1. Statement of intent
From time to time, you will be asked to submit personal information about yourself (e.g. name and email address etc) in order to receive or use services on our website. By entering your details in the fields requested, you enable Consulting Networks Ltd and its service providers to provide you with the services you selected.

Whenever you provide such personal information, we will treat that information in accordance with this policy. Our services are designed to give you the information that you want to receive. Consulting Networks and any of its affiliates will respect your privacy and work hard to safeguard the privacy of your personal data. We realize that the exciting growth of the Internet and online services raises questions concerning the nature, use and confidentiality of information collected about consumers. We want you to know that we apply our long-standing commitment to safeguarding privacy to our online and Internet activities. Consulting Networks Ltd will act where possible in accordance with current legislation and aim to meet current Internet best practice.

2. Information on visitors
During the course of any visit to www.consulting-networks.co.uk, the pages you see, along with something called a cookie, are downloaded to your computer (see point 3 for more on this). Most, if not all, websites do this, because cookies allow the website publisher to do useful things like find out whether the computer (and probably its user) has visited the site before. This is done on a repeat visit by checking to see, and finding, the cookie left there on the last visit.

Any information that is supplied by cookies can help us to provide you with a better service and assists us to analyse the profile of our visitors. For example: if on a previous visit you went to, say, the education pages, then we might find this out from your cookie and highlight educational information on a second visit. Consulting Networks Ltd uses this type of information, as with that obtained from other cookies used on the site, to help it improve the services to its users.

3. What is a cookie?
When you enter a site your computer will automatically be issued with a cookie. Cookies are text files that identify your computer to our server. Cookies in themselves do not identify the individual user, just the computer used. Many sites do this whenever a user visits their site in order to track traffic flows.

Cookies themselves only record those areas of the site that have been visited by the computer in question, and for how long. 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, of course, means that certain personalised services cannot then be provided to that user.

NB: Even if you haven't set your computer to reject cookies you can still browse our site anonymously until such time as you register for Consulting Networks services.

4. Personally Identifiable Information - Use and storage
Consulting Networks does not share, disclose or sell any personally identifiable information (such as your name, address, telephone number or e-mail address) collected online on CN sites with other unaffiliated companies or organizations for marketing purposes. In the future, should CN decide to share such data with third parties for marketing, it will provide notification and the opportunity for its users to indicate whether they would prefer that the Company not provide such information about them to third parties. Because this information is a critical part of our business, it would be treated like our other assets in the context of a merger, sale or other corporate reorganization or legal proceeding. Consulting Networks Ltd also does not market to, or knowingly collect personal information from, children under the age of 13 on Company sites.

When you supply any personal information to consulting-networks.co.uk (e.g. when opening an online account,) we have legal obligations towards you in the way we deal with that data. In general, any information provide by you will only be used by Consulting Networks and by its affiliated companies, and business partners. Also, if you post or send offensive or inappropriate content anywhere on or to consulting.networks.co.uk or otherwise engage in any disruptive behaviour on consulting.networks.co.uk, and “We” consider such behaviour to be serious and/or repeated, “We” can use whatever information that is available to it about you to stop such behaviour. This may include informing relevant third parties such as your employer, school, e-mail provider or relevant authorities about the content and your illegal behaviour.

We will hold and use your personal information on our systems for as long as require, and remove it in the event that the purpose has been meet. For safety reasons, however, the Consulting Networks may store messaging transcript data (including message content, member names, times and dates) arising from the use of our websites. We will ensure that all personal information supplied is held securely, in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998.

Consulting Networks may use e-mail addresses you provide us online to send you e-mail related to our products and services or if you have affirmatively indicated a desire to receive additional information. If at any time, you would prefer not to receive further e-mail communications at that e-mail address, please contact Customer Service.

Consulting Networks uses the personally identifiable information we collect online principally to provide you with the service(s) you have ordered and to let you know about other offerings that may be of interest to you. Postal and e-mail address information, for example, enables communication about services offered and ordered, as well as the proper provisioning and billing of those services.

Because CN makes many special benefits available to you through relationships with other businesses (such as airline miles), CN shares personally identifiable online customer information with those businesses so that you receive the benefits to which you are entitled. We also sometimes use this information to extend special offers to you jointly with our partners.

Like most large businesses today, CN uses vendors to carry out certain functions in marketing and delivering services to you (such as processing data files and sending you new order fulfilment information), and so shares online data with those vendors to the extent necessary for them to perform their work. Of course, such partners and vendors must use that personally identifiable information only for the purpose(s) for which it was shared and protect it from any further use. CN also shares such information with other industry and credit-related organizations to improve operations and to protect against fraud, security and credit risks.

We also provide personally-identifiable online information in response to subpoenas and other legal demands, and where we believe that disclosing this information is necessary to identify, contact or bring legal action against individuals who may be endangering public safety or interfering with CN property or services, or with our customers' or others' use of them.

5. Access to your personal information
You have the right to request a copy of the personal information that Consulting Networks holds about you and to have any inaccuracies corrected. (We charge £10 for information requests.) Please address requests to the Data Protection Officer, Consulting Networks Ltd, Consulting Networks House, 115 Dolton Close, Harlow, Essex CM17 9RH (Email: webmaster@consulting-networks.co.uk). Please note that in order to better protect you and safeguard your information, we take steps to verify your identity before granting access or making corrections to your information.

For questions regarding this policy, please write:

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