The Official UK Charts Company Limited - Our Privacy Policy

The Official UK Charts Company (referred to in this notice as the “OCC”, “we” and “us”) is a limited company owned jointly by BPI (British Recorded Music Industry) Limited (“BPI”) and the Entertainment Retailers Association (“ERA”).

OCC and BPI are committed to protecting the privacy and security of your personal data.  This policy explains how we use your personal data to provide services to you when you visit the website currently located at www.officialcharts.com (the "Site"), when you sign up to receive our newsletters, and when we process third party and supplier contact information.

References to “personal data” means, any information about an individual from which that person can be identified. It does not include data where the identity has been removed (“anonymous data”).

We may collect, use, store and transfer different kinds of personal data about you which we have grouped together as follows:

  • Identity Data includes first name, last name, date of birth and gender.
  • Contact Data includes billing address, delivery address, email address and telephone numbers.
  • Technical Data includes internet protocol (IP) address, your login data, browser type and version, time zone setting and location, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform, and other technology on the devices you use to access this website.
  • Profile Data includes your interests, preferences, feedback and survey responses.
  • Usage Data includes information about how you use our website, products and services.
  • Marketing and Communications Data includes your preferences in receiving marketing from us and our third parties and your communication preferences.

We also collect, use and share “aggregated data” such as statistical or demographic data for any purpose. Aggregated data could be derived from your personal data but is not considered personal data in law as this data will not directly or indirectly reveal your identity. For example, we may aggregate your Usage Data to calculate the percentage of users accessing a specific website feature. However, if we combine or connect aggregated data with your personal data so that it can directly or indirectly identify you, we treat the combined data as personal data which will be used in accordance with this privacy policy.

We do not collect any “special categories of personal data” about you (this includes details about your race or ethnicity, religious or philosophical beliefs, sex life, sexual orientation, political opinions, trade union membership, information about your health, and genetic and biometric data). 

1. Identity and contact details of the data controller and the data protection manager

The OCC is a “data controller”. This means that we are responsible for deciding how we hold and use personal data about you.

OCC is not obliged to appoint a statutory data protection officer, but have appointed an internal Data Protection Manager (“DPM”). For any queries, please contact:

Data Protection Manager

BPI | 27 Old Gloucester Street | London | WC1N 3AX

Email: dataprotection@officialcharts.com

Telephone: +44 (0)20 7803 1300

The DPM is responsible for overseeing compliance with this privacy notice and for handling any data protection queries or issues involving OCC.  You should contact the DPM in the first instance about any issue involving data protection, whether it involves your data or anyone else’s.

2. What information we collect

We collect the following personal information from subscribers to our newsletters:

  • Name
  • Email address
  • Telephone number
  • Date of Birth (optional)
  • Gender (optional)

In respect of visitors to the Site, we may collect:

  • IP Address

In respect of third parties/suppliers, we may collect:

  • Name
  • Contact details

3. How do we collect your personal data?

We collect the data in relation to subscribers to our newsletters from the subscribers themselves, who either input their data into a page on our website, or through a pop up on our website, or when they are given the option to subscribe when entering a competition.

We collect data from Site visitors through cookies. Please see our Cookies policy here.  We use Google Analytics to examine this data, but please note that all such data is anonymised.

4. Why do we collect your information?

We collect data from our newsletter subscribers in order to be able to email them newsletters they have subscribed to. We also send out newsletters, competitions, promotions and offers. We also collect data such as gender and date of birth (along with optional musical preferences) so that we can analyse and segment our database in order to develop marketing plans.

We collect data from the Site in order to monitor, develop and improve the Site and your experience using it and to understand customer trends and patterns.

5. How do we use your personal data?

We will only use your personal data as permitted by law.  Most commonly, we will use your personal data in either of the following circumstances:

  1. Where we have your consent to do so.
  2. Where we need to perform the contract we have entered into with you.
  3. Where it is necessary for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests. We are required to specify what the legitimate interests are (see below for further details). 
  4. Where we need to comply with a legal obligation.

Consent

Generally, we do not rely on consent as a legal basis for processing your personal data although we will get your consent before sending third party direct marketing communications to you via email.  You may withdraw your consent to receive the newsletter or to marketing at any time by following a clearly displayed link in the email or contacting our DPM, in which case all reasonable efforts will be made to erase your data from our systems. 

Necessary for our legitimate interests or those of a third party

It is in our legitimate interests to use your personal information in such a way to ensure that we can continue providing the best content to you, through our newsletters, and on the Site, including through obtaining advertising support.

It is in our legitimate interests to use contact information for suppliers/third parties in order to properly perform the business arrangements we have entered into with suppliers/third parties.

What if I am a Site user aged 13 or under?

If you are aged 13 or under, you will need your parent/guardian's permission before you provide us with your personal information via the Site. As a user of this Site, you have privacy rights the same as adults, so get to know what they are. You can:

  • ask us what personal information we hold about you
  • ask us to correct or delete your personal information
  • tell us to stop using your personal information

If you're 13 or older, you can do this yourself, but not always. Sometimes we'll be asking for your parent or guardian to do that.

If you're under 13 your parent or guardian probably has to do it for you.

Users aged under 13 without parental/guardian consent are not allowed to provide us with personal information. If we become aware that you are under 13 and are attempting to submit or have submitted personal information via the Site without your parent/guardian's permission, we will not accept such information and we will promptly remove such information from our records.

6. Change of purpose

We will only use your personal data for the purposes for which we collected it, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose.  If you wish to get an explanation as to how the processing for the new purpose is compatible with the original purpose, please contact us. 

If we need to use your personal data for an unrelated purpose, we will notify you and we will explain the legal basis which allows us to do so, before we start using it for that unrelated purpose.

Please note that we may process your personal data without your knowledge or consent, in compliance with the above rules, where this is permitted by law.

7. Sharing Data

We may share your data with third parties, including third-party service providers and any sub-contractors of those service providers where required by law, or where we have a legitimate interest in doing so.

We require third parties to respect the security of your data and to treat it in accordance with the law.  We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes and only permit them to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.

We use a company called Campaign Monitor to manage our database of newsletter subscribers and send out newsletters on our behalf. Sometimes, Campaign Monitor stores data outside the EEA. Where it does so, we have ensured that it takes steps to ensure adequate security measures to protect your data. 

We use Google Analytics to measure web traffic performance and understand how different types of visitors use the website, to increase the level of data insights we get for the purposes of strategy development. This behavioural data is co-owned by Google. More details about cookies can be found in our Cookie policy.

What safeguards are in place in relation to the transfer of your personal data outside of the UK?

Other than in relation to Campaign Monitor, detailed above, neither we nor any of our third party suppliers envisage transferring your personal data outside the UK.  If the position changes, we will let you know and also let you know of the safeguards we will be putting in place to keep your personal data secure.

8. How long will we retain your personal data?

We will only retain your personal data for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, regulatory, tax, accounting, or reporting requirements.  We may retain your personal data for a longer period in the event of a complaint or if we reasonably believe there is a prospect of litigation in respect to our relationship with you.

Details of retention periods for different aspects of your personal data are available in our Records Management Policy which is available from the DPM.  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, regulatory, tax, accounting, or other requirements.

In some circumstances we will anonymise your personal data (so that it can no longer be associated with you) for research or statistical purposes, in which case we may use this information indefinitely without further notice to you.

9. What are your rights and obligations as a data subject?

Your duty to inform us of changes

It is important that the personal data we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us infirmed if your persona data changes during your relationship with us. 

Your rights in connection with personal data

Under certain circumstances, by law you have the right to:

  • Request access to your personal data (commonly known as a “data subject access request”). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.
  • Request correction of the personal data that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate information we hold about you corrected, though we may need to verify the accuracy of the new data you provide to us.
  • Request erasure of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal data where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal data where you have exercised your right to object to processing (see below), where we may have processed your information unlawfully or where we are required to erase your personal data to comply with local law. Note, however, that we may not always be able to comply with your request of erasure for specific legal reasons which will be notified to you, if applicable, at the time of your request.
  • Object to processing of your personal data where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground as you feel it impacts on your fundamental rights and freedoms. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal data for direct marketing purposes. In some cases, we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process your information which override your rights and freedoms.
  • Request the restriction of processing of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of personal data about you, for example if you want us to establish its accuracy or the reason for processing it.
  • Request the transfer of your personal data to another party.  We will provide to you, or a third party you have chosen, your personal data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format. Note that this right only applies to automated information which you initially provided consent for us to use or where we used the information to perform a contract with you.
  • Withdraw consent at any time where we are relying on consent to process your personal data. However, this will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before you withdraw your consent. If you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide certain products or services to you. We will advise you if this is the case at the time you withdraw your consent.

If you wish to exercise any of the rights set out above, please contact the DPM in writing.

No fee usually required

You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal data (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request for access is clearly unfounded or excessive.  Alternatively, we may refuse to comply with the request in such circumstances.

What we may need from you

We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access the information (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is a security measure to ensure that personal data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it.  We may also contact you to ask you for further information in relation to your request to speed up our response.

10. Using our Site

Offensive or inappropriate content on the Site

If you post or send offensive, inappropriate or objectionable content anywhere on or to the Site, or otherwise engage in any disruptive behaviour on the Site, we may use your personal information to stop such behaviour. Where we reasonably believe that you are or may be in breach of any of applicable laws (for example, but without limitation, content you have posted may be defamatory), we may use your personal information to inform law enforcement agencies about the content and your behaviour. We reserve the right to prevent you from accessing some of the Site services if you display such behaviour.

The Site may contain links to other websites where information practices may be different to ours. For example, if you click on a link, this may take you off the Site. Visitors should consult the privacy policies of the websites they are taken to for further details, as we are not responsible for and have no control over information that is submitted to, or collected by, these third parties.

We use a provider called Disqus to provide a "comment" facility on our Site. In order to comment on our Site, you will need a Disqus account which will be subject to Disqus terms, and Disqus will control any data they take from you through that account.

We may sometimes offer content (e.g., competitions, sweepstakes, or promotions) sponsored by or co-branded with identified third parties. By virtue of these relationships, the third parties may obtain personally identifiable information that you voluntarily submit to participate in the website activity. We are not responsible for and have no control over these third parties' use of this information.

The Site is published in the UK by OCC. All personal information submitted by you to the Site will be processed in accordance with this Privacy Policy (and any local terms that apply on the Site) unless terms on the Site specify otherwise.

Our site uses Cookies. Read our Cookie policy here.

11. Advertising on our Website

About our advertising

We may use third parties to present or serve the advertisements that you may see at the Site. In addition, our Site may contain links to other websites from which we may earn revenue, and we, or the third parties advertising on the Site, may also use online behavioural advertising. As you browse our sites, some of the cookies (see our Cookie policy here) placed on your computer may be advertising cookies, some of which may help advertisers understand what sort of pages you are interested in. They may then be used to show you advertisements you are more likely to be interested in based on your historic preferences.

It is important to remember that none of this advertising will collect information such as your name, email address, postal address or phone number.

The third parties who populate the advertising space on our Site may collect (without limitation):

  • IP Address
  • Device information such as make and model
  • Geolocation
  • ISP and Browser information
  • Search history
  • SDKs

Advertising on mobile devices may require the collection and sharing of the unique device ID with companies who purchase advertising space on the mobile application, and may include use of mobile ad identifiers for interest-based or cross-app advertising and analytics.

These third parties are separate data controllers in their own right, and you should refer to their terms in order to understand which of your data is processed by them, and your rights in relation to it.

The third parties currently used to populate the advertising spaces are:

Content Ignite, Primis, GumGum, Disqus, Seedtag, Show Heroes, Hoopla, and Quantcast.

It is possible to opt out of providing personal information to advertisers, for example, using an industry wide opt out such as https://aboutads.info/choices. Please note that if you do so, this does not mean that you will no longer receive advertising when you are using our Site. It will just mean that the advertising you see will not be customised for you, and that the advertiser should not collect any of your personal data. 

Because these third parties are independent controllers of your data, we do not consider that the OCC is obliged to have a lawful basis for any processing that occurs in relation to this advertising. It is noted, however, that the OCC has a legitimate interest in obtaining the revenue that advertising creates in order to be able to supply the content on the Site.

12. Security

We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed.  In addition, we limit access to your personal data to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal data on our instructions, and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.

We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected data security breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a suspected breach where we are legally required to do so.

13. Changes to this privacy notice

We reserve the right, from time to time, and at our sole discretion, to change or update this Privacy Policy.

All changes to this Privacy Policy will be published on this page and on the applicable Site(s). Upon publication, each change will become effective and you will be deemed to be aware of and bound by it. You should therefore review this Privacy Policy regularly to ensure that you are up-to-date with the current terms of the Privacy Policy.

If you have any questions about this privacy notice, please contact the DPM.

14. What are your rights to lodge a complaint about the way in which your personal data are being processed?

Firstly, we would urge you to contact the DPM in writing so that we can try to resolve your complaint to your satisfaction.  If you are not satisfied with the DPM’s response, you may contact the Information Commissioner’s Office (“ICO”) on 0303 123 1113.

We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month. Occasionally it could take us longer than a month if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests. In this case, we will notify you and keep you updated.

You are free to contact the ICO at any time.  However, the DPM may be able to answer your concerns or questions more quickly.