Whitby Hot Chocolate Festival Privacy Notice

Updated 10th October 2025

This privacy notice tells you what to expect us to do with your personal information.

• Contact details

• What information we collect, use, and why

• Lawful bases and data protection rights

• Where we get personal information from

• How long we keep information

• How to complain
  

Contact details

Email WDP1chocfest@outlook.com

What information we collect, use, and why

We collect or use the following personal information for dealing with queries, complaints or claims:

• Names and contact details as supplied via our contact form on Whitby Hot Chocolate Festival website, or via our public Facebook or Instagram page.

• The names of people who are contributing to Festival events
  
  

Lawful bases and data protection rights

Under UK data protection law, we must have a “lawful basis” for collecting and using your personal information. There is a list of possible lawful bases in the UK GDPR. You can find out more about lawful bases on the ICO’s website.

Which lawful basis we rely on may affect your data protection rights which are set out in brief below. You can find out more about your data protection rights and the exemptions which may apply on the ICO’s website:

• Your right of access - You have the right to ask us for copies of your personal information. You can request other information such as details about where we get personal information from and who we share personal information with. There are some exemptions which means you may not receive all the information you ask for. Read more about the right of access.

• Your right to rectification - You have the right to ask us to correct or delete personal information you think is inaccurate or incomplete. Read more about the right to rectification.

• Your right to erasure - You have the right to ask us to delete your personal information. Read more about the right to erasure.

• Your right to restriction of processing - You have the right to ask us to limit how we can use your personal information. Read more about the right to restriction of processing.

• Your right to object to processing - You have the right to object to the processing of your personal data. Read more about the right to object to processing.

• Your right to data portability - You have the right to ask that we transfer the personal information you gave us to another organisation, or to you. Read more about the right to data portability.

• Your right to withdraw consent – When we use consent as our lawful basis you have the right to withdraw your consent at any time. Read more about the right to withdraw consent.

If you make a request, we must respond to you without undue delay and in any event within one month.

To make a data protection rights request, please contact us using the contact details at the top of this privacy notice.

Our lawful bases for the collection and use of your data

Our lawful bases for collecting or using personal information for dealing with queries, complaints or claims are:

• Legitimate interests – we’re collecting or using your information because it benefits you, our organisation or someone else, without causing an undue risk of harm to anyone. All of your data protection rights may apply, except the right to portability. Our legitimate interests are:
  
  

- We need to collect this information: 1) To reply to your comments or messages. 2) To moderate discussions and keep the social media pages safe. 3) To understand engagement with our social media posts (via Facebook & Instagram Page Insights).

- Names of Festival event organisers are collected to help organise and promote the Festival events.

For more information on our use of legitimate interests as a lawful basis you can contact us using the contact details set out above.

Where we get personal information from

• Directly from you

How long we keep information

Names and email addresses are kept until correspondence is complete, and then deleted.

Profile names and contact details on Facebook and Instagram will be kept until Festival admin is complete and then deleted, by 31.12.25 at the latest.

For more information on how long we store your personal information or the criteria we use to determine this please contact us using the details provided above.

Joint data controllers

We have a joint controller relationship with Meta. We process your personal information from Facebook and Instagram with that joint controller for the following reason: 

Meta provides us with aggregated “Page Insights” about visits and interactions. 

Third Party Websites and Links

The Hot Chocolate Festival website provides links to websites or other online platforms operated by third parties. If you follow links to sites not affiliated or controlled by us, you should review their privacy and security policies and other terms and conditions. We do not guarantee and are not responsible for the privacy or security of such sites, including the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of information found on these sites. Information you provide on public or semi-public venues, including information you share on third-party social networking platforms may also be viewable by other users of the Services and/or users of those third-party platforms without limitation as to its use by us or by a third party. Our inclusion of such links does not, by itself, imply any endorsement of the content on such platforms or of their owners or operators, except as disclosed on the Services.

Use of Google Search Console

We use Google Search Console, a service provided by Google LLC, to monitor and improve the visibility of our website in Google Search results. Google Search Console provides us with aggregated reports on search queries, website performance, and technical issues.

This data may include information such as the keywords used to find our website, clicks, impressions, device types, and approximate geographic location. The data is aggregated and does not allow us to directly identify individual users.

We process this information on the basis of our legitimate interest in ensuring the proper functioning, security, and optimization of our website.

For more information on how Google processes data, please see Google’s Privacy Policy

How to complain

If you have any concerns about our use of your personal data, you can make a complaint to us using the contact details at the top of this privacy notice.

If you remain unhappy with how we’ve used your data after raising a complaint with us, you can also complain to the ICO.

The ICO’s address:           

Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF

Helpline number: 0303 123 1113

Website: https://www.ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint