Privacy Policy

By using this website you are consenting to this privacy policy. We may in the future change this policy, and if we do so we will post the amended policy on this website.

What’s on the page

Privacy Policy

Our contact details

Name: Internet Matters Limited
Address: Ambassador House, 75, St Michael’s Street, London W2 1QS
Phone Number: 0207 402 5004. Please note we don’t have an answering machine.
Email: [email protected]

Internet Matters provides information and advice designed to help parents, carers, and professionals to engage in children’s online lives and manage the risks they may face online.

We have developed this privacy notice in accordance with GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) to show our commitment to protecting your personal data, to describe what we do with the information you give us and to explain the rights and choices you have over your personal information.

Should you have any questions about this privacy policy, please get in touch with us on:
[email protected]

The type of personal information we collect

Personal data, or personal information, means any information about an individual from which that person can be identified.

It does not include data where the identity has been removed, this is called anonymous data. We don’t collect any data that personally identifies you when you simply browse our site.

We currently collect and process the following information:

  • Your full name, or family name
  • Your email address
  • Whether you are using Internet Matters as a parent/carer, professional, teacher, government/ policymaker, a member of the third sector, or a corporate organisation
  • Your contact number
  • If you are a teacher, the name of the school you work at
  • How you heard about us (ex. search engine, colleagues, social media, etc.)
  • Your children’s digital habits (for our safety toolkits)

We collect personal data to optimize our offerings to better serve your needs. We never collect personal data that will not be used to either carry out our statutory functions or to improve/ personalize your experience on our site. Your data may be used for one or more of the following purposes;

  • To make you aware of our relevant services and products, including providing personalised recommendations and resources that we think may be of interest to you
  • To understand usage and interest in our content and communications  to improve our services
  • To notify you of changes to our services, and to provide you with support in using our resources
  • To provide you with information that you may have requested

How we get the personal information and why we have it

The personal data we process is provided to us directly by you for one of the following reasons: 

 

Subscribing to a newsletter

When you subscribe to our newsletter, we will ask you to provide:

  • Your full name to personalise our communications
  • Your email address that we can use to send you the communications
  • Whether you are a parent/carer or professional to ensure you receive communications according to your interests.

 

Making a donation

When you make a donation on our website, we will ask you to provide:

  • Your full name to personalise our communications
  • Your email address that we can use to send you communications to confirm your donation
  • Whether you are a parent/carer or professional

When you make a donation on our site, the financial transaction is fully handled by Stripe. Internet Matters does not store your credit/debit card details, and we do not have access to these details on Stripe. Stripe is certified to the highest industry standards and has obtained worldwide regulatory licenses. You can read Stripe’s privacy policy here.

We do however keep a record of the following on our system to improve the effectiveness of our donation programme:

  • The amount you have donated
  • The date you made your donation

 

Using My Family’s Digital Toolkit

When you use our ‘My Family’s Digital Toolkit’, we will ask you to provide:

  • Your first name and last name
  • Your email address that we can use to send you:
    • your family toolkit,
    • personalised communications and/or our newsletter if you have consented to receive these

We ask you to provide more information about the number of children you have, their ages, how they use the internet and your opinions about the internet in a series of questions designed to provide you with a personalised online safety plan. This data is retained by us for functionality purposes so you can revisit your bespoke online safety plan, and may be used to provide personalised communications in the future if you have consented to this.

 

Little Digital Helps Toolkit

When you use the ‘Little Digital Helps Toolkit you can choose to provide the following details:

  • Your first name and last name
  • Your email address that we can use to send you
    • your family’s online safety plan
    • our newsletter, if you have consented to receive this

You do not have to provide these details to create your online safety plan however if you’d like the plan to be emailed to you, these are required.

To tailor your online safety plan, we also ask you to provide information about your children’s ages, what devices they have access to, how they use the internet and what support you need to manage their online safety.

All the details you provide are stored for a period of three weeks from the date you complete the Toolkit form to allow you to review and download your plan. After this period, your details are removed from our database unless you have consented to receive further communications from us. To access your plan after this time, you are required to download it before this time expires.

 

Using Digital Matters

If you use Digital Matters as a teacher when you create your account, we will ask you to provide:

  • Your full name
  • Your email address
  • If you are a teacher, the name of the school where you work so we can personalise your communications and record the number of schools we work with

We will also give you the option to provide information on how you heard about us, e.g. search engines, colleagues, or social media.

If you consent to receive further communications from us when you create your account, we will use this data to personalise our communications to you.

 

Using Fostering Digital Skills

If you use our Fostering Digital Skills training, when you first download resources, we will give you the option to provide the following information to send you tailored communications if you choose to opt-in:

  • Your full name
  • Your email address
  • Identify yourself as a parent or professional

 

From time to time, we might run competitions or ask you to participate in research. If you wish to participate, we may ask you for further information to inform our work, which may include:

  • Your family circumstances, e.g. number of children, their age and online habits
  • Details about your work, e.g. job title, organisation name, your work email address

We may also invite you to register for an event and would require the following information to send you the event details and log your attendance:

  • Your name
  • Your email address

We may also give you the option to provide details about your work, e.g. job title and company name.

Under the UK Data Protection Regulation, the lawful basis we rely on for processing this information is your consent. We process your data in accordance with our legitimate interests in providing high-quality, timely and valuable services to the community.

You are under no obligation to provide us with your personal information. We ask for this information to provide you with the service you have chosen.

If you no longer wish to give us your consent or unsubscribe from our communications, you can unsubscribe from our emails using the link provided in the footer of our emails or contact us at [email protected] from the email address you wish to unsubscribe.

We may provide your data to any of the companies that help us provide our services to you. Your data is protected by Data Processor Agreements in place with these companies. This means they cannot do anything with your personal information unless we have instructed them to do so. They will not share your personal information with any organisation apart from us or further sub-processors who, too, must comply with our Data Processor Agreement. They will hold your personal data securely and retain it for the period we instruct.

We may obtain your personal data from third-party data suppliers, but only if they provide appropriate evidence that you have agreed to have your personal data shared with other organisations.

We may also provide your data to a third party where you have explicitly given us your consent. If you gave us your consent to pass your name and email to one of our partners and later wish to unsubscribe from their communications or withdraw your consent, please contact them directly.

We may share your personal data if the law requires us to do so.

 

Anonymous data

When you browse our website, we use trackers to collect and analyse anonymous data that does not personally identify you but helps us understand how people use our website and allows us to improve your experience on our website. We provide clear and comprehensive information about how we collect and use anonymous data in our Cookie Policy.

Third-party links

This website may include links to third-party websites, plug-ins and applications. Clicking on those links or enabling those connections may allow third parties to collect or share data about you. We do not control these third-party websites and are not responsible for their privacy statements. When you leave our website, we encourage you to read the privacy notice of every website you visit.

How we store your  information

Your information is stored on secure servers and is subject to the Data Processing Agreements we have with our third-party service providers. These agreements ensure GDPR obligations are adhered to and that any personal data shared with us remains protected.

The external platforms we use to manage our email marketing and communications hold data securely in the UK and USA, and have policies and protocols in place to ensure their compliance with UK law and GDPR legislation. More information can be found regarding each platform’s data protection through the hyperlinks below:

We will keep your data as long as you give us consent. If you withdraw your consent, we will delete all data records associated with you from our servers within 30 days of your request.

Your rights over your information

Your data matters and is protected by the law. Under GDPR, you have the following rights:

  • Your right of access – you have the right to ask us for copies of your personal information.
  • Your right to rectification – you have the right to ask us to rectify personal information you think is inaccurate. You also have the right to ask us to complete information you think is incomplete.
  • Your right to erasure – you have the right to ask us to erase your personal information in certain circumstances.
  • Your right to restriction of processing – you have the right to ask us to restrict the processing of your personal information in certain circumstances.
  • Your right to object to processing – you have the right to object to the processing of your personal information in certain circumstances.
  • Your right to data portability – you have the right to ask that we transfer the personal information you gave us to another organisation, or you, in certain circumstances.

If you make a request, it can take up to one month to respond to you.

If you wish to make a request to withdraw your consent, to ask a question, or to  complain, please contact us at [email protected] or Internet Matters Data Protection, Ambassador House, 75 St Michael’s Street, London, W2 1QS

You can find more details about your rights, data protection and privacy matters in the UK on The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) website.

Changes to our privacy notice

We keep our privacy policy under regular review. This version was last updated on 10 March 2023. Historic versions can be obtained by contacting us.

Cookie Policy

To ensure all features of our website work properly, your computer, tablet or mobile needs to accept cookies. Our cookies don’t store your personal information but help us recognise you so we can offer you services more relevant to you.

Cookies will automatically be placed on your computer, tablet or mobile web browser when you visit an Internet Matters site and your use of our website services signifies your consent to our policy.

We also work with select partners that provide content for our website who will have their own cookie policies.

What are cookies?

Cookies are used by websites to help them run smoothly and ensure certain features work properly. Some of our advertisers also use cookies to display adverts that are more relevant to you.

Cookies cannot harm or scan your computer for private information stored on your hard drive.

When you visit an Internet Matters website, cookies will automatically be placed on your computer, tablet or mobile web browser. You can choose to disable or manage cookies anytime through your browser settings, however, if you do some features on the site may not work properly.

Types of cookies

  • Temporary Cookies: are sometimes called “session cookies” and are only stored on your computer until you close your browser. They help us to remember things you’ve selected on previous pages so you don’t have to re-enter information.
  • Persistent Cookies: These are stored on your browser for a fixed period (for example, 30 days), after which they are deleted. These cookies can help us remember preferences you may have made when returning to our website.

Cookies we use

  • Google Analytics(utma, utmb, utmc and utmz): We use this cookie to improve the users experience on the website. This cookie helps us understand the user’s journey on the website. For more information visit Google support page.
  • Youtube(VISITO R_INF O1_LIVE): To display videos we use YouTube, embedding the content into our websites. For more information visit Google support page.
  • Facebook Pixel(fbevents.js): Analytical cookies help us to optimize ads, build target audience and remarket to qualified leads. For more information visit Facebook support page
  • Pop up cookie(IP address): We use this cookie to segment our users on the website by teacher, student, and carer.
  • Mailchimp: We use this cookie to measure our campaign’s newsletter. For more information https://mailchimp.com/legal/cookies/
  • Social Cookies: We use this cookie in the sidebar and footer of all pages to easily share the content from the website.
  • Yahoo’s Dot Pixel: (sp.analytics.yahoo) We use this pixel, which is a piece of code that is placed on a web page (or multiple web pages). This then enables us to track certain user activities or events including Page visits and Interactions (such as clicking a button).

How do I turn cookies off?

You can choose to manage or disable cookies anytime through your browser settings. To find out more about cookies, visit www.aboutcookies.org or www.allaboutcookies.org but if you do some parts of the site may not work properly.

Terms and Conditions

These terms and conditions set out how we, Internet Matters Limited (a company registered in England and Wales under company number 08822801 and whose registered office is Internet Matters, 6th Floor, One London Wall, London, EC2Y 5EB) will provide the Services, to you.

Copyright: This website and its contents are copyright Internet Matters, all rights reserved. No part of the site may be distributed or copied for any commercial purpose without express approval.

Security

We endeavour to take all reasonable steps to protect your personal information but cannot guarantee the security of any information you disclose online. You accept the inherent security risks of providing the information over the internet and will not hold Internet Matters responsible for any breach of security unless this is due to the negligence or willful default of Internet Matters.

Copyright in text on this site

The text on the Internet Matters website may be reproduced free of charge in any format or medium, provided it is reproduced accurately, is not used in a misleading context, and our copyright is clearly acknowledged.

Internet Matters logos

The unauthorised use of the Internet Matters logos, or any third party logos accessed via this website, is not permitted.

Our logo is a registered trademark, therefore any organisation that wishes to refer to Internet Matters, or the Internet Matters website, must obtain prior consent from us by entering into a Trademark Licence Agreement.

Copyright in images and audio to this site

The images and audio on this website are, unless otherwise stated, copyright Internet Matters.

No other images on this site may be reproduced in any format other than for fair comment (e.g. screenshots used for illustration in a presentation) unless permission is granted by the Internet Matters press office.

Linking to this site

Internet Matters is happy to encourage hypertext links to our website, provided these are not intended to be used in a misleading context.

Linked sites

Some links on the Internet Matters website are intended to take you to other websites. We have no responsibility for the content of these linked websites and do not guarantee the links will work.

No endorsement or approval of any third parties or their advice, opinion, information, products or services is expressed or implied by any information on this site or by any hyperlinks to or from any third party websites or pages. Sites linked from the Internet Matters website are present only because they may contain helpful supplements to the data we publish. It is your responsibility to ensure that you read any terms and conditions and policies applicable to such third-party sites.

Virus protection

We make every effort to check material published on this website. We recommend you run an anti-virus programme on all material downloaded from the internet. We cannot accept any responsibility for any loss, disruption or damage to your data or your computer system which may occur whilst using material derived from this website.

Data protection information

At Internet Matters, we will process the data from your specific feedback and comments. We may disclose this data to any person or organisation for the purposes for which it was collected or where the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) allows it. We will not forward information relating to you, as a data subject, to any unrelated third party.

Third-party advertising

We may allow other companies that are presenting and serving advertisements on the website to set and access their cookies on your computer. Please be aware that this activity is subject to their own privacy policies. Information about your visit to the website, such as the number of times you have viewed a particular advertisement (but not information about you, such as your name, address or any other personal information) may be used by these companies to decide which advertisements to serve to you.

More to Explore

See more advice and resources to help children stay safe online.