PRIVACY POLICY EFFECTIVE DATE: 18 October 2021

We take your privacy seriously. This Privacy Policy explains what personal information we collect and how we use it.

We encourage you to read this policy thoroughly.

When we refer to ‘Montgomery’ in this Privacy Policy, we mean Angus Montgomery Limited, subsidiaries, joint ventures and associates.

Montgomery is the parent company of a group of companies which includes; Montgomery Events Ltd, FIT Events Ltd, Specialised Exhibitions Pty Ltd, Montgomery Events Asia Ltd and Afrocet Montgomery Exhibitions and Events Ltd. The Montgomery group of companies has its corporate HQ in London, UK and its operational HQs in locations including Johannesburg, South Africa and Singapore. You can find out more about Montgomery including a list of subsidiary, joint venture and associate companies on our website at www.montgomerygroup.com.

Montgomery is responsible for processing the personal information you provide to us and is registered with the Information Commissioners Office in the UK under the UK Data Protection Act 1998.

If there’s anything you’re unsure about in this Privacy Policy, feel free to contact us at data@montgomerygroup.com.

We will need to ask you for certain personal information to give you the best possible experience when you engage with us (via our websites or otherwise) and when you use our products and services.

We will also collect other information about you and the devices you use to access our website, or we may ask third parties to do this for us, in these cases we do so by using technologies such as cookies.

When you enquire to exhibit, register to visit or sign up to one of our newsletters we will ask you to provide some contact information. Contact information may include some or all of the following: full name, residential address, landline phone number, mobile phone number, email address.

Where the services or products you select carry a cost, we will ask you to provide some payment information. Payment information may include some or all of the following: credit card and debit card details. This data is not stored by Montgomery.

We may also ask you to provide some professional information when you enquire to exhibit, register to visit or sign up to of our newsletters. Professional information may include some or all of the following: company name, company address, company email address.

For most of the services you access on our website, we will ask you to provide security information that only you will know. Security information may include some or all of the following: username, mother’s maiden name, password and memorable word.

We also collect certain data automatically from your visit to our website or use of our services. This may include (but is not limited to) some or all of the following: How you connect to the internet (including IP address), how you engage with our site, screen resolution, browser data stored on your device (such as cookies), information about the device software you are using such as internet browser and location data (city, region of the IP address you used when accessing our services).

We use your personal information in lots of ways to make our products and services as effective as possible.

To accept you as a new/returning customer and continue to provide you with our products and services.

To let you know by email, post or when you log in to the site if there are significant changes to our products and services, their features, our terms, or our privacy policy.

As part of providing services to you we will confirm your identity and authenticate the information you provide for security purposes.

Establishing your identity is important as the services we offer are only relevant for specific audiences so we must be sure you are who you say you are. Identity checking may also involve checking the registration information you give us against information we already hold about you if you are a returning customer and potentially publicly available information about you such as from social media.

If we are unable to confirm your identity from the registration information you provide, we will let you know by using the contact details you have provided and you may then have the option to make a written application and provide further proof of your identity.

We will use your information to process the payments you commit to when signing up to our services or purchasing our products and for the collection of any future payments or overdue amounts for those services or products.

We will use your information to be able to provide and improve the customer support we provide to you (e.g. when you have questions or when you forget your log-in information).

We will use your information to contact you to tell you about changes to or issues affecting the products or services you are taking.

We will use your information for marketing purposes such as if we think one of our products, services or offers, or those of our third party partners, may interest you, we or they may contact you about them by email, SMS, on the phone or through the post.

You can opt out of marketing communications at any time by following the instructions in the email or SMS or by contacting us at data@montgomerygroup.com.

Montgomery may select particular customers and invite them to be involved in market research. If you accept this invitation, we will use the feedback you give us to improve our products and services.

From time to time we will run prize draws, competitions, promotions and surveys and, we will use the personal data you provide to us, to run such activities and to do what we agree to do as part of them.

We may use your information to ensure that our team has the best knowledge and expertise they need to ensure we provide the best possible experience to our customers when interacting with us.

We will use your information for reporting and analytical purposes (e.g. how many of our customers are in the north or south of the country) to enable us to improve our products and services and to provide appropriate levels of support to our customers.

We will use your information to track your activity on our websites to help us better understand your interests and how you interact with us. We may also use this information to help us detect if someone else is trying to access your account or use the services you take from us. We will also use this information to better engage with you and to ensure that you get the best service we can provide and improve our products and services in the future.

Like any business, we need to ensure that we maintain comprehensive and up to date records of the ways we process your personal information and other operational activities and therefore we will process the information you provide for record-keeping, updates and general administrative purposes.

Whilst we will try to make sure that you are happy with the products and services we provide and do not feel the need to complain, if you do complain to us, we will use the information we have about you to help us manage your complaint.

Like any other business, we are required to comply with many laws and regulations. We will, where necessary, use your personal data to the extent required to enable us to comply with these requirements.

Montgomery may use performance tracking technology within our emails to improve our future interactions with you. This means we are able to capture information including (but not limited to) the time and date you open our e-mails and the type of device used to open the email.

We use this information primarily to understand whether our e-mails are opened and what links are clicked on by our customers. We then use this information to improve the emails that we send to you and the services that we provide.

If we use your personal information for any purposes that are not set out in this Privacy Policy, we will to let you know exactly what we will use it for before we go ahead and use it and obtain your consent where appropriate.

Data protection laws require that, where we process your personal data, we must satisfy at least one prescribed condition for processing. These are set out in data protection law and we rely on a number of different conditions for the activities we carry out.

In most cases, the information described above will be provided to us by you because you want to take services from us or engage with us and our use of your information will be governed by contract terms. Giving this information to us is therefore your choice. If you choose not to give all or some of it to us, this may affect our ability to provide the services you want, to you. In particular, we may rely on this condition for processing in the following scenarios:

• To grant you entry to an event or exhibition or conference.
• To allow your company to exhibit or partake in an event or exhibition or conference.
• To enable you to access our website and use our services.
• To let you know about significant changes to our product or services, terms or privacy policy.
• To confirm your identity and authenticate the information you provide.
• To process payments and collect arrears.
• To provide and improve customer support.
• To provide alerts.
• To send you service communications.

Where we collect other information from you such as enquiry forms on websites, or when we use cookies to collect information about the device you use to access our website, or sometimes third parties collect this on our behalf. You will be asked to consent to this before using our website. If you choose not to give your consent, or you later remove your consent, this may affect our ability to provide the services you want, to you. We may also rely on consent in the following scenarios:

• Marketing - From time to time, we would like to let you know about products, services and offers from Montgomery and our partners.

• Market research – we may send you invitations to participate in market research (see below). If you do so, your feedback is given with your consent.

• Administration of prize draws, competitions, membership offers, surveys and other promotional activities

In the United Kingdom, we can also use personal information where the benefits of doing it are not outweighed by the interests or fundamental rights or freedoms of individuals. The law calls this the “Legitimate Interests” condition for processing. Where we rely on it, the benefits being pursued by us are:

• Running a commercial business - Like any commercial organisation, we run a business and process information where necessary to do so. We also provide services to third parties which help them to run their businesses more effectively and efficiently. We have put in place various safeguards to ensure that individuals’ whose personal information we handle are not unduly harmed by the activities we use their personal data for. These include making information available to individuals so that they understand how their personal data will be used by Montgomery, explaining their rights to obtain the information we hold and to have their information corrected or restricted and providing information about how individuals can complaint if they are dissatisfied.
• Reporting and analytical purposes - To provide management information and information to improve our services.
• Tracking activity - To help us to improve our services.
• To maintain our records and other administrative purpose - To enable Montgomery to provide the most accurate data for our customers and clients.
• Complaint and dispute resolution - We will need to use customer data when looking into queries and complaints.
• To improve data accuracy and completeness - When you register for our services you may supply us with additional information about yourself which we will use to improve our data accuracy and completeness.
• Email tracking - In order to improve our communications to our customers.
• Invitations to participate in market research - In order to improve the service we offer to customers, we may ask you to participate in research for time to time. It is entirely up to you whether you chose to do so.

WHO WE SHARE YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION WITH

We share your personal information only with those persons who need to handle it so we can provide the products and services from Montgomery and its subsidiaries, joint ventures or associates that you’ve signed up to or purchased. We also share it with suppliers who provide services to us which require access to your personal information only; and with resellers, distributors and agents involved in delivering the services we provide where necessary for them to do so.

Lastly, we may also provide your personal information to fraud prevention agencies. This is to protect the Montgomery group of companies and our customers, to keep our systems secure, or where it’s necessary to protect either yours or our best interests.

1. Group companies

Montgomery and its subsidiaries, joint ventures and associates benefit from the IT infrastructure and expertise that exists in our business. This means that the personal data you provide to us may be accessed by members of our group of companies for support and administrative purposes.

2. Suppliers

We use a number of service providers to support our business and these service providers may have access to our systems and data in order to provide services to us and/or to you on our behalf.

3. Resellers, distributors and agents

We sometimes use organisations to help provide our products and services to clients and customers. Personal data may be provided to them in connection with this purpose. 

4. Individuals

You can obtain a copy of the information we hold about you. See section Your rights to how we use your personal information for further information on how you can do this.

Montgomery is based in the UK, which is where our main databases are. We also operate elsewhere in and outside the European Economic Area, so we may access your personal information from and transfer it to these locations as well. Don’t worry though, any personal information we access from or transfer to these locations is protected by European data protection standards.

While countries in the European Economic Area all ensure rigorous data protection laws, there are parts of the world that may not be quite so rigorous and don’t provide the same quality of legal protection when it comes to your personal information.

To make sure we keep your personal information safe, we apply strict safeguards when transferring it overseas. For example:

• Sending your personal information to countries approved by the European Commission as having high quality data protection laws, such as Switzerland and Canada.
• Putting in place a contract that has been approved by the European Commission with the recipient of your personal information that provides a suitable level of high quality protection.
• Sending your personal information to a member organisation approved by the European Commission as providing a suitable level of high quality protection. For example, the Privacy Shield Scheme that exists in the US.

YOUR RIGHTS TO HOW WE USE YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

It is important that you understand your rights in relation to your personal information and how you can contact us if you have questions or concerns.

If you’ve given us consent to process your personal information, you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time by contacting us via email data@montgomerygroup.com; by telephone +44 (0) 20 7886 3000; by post to 9 Manchester Square, London, W1U 3PL, United Kingdom. You can also make changes to that preference via the same communication channels.

You can also ask for access to the personal information we hold about you and request that we correct any mistakes, restrict or stop processing or delete it. It’s worth noting that in some cases if you do ask us to correct, delete or stop processing it, we won’t always be required to do so. If that is the case, we will explain why.

In certain circumstances (e.g. where you provide your information to us (a) with consent to process it or (b) where the processing is necessary for the performance of our contract with you) you can require that we provide the information we hold about you either to you or a third party in a commonly used format. This only applies if we are processing it using automation only. If you would like more information about this, let us know by contacting us at data@montgomerygroup.com.

We will try to ensure that we deliver the best levels of customer service but if you think we are falling short of that commitment, please let us know by contacting us at data@montgomerygroup.com.

If you're still unhappy with any aspect of how we handle your personal information you also have the right to contact the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), the supervisory authority that regulates handling of personal information in the UK. You can contact them by:

You also have the option to register your complaint using the European Commission Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) platform. This is a web-based platform that is designed to help consumers who have bought goods or services online to deal with issues arising from their purchase.

Online privacy and security is the most important aspect of any customer service and we take it extremely seriously. We use a variety of the latest technologies and procedures to protect your personal information from unauthorised access, destruction, use or disclosure.

We restrict access to your personal data to those employees, and third parties, who need to know that information to provide products or services to you. We maintain physical, electronic, and procedural safeguards to protect your personal data.

We’ll keep your personal information for as long as we need it to provide and market the products and services you’ve signed up to or which may be of interest. We may also keep it to comply with our legal obligations, resolve any disputes and enforce our rights. These reasons can vary from one piece of information to the next and depend on the products or services you’re signed up to, so the amount of time we keep your personal information for may vary.

In all cases, our need to use your personal information will be reassessed on a regular basis, and information which is no longer required for any purposes will be disposed of.

We can update this Privacy Policy at any time and ideally you should check it regularly for updates. We won’t alert you to every little change, but if there are any really important changes to the Policy or how we use your information we’ll let you know and where appropriate ask for your consent.

• Going to their website at https://ico.org.uk/
• Phone on 0303 123 1113
• Post to Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, SK9 5AF

CONSENT TO THE USE OF COOKIES

For our website to function properly we use cookies. To obtain your valid consent for the use and storage of cookies in the browser you use to access our website and to properly document this we use a consent management platform: CookieFirst. This technology is provided by Digital Data Solutions BV, Plantage Middenlaan 42a, 1018 DH, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Website: https://cookiefirst.com referred to as CookieFirst.

When you access our website, a connection is established with CookieFirst’s server to give us the possibility to obtain valid consent from you to the use of certain cookies. CookieFirst then stores a cookie in your browser in order to be able to activate only those cookies to which you have consented and to properly document this. The data processed is stored until the predefined storage period expires or you request to delete the data. Certain mandatory legal storage periods may apply notwithstanding the aforementioned.

CookieFirst is used to obtain the legally required consent for the use of cookies. The legal basis for this is article 6(1)(c) of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Data Processing Agreement

We have concluded a data processing agreement with CookieFirst. This is a contract required by data protection law, which ensures that data of our website visitors is only processed in accordance with our instructions and in compliance with the GDPR.

Server log files

Our website and CookieFirst automatically collect and store information in so-called server log files, which your browser automatically transmits to us. The following data is collected:

Your consent status or the withdrawal of consent
Your anonymised IP address
Information about your Browser
Information about your Device
The date and time you have visited our website
The webpage url where you saved or updated your consent preferences
The approximate location of the user that saved their consent preference
A universally unique identifier (UUID) of the website visitor that clicked the cookie banner