UK Water Industry Research Limited (UKWIR) is a not for profit organisation based in London, carrying out research on behalf of the water industry since 1993. Our members are the water and wastewater companies of the UK and Ireland.

We are responsible for facilitating the shaping of the water industry’s research agenda, developing the research programme, procuring and managing the research and disseminating the outputs.

This Privacy Policy (together with our Cookie Policy at www.ukwir.org) explains how UKWIR (“we”, “us” or “our”) collects and uses personal information from and about visitors to its website (www.ukwir.org) and its members’ employees, company officers and any other individuals acting on their behalf and (“you” and “your”).

UKWIR will be the controller of the personal data which we collect from or about you. This means that we are responsible for deciding how we hold and use personal data about you and that we are required to provide you with the information contained in this policy.

Please read it carefully to understand how we will use your personal data and the rights you have in relation to it. If you have any queries about how we use your personal data or otherwise about the contents of this policy, you can contact us using the details provided in the ‘Contacting Us’ section at the end of this policy.

Members must ensure that they provide a copy of this policy to all of their employees, officers and any other individuals whose personal data may be provided to us, prior to the provision of their personal data and they must ensure that they provide them with any updated privacy policies that we may provide to them from time to time.

1. What personal data do we collect about you and how do we use it?

Depending on how and why you interact with us, we will collect the following information about you:

• Information provided to us by a member: If you are an employee, company officer or other individual acting on behalf of one of our members, they may provide us with your contact details, such as your name, job title, company name, address, telephone number and email address. We will use this personal data in order to provide our services to the member. This includes enabling us to communicate with you regarding the business of UKWIR and the Water Industry, such as to enable you to participate in a research project, attend or speak at an event or workshop and to enable us to send you the output of our research, briefing notes, reports and information alerts.
• A member may also provide us with your contact details, if they wish to put you forward for a role within UKWIR’s business, such as to nominate you to be appointed to UKWIR’s Board or to act as a Research & Development Representative, Programme Lead or to join a Project Steering Group on their behalf.
• From you:
• If you contact us by email, telephone or post or otherwise, or by filling in forms, or otherwise participate in the interactive features of our website. This includes information you provide when you register to use our website, or register to receive notifications, newsletters or updates from us.
• When you provide feedback or participate in our surveys or when you search or interact with our website and when you report a problem on our website.
• Information we collect about you: We will collect information when you visit our >websites including via cookies, such as your IP address and browser type.
• This includes your login and password when you login to use the members-only parts of our website, so that we can verify that you are entitled to access them.
• We may also process information collected via our website in order to improve our website or our services for the benefit of our members/stakeholders, to ensure that content on our website is presented in the most effective manner for you and your computer or device, and to give you the best website experience. This includes the use of Google Analytics to analyse the performance of our website, including how many visitors we have, their geographical location, the pages they visit and the time and date of their visit.
• We may process your personal data to notify you about changes to our services and/or the terms on which the services are provided, to identify and prevent fraud, if we are required to do so by law (or if we reasonably believe we are required to do so by law), and to the extent it is necessary for the proper operation of our systems, to protect us/our members, or for the enforcement of our terms.

Unless stated otherwise in this privacy policy, the legal basis for our use of your personal data will be that this information is required for one or more of the legitimate interests described above.

2. Who is your personal data shared with?

We may disclose your personal data to:

• Our members’ contacts, external project managers and contractors, where this is necessary for the provision of our services, such as where this is necessary for your participation in a research project or an event. Details of our members’ contacts will be contained in delegate event lists shared with other delegates and in our members’ directory;
• Our service providers, such as our website provider, Webree (webree.com), who hosts our website and sends out mailings on our behalf;
• Where we are required to disclose or share your personal data in order to comply with a legal obligation, to protect the rights, property or safety of UKWIR, our members or others. This may include exchanging information with organisations for the purposes of fraud protection;
• Water UK – We may provide them with our members’ contact details only where they have requested them in order to provide their services and for limited purposes which are consistent with our own. For example, if one of their members has recommended that you should be informed about an industry event which they are planning to hold.

3. Storage of Your Personal Data

We maintain up-to-date records of the personal information we hold and will only use and store it for as long as it is required for the purposes it was collected for, as set out above in this policy and for as long as we are required to keep it for legal purposes.

How long your personal information will be stored depends on the specific information in question and what it is being used for. We continually review what information we hold
and delete what is no longer required.

If you have a query about how long we retain your personal data for, please contact us using the details contained in the ‘Contacting Us’ section at the end of this policy.

4. Safeguarding your personal data

We take the protection of your personal data very seriously. We have established appropriate technical and organisational procedures, systems and processes to ensure that your data is stored securely, whether in paper or electronic form.

However, we cannot guarantee the security of any information you send to us by email or via our website.

5. What are cookies and how do we use them?

Our website uses cookies to distinguish you from other users of our website. This helps us provide you with a good experience when you browse our website and allows us to improve our site. For more detailed information on the cookies we use and the purpose for which we use them see our Cookie Policy at https://ukwir.org/cookie-policy.

6. Third party links

This policy only applies to our website and our services and not those provided by third parties, including those to which our website may link. We would advise you to make yourself familiar with any privacy policy provided by such third party websites before providing personal information. 

7. Your rights

You have the following rights (unless exemptions apply), which can be exercised by contacting us using the details provided in the ‘Contacting Us’ section below.

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 or completed;
• 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);
• 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; and
• request a copy of your personal data which you have provided to us, in a structured, commonly used and machine-readable format and the right to transfer it, or to require us to transfer it directly, to another controller.

You also have the right to object to the 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. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal data for direct marketing purposes.

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

We may request specific information from you to help us to confirm your identity before you exercise any of the rights above. This is another appropriate security measure to ensure that personal data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it.

If you are unhappy about how your personal data has been used, please contact us using the details provided in the ‘Contacting Us’ section below. You also have a right to complain to the supervisory authority, which in the United Kingdom is the Information Commissioner's Office https://ico.org.uk/, which regulates the processing of personal data.

8. Contacting Us

If you have any queries about this policy or our use of your personal data or you would like to exercise any of the rights described in the ‘Your Rights’ section above, please contact us at: 

Email us at : mail@ukwir.org.uk

Write to us at: Steve Kaye, CEO, UKWIR, 3rd Floor, 36 Broadway, London SW1H 0BH.

9. Changes to this Privacy Policy

Any changes we make to our privacy policy in the future will be posted on this page and, where appropriate, notified to you by email. Please check frequently to see any updates or changes to our privacy policy.