Privacy policy
We recognise the importance of protecting the privacy of the users of our websites. Any personal data collected through this website will only be held and used with care and in accordance with this policy and the Data Protection Act 1998.
No information collected by us on this website will be sold, rented or loaned except as expressly stated in this Privacy Policy and consented to by you.
The Data Protection Act
Under the Data Protection Act, we have a legal duty to protect any information we collect from you. We use leading technologies and encryption software to safeguard your data, and keep strict security standards to prevent any unauthorised access to it.
Collection and use of personal information
Historic Scotland is the sole owner of the information collected on this website. Historic Scotland processes personal data for the purposes of providing the service that you have signed up for. We may share non-personal aggregate statistics (group) data about visitors to this website, use and other traffic patterns with connected, or third parties. However, we do not sell or share any information outside Historic Scotland about you as an individual user of this website unless you agree to us doing so.
What information do we collect?
We will not collect any personal information about you, except where it is specifically and knowingly provided by you, for example when you register as a user of the website or request information or provide us with feedback on the website. We collect two kinds of information from visitors: your details (through registration) and site usage information, using cookies and page tagging techniques.
This information is stored securely on our database until such time as you choose to unsubscribe from hearing from us. Users who no longer wish to receive our enewsletters and other updates may opt-out of receiving these communications by clicking unsubscribe option on any email communication received or the user may contact us to opt-out.
Registration
You do not have to register to use this website. websites but you must register if you wish to join our enewsletters, email alerts or shop on our website.
If you have chosen to opt-in to receive future communications from Historic Scotland, then your details will be held until such time as you choose to unsubscribe from the service. Users who no longer wish to receive our communications may opt-out by clicking unsubscribe option on any email communication received or the user may contact us to opt-out.
Site usage - cookies and Website Traffic Analysis
When users enter the Historic Scotland website their computers will automatically be issued with 'cookies'. Cookies are text files which identify users' computers to Historic Scotland’s server. The website then creates "session" cookies to store some of the preferences of users moving around the website, e.g. retaining a text-only preference.
Cookies in themselves do not identify individual users but identify only the computer used and they are deleted on departure from the website.
Cookies enhance our website performance in a number of ways including providing a secure way for us to measure use of the website including number of visitors, how frequently pages are viewed, and the city and country of origin of users. This helps to determine what is popular and can influence future content and development.
Users have the opportunity to set their computers to accept all cookies, to notify them when a cookie is issued, or not to receive cookies at any time. The last of these means that certain personalised services cannot then be provided to that user.
For this purpose, the Historic Scotland uses a web traffic analysis package to measure and analyse usage of the website to help us improve our service to you. The information collected by Historic Scotland will include IP address, pages visited, browser type and operating system.
A full list of the cookies used across all of Historic Scotland's websites is available at: www.historic-scotland.gov.uk/privacy
Log files
We store log files on our web server to allow the recording and analysis of users' use of the website. Log files do not contain any personal information.
We will take all reasonable care, in so far as it is in our power to do so, to keep the details of your order and payment secure, but in the absence of negligence on our part we cannot be held liable for any loss you may suffer if a third party procures unauthorised access to any data you provide when accessing or ordering from this website.
Legal Disclaimer
Though we make every effort to preserve user privacy, we may need to disclose personal information when required by law wherein we have a good-faith belief that such action is necessary to comply with a current judicial proceeding, a court order or legal process served on our website.
Third Party Intermediaries
We use an outside contractor to host our user database. This company do not retain, share or use personally identifiable information for any secondary purposes.
Notification of changes
If we decide to change our privacy policy, we will place an updated version on this page. Regularly reviewing this page ensures you are always aware of what information we collect, how we use it and under what circumstances, if any, we will share it with other parties.
Contact us
If users have any questions or suggestions regarding our privacy policy, please contact us at:
Phone: 0131 668 8800
Email: hs.website@scotland.gsi.gov.uk
Postal address: The web team, Historic Scotland, Longmore House, Salisbury Place, Edinburgh, EH9 1SH