Our privacy policy

We care about your privacy. We only collect personal data if we have a good reason – and we’re open and honest about what we do collect.

This Privacy Policy says that in lots of words. Hold your breath…

This website is operated and owned by Reed Words Limited, a company registered in the UK (Company Number: 05412783).

Privacy is very important to us at Reed Words. We only collect and store personal and confidential data if we have good reason. We aim to be open and honest about what we do collect, and how we use it.

This Privacy Policy explains the types of information we may collect, store and use from you via our website, as an employee (or prospective employee), or as a client of our business. Please read it in conjunction with our Data Protection Policy which sits alongside this policy.

We will review, and may update, this policy from time to time. So we recommend you review it regularly for any changes.

If you have any questions or suggestions about our Privacy Policy, please contact us.

For a better experience using our website (for example to access our newsletter, or to download certain content), we may require you to provide us with personally identifiable information, including but not limited to your name and email address. The information we collect will be used to contact or identify you, so we can provide the information you requested, and information about our products and services.

Data logging

Whenever you visit our website, your browser sends us information called Log Data. This Log Data may include information such as your computer’s Internet Protocol (IP) address, browser version, pages of our website you visit, the time and date of your visit, the time spent on those pages, and other statistics.

Cookies

Cookies are files with a small amount of data that is commonly used as an anonymous unique identifier. These are sent to your browser from the websites you visit and are stored on your computer’s hard drive.

Our website uses these cookies to collect information and improve our website. You have the option to either accept or refuse these cookies, and to know when a cookie is being sent to your computer. If you choose to refuse our cookies, you may not be able to use some portions of our website.

Service providers

We may use or employ third-party companies (such as Google Analytics and Hubspot) and individuals for the following reasons, and the following reasons only:

• To improve or deliver the services of our website

• To help us analyse how our website is used

• To help us better target information about our products and services

These third parties may have access to your personal information. This is so they can perform the tasks assigned to them on our behalf, and these tasks alone. They are obligated not to disclose, use or sell the information for any other purpose.

Sharing data

We will never sell your personal data to another company.

Security

We value your trust in giving us your information, and make every effort to use commercially acceptable means of protecting it. But no method of transmission over the internet, or method of electronic storage, is 100% secure or reliable, and we cannot guarantee its absolute security.

Links to other sites

Our website may contain links to other sites, which are provided in good faith. If you click on a third-party link, you will be directed to that site. These external sites are not operated by us. Therefore we strongly recommend you review the Privacy Policy of these websites. We have no control over, and assume no responsibility for the content, privacy policies or practices of any third-party sites or services.

Children’s privacy

Our website does not address anyone under the age of 13. We do not knowingly collect personal identifiable information from children under the age of 13. If we discover that a child under 13 has provided us with personal information, we will immediately delete this from our servers. If you are a parent or guardian and you are aware that your child has provided us with personal information, please contact us so that we may undertake the necessary measures.

If you apply for a position with us, you will provide us with personal data in your cover letter and your CV. This may include your address, phone number, which schools you went to, previous jobs, etc..

We will save the application of every job applicant in our candidate database and may contact you in the future regarding other job openings. We will delete all this information from our candidate database if you would prefer. Just let us know at hello@reedwords.com if you would like us to remove your details from our database. Otherwise details will be removed after three years.

If you become an employee of Reed Words, we will collect, record and store other personal information in order to comply with HR, Right to Work, and payroll processing practices. These may include (but are not limited to) bank details, National Insurance numbers, Social Security numbers, Visas, passport details. We will also record and store job-related information which may be sensitive, such as salary and bonuses, relevant medical information, appraisal details and disciplinary records. We take the privacy of these records very seriously. They are accessible only by our Commercial Director (Wendy Martin). This information is stored on a separate, password-protected drive only accessible by Wendy, with hard copy records held offsite from the main office.

If you leave the company, your information will be archived but retained for several years. There is currently no legislation that sets out a maximum number of years that records can be retained for, but current practice is to delete personal files after seven years. We will continue to keep a record of names and dates of employment indefinitely.

It is the nature of our business that clients share highly confidential and sensitive information about their corporations, brands, products and services. We take the protection of this information very seriously.

We protect this information in several ways:

• Information storage - your information is stored on our secure servers and, where applicable, password-protected, so that only the relevant team members can access it.

• Our third-party IT provider monitors and audits our security and firewalls annually, and real-time reports any breaches or suspicious activity on our servers. We have had no data breaches to date.

• We have a number of NDAs in place to protect client information. It is the role of the Creative and Business leaders to make sure we adhere to them.

• All staff have client confidentiality clauses in their contracts. Any breach of this would be considered gross misconduct and could result in immediate dismissal

• Information is either deleted, securely archived or returned to the client at the end of the project (as appropriate)

Other client information we collect includes names, addresses, emails and company details. We will keep this information in our customer database for as long as you do not object to us keeping it. You can always let us know if you no longer want us to keep this information.

Please note however, that for as long as we have an ongoing contract we cannot remove this information from our databases as we will need it to execute the contract. And even after our contract has ended, we may be under a legal obligation to hold on to some of this information. For example, under accounting legislation we must keep copies of our invoices, which may mention your name or address.

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

You should know that in the following exceptional circumstances, your data could also be shared with others:

• If we are under a legal obligation to share data with the authorities, or if we have to share data to comply with an enforceable government request, we are obliged to share data the authorities ask for, which may include yours.

• If another company decides to buy the shares of our company, or decides to buy Reed Words from us, we will of course have to transfer your data to that company. That company will then take over all obligations under this Privacy Policy.

We will take all steps necessary to ensure that your data is treated securely, and in accordance with this Privacy Policy, our Data Protection Policy, and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), and that we have the necessary legal contract in place to fulfil these services.

You may ask us to send you a summary of the personal data processed about you. If you feel that your personal data has been processed incorrectly or incompletely, or if you feel that such processing was unnecessary, then you can also ask us to edit, supplement, or erase your personal data from our databases. Under the applicable privacy legislation, you also have the right to the following:

• Right to be forgotten - in certain circumstances, you can ask for the data we hold about you to be erased from our records. Bear in mind, if you ask us to erase your information from our records, we may purchase data in the future that contains your information. We can however mark it as “do not contact” therefore stopping any contact we may make to you.

• Right to restriction of processing - where certain conditions apply you have a right to limit the way your data is processed.

• Right of portability - you have the right to have the data we hold about you transferred to another organisation.

• Right to object - you have the right to object to certain types of processing, such as direct marketing.

If you have any further privacy concerns, or if you want to exercise your rights, you can contact us via email at hello@reedwords.com

Policy review
This policy was published by Wendy Martin on 21st November 2023, and will be reviewed every two years.