland service. Your privacy and security are not compromised when you accept a cookie from our website. You can refuse cookies by turning them off on your web browser and you do not need to have cookies turned on to successfully use our service.

Changes to Privacy Policy
We may edit this policy from time to time. If we make any substantial changes we will notify you by posting a prominent announcement on our web pages.

If you have any questions or suggestions regarding this policy, wish to update your personal details or believe we are not properly adhering to this policy, please send an e-mail to feedback@helloscotland.com.