The YourVoice and Mirror-Club communities are run by Reach Plc bringing together readers and website visitors from some of the UK’s leading national and regional news titles.
As a community member, you will be invited to take part in a range of activities including polls, surveys, discussions and prize draws. If you choose to take part in these activities we will record your responses.
The below policy outlines how we will use the information you provide as well as the steps we take to keep it secure.
Your information is very important to us and we will look after your information carefully in line with the latest data protection and privacy laws. We also want to be transparent about what information we collect about you, how we use it, and how you can control what we do with this information. We’ve set out below more detail on what information we collect about you and how we use that information.
Please do read this privacy notice and our Cookie Policy, so you know what we are doing with your information. By accessing and using the Site and by participating in the Community, you are agreeing to the terms of this privacy notice and to our Cookie Policy. We may update this privacy notice and our Cookie Policy from time to time and we’ll post any changes on our Site.
If you decide to you want to leave the community at a later date or wish to stop receiving communications from us, you can do so very easily and at any moment in time by emailing us at support@your-voice.co.uk
This privacy notice was last updated on 1st February 2023
We are the publishing group Reach Plc and operate this website on behalf of a number of news titles around the country (a full list can be found at the end of this document)
In this Privacy Notice, when we refer to any of our Sites we mean any website or app, including e-editions, published by our various subsidiary companies and brands, listed at the end of this document (“Reach Group” or “we”), regardless of how you access it.
This is the main privacy notice for the YourVoice.co.uk and Mirror-Club.co.uk websites (“The Website”) and the YourVoice and MirrorClub communities (“The Community”) as a whole. It applies to all activities run through the website.
In summary, depending on your relationship with us, we’ll use your personal information:
This Privacy Notice, which covers all of your personal information whether collected online or offline, including by telephone or where you write to us, together with our Cookie Notice and any Site-specific notice, provides more detail on those activities and explains your rights and how to exercise them.
For all of our Sites, and brands, either Reach plc or one of its subsidiary companies is the data controller of the personal information that we gather about you. Regardless of which Reach Group company is the controller, you can always contact us with questions or concerns about your privacy by emailing us at dataprotection@reachplc.com
When you become a member of the Community, by double opting in, you consent to us using your information as set out in this Privacy Policy.
Information that we collect and process about you includes:
For more information about cookies, please see our Cookie Notice
Throughout all our newspapers, magazines, websites, apps and social media channels run or published by the Reach group of companies we want to offer you a service which you want to use. We may use and permit others to use your personal data as set out below.
By taking part in our polls, surveys, discussions, forums and other activities, your opinions will help us better understand the views of our readers, helping shape the articles, content ideas, websites and magazines we are developing and how we can improve the service we currently offer.
We may use information about you to provide and manage the activities you are invited to and to improve the usefulness of our Sites, products and services.
We also use your personal data to contact you, including to notify you about activities we are keen to hear your views on, follow up on a comment you have submitted or material posted on the Site, changes and updates to products or services, to evaluate the performance of our products and services, update you on the impact your participation has had, to notify you if you are selected as one of our prize winners, to notify you of chances in relationship to your membership of the Community or to verify your identity.
We may use your information for the management of our business and improving the operation of our business and that of our business partners, to assess our internal processes.
We may monitor, record and store records of calls, email, text messages, social media messages, in person meetings and other communications where permitted by law and we’ll do this where the law requires it, or to comply with regulatory rules, to prevent or detect crime, for evidential purposes, in the interests of protecting the security of our communications systems and procedures and for quality control and staff training purposes.
We may use your data to comply with legal and regulatory obligations.
Where we’re relying upon your consent to process personal data, you can withdraw this at any time by contacting us at support@your-voice.co.uk
We may analyse your data, including whether or not you open a newsletter or click on links, and analyse data, gathered thorough our websites and advertising partners, including by analysing your data in aggregated form into categories (known as segments), to help target survey to you that we think are of interest or relevance to you. You can find more information on this in our Cookie Notice.
We may disclose details about the use of the Sites to other businesses e.g. to demonstrate patterns of use to advertisers and others. The information we pass on will be anonymised. We compile anonymous records of user trends which we may make use of ourselves or pass to our associated companies, including advertising networks. You can read more about this in our Cookie Notice.
We may share personal or other information as needed with our third party service providers and partners including STRAT7 Researchbods, a division of STRAT7 Limited ("Researchbods") (company number 7642707 whose registered address and address for service is 11 Soho Street, London, W1D 3AD) who hosted / developed this site on behalf of Reach Plc, or other members of the Reach Group as part of providing and administering this Site.
We do this so that Researchbods can provide services to us, for example creating research activities for or assisting us if there are any technical issues with the YourVoice & Mirror-Club communities. We share your personal data with Researchbods on the basis that it is necessary for the operation of the Community you have joined when agreeing to our terms and conditions. We ensure that your personal data is shared with Researchbods in accordance with data protection laws and we have a contract with Researchbods which requires us and them to observe your data protection rights.
In addition, Researchbods may also share personal or other data with third-party / sub-processors as part of their administration of this Site. The full list of sub-processors your data may be shared with includes:
In these cases they will only have access to the personal data that they absolutely need to provide the specific service to us. In some cases, these organisations may (for example our payment processors) need to process your personal data for their own specific purposes, for example to ensure they are compliant with regulations or laws governing their own sectors.
We may share information described in this policy to facilitate the sale of one or more parts of our business, including if we are approached by a potential buyer or the restructuring of one or more parts of our business and with auditing organisations such as the Audit Bureau of Circulation, or if the Site is transferred to another service provider (which replaces Researchbods or works alongside them) who then becomes a data processor and / or controller of your Personal Information.
When joining The Community you will be allocated a Username based on the name details provided (e.g. someone who registers under the name HayleyCooper, will be allocated a username HayleyC01). This username will appear alongside any submissions or comments you make in public forums and pages which are displayed to other member of the Community. Members can request to change their username by writing to support@your-voice.co.uk.
On some discussion forums or activities, we may ask readers to submit comments or upload photos / videos in response to articles or news stories with the intention of publishing selected comments in one of our newspapers or online websites. This will always be explicitly stated at the start of the activity along with the possible places comments may be published in. Submissions made as part of these projects is entirely at your own discretion. If your comment is selected to be published it will appear alongside your allocated Username.
For all other projects once we’ve gathered your responses, we will combine them with the answers from other members and turn them into valuable insights which may be shared with third parties. Unless specifically stated at the start of the activity and with your explicit permission, this information will only be disclosed to third parties in anonymised or aggregate form, stripped of any identifiable data (example forms of anonymised / aggregate data include: “X% of readers from Birmingham agree that…”)
Outside of the purposes outlined above, we will not share any personal information linked to your survey responses without your explicit consent unless required to by law, a court order, a regulatory authority, or otherwise, to bodies including the police, trading standards, regulatory authorities or other relevant authorities.
Please be aware that if you disclose information on forums it may be possible for other research participants to use this information. We are not responsible for the disclosure of any information you post in this way.
We and Researchbods (which hosts / develops this Website on our behalf) may also collect information about you automatically when you visit our Sites by using cookies (small text files) and other tracking technology. For more information about cookies, and other tracking technology including how to turn them off, please see our Cookie Notice.
We’re based in the UK and the Republic of Ireland but sometimes your personal information may be transferred outside the European Economic Area. If we do so we’ll make sure that suitable safeguards are in place, for example by using approved contractual agreements, unless certain exceptions apply. We can provide more information about this on request.
We rely on the following legal bases to use your personal data:
A. Where it is in our legitimate interests to do so, such as:
B. With your consent or explicit consent
We will hold onto your personal information for as long as you choose to remain a member of the Site. This is to ensure we are able to contact you regarding future invitations to take part in activities via the community including, but not limited to: polls, surveys, discussion forums or to notify you regarding prize draw wins. We may also use this information for the purposes of insight, tracking responses over time.
If at any point you choose to close your account with the community, all profile information linked to your account including survey answers will be permanently deleted from all servers within a 12 month period.
At any point you have the right to request the information that we hold about you to be deleted if it is no longer necessary for the purpose we collected it for, and there is no other legal basis which we must, or are allowed to, retain it. If your request meets this definition any information linked to your account or survey answers will be permanently deleted from all servers within a 30 day period of us receiving this request. When a deletion request is made, we will redact the Screen Name that appears alongside any comments made. The comments themselves will remain on the site unless they contain personally identifiable information or you request specific comments to be deleted. You can do so by emailing us at support@your-voice.co.uk.
The law gives you certain rights in respect of the information that we hold about you. Below is a short overview of those rights. The website of the Information Commissioner’s Office (http://www.ico.org.uk) has a wealth of useful information in respect of your rights over your personal data.
If you wish to exercise your rights, you can write to us by
email dataprotection@reachplc.com or by post to Reach plc, One Canada Square, London E14 5AP, for the attention of the legal department.
Your right to withdraw your consent
If we are processing your personal data on the basis of your consent, you have the right to withdraw that consent at any time.
Your right to access the information we hold about you
With some exceptions designed to protect the rights of others, you have the right to a copy of the personal data that we hold about you, as well as information about what we do with it, who we share it with and how long we will hold it for. We may make a reasonable charge for additional copies of that data beyond the first copy, based on our administrative costs.
Your right to have inaccurate information about you rectified
You have the right to have the information we hold about you corrected if it is factually inaccurate at the point in time you provided it (e.g. this would not cover situations where your opinions or situation changes over time).
Your right to object to what we do with your data, and to have restrictions placed upon it
Where we process your personal data on the basis of our legitimate interest, you have the right to object to that processing and to have restrictions placed upon it while we consider your objection.
Your right to have your information erased in some circumstances
You have the right to require us to delete the information that we hold about you if it is no longer necessary for the purpose we collected it for, and there is no other legal basis on which we must, or are allowed to, retain it.
Your right to stop receiving direct marketing from us
You have the right to require us to stop sending you direct marketing material (for example, survey invitations). It can sometimes take a few days to action these requests.
Your right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO)
You have the right to lodge a complaint about our handling of your personal data with the supervisory authority, which in the UK is the Information Commissioner’s Office. But before you do so, please do contact us first to give us a chance to put matters right, at dataprotection@reachplc.com
You can contact the ICO on 0303 123 1113.
It’s likely that we’ll need to update this Privacy Notice from time to time. Any changes to this Privacy Notice will be posted here and such changes will become effective as soon as they are posted. Your continued use of the relevant Site constitutes notice to you of all these changes.
If you have any questions about this privacy notice, or if you wish to exercise your rights you can contact us email at support@your-voice.co.uk
Alternatively, you can write to the Legal Department, Reach plc, One Canada Square, London E14 5AP