Privacy Policy

1. Who We Are Eventside ("we", "us", "our") operates the Eventside platform at eventside.co.uk, connecting members of the events industry through business pages, a marketplace, recruitment listings, messaging, a community forum and related tools. This policy explains what personal data we collect, why, and the choices and rights you have.

2. Information We Collect We collect information you provide directly, such as your name, username, email address, password, profile details, address, business information, marketplace listings, job posts, messages, invoices, forum posts and support tickets you create.

We also collect information automatically as you use Eventside, including your IP address (stored in a hashed form), device and browser type, pages visited, search queries, approximate session duration, and basic performance data such as page response times. This is described further in Section 5 (Cookies and Analytics).

Where you choose to add payment or billing details for invoicing purposes, these are stored to help you manage your own business records; Eventside does not process card payments on your behalf unless explicitly stated.

3. How We Use Your Information We use your information to: provide and maintain your account and the features you use; show relevant businesses, jobs and listings, including based on your approximate location if you provide an address; enable messaging, invoicing, calendar and forum features; respond to support tickets and live chat; keep the Platform secure and prevent abuse; understand how Eventside is used so we can improve it (see Section 5); and comply with our legal obligations.

We do not sell your personal data to third parties.

4. Legal Basis for Processing Under UK data protection law, we rely on the following legal bases depending on the activity: performance of a contract (providing the account and features you sign up for), legitimate interests (such as keeping the Platform secure, understanding usage patterns and improving our service, balanced against your rights), consent (for optional cookies or communications where applicable), and legal obligation (such as responding to lawful requests from authorities).

5. Cookies and Analytics Eventside uses essential cookies and session identifiers required for the Platform to function, such as keeping you logged in and remembering your session. We also run first-party analytics that record page views, session length, search terms, feature usage and basic technical performance data, associated with an anonymous session identifier and, if you're logged in, your account. This helps us understand which features are useful, spot technical problems, and improve the Platform. This analytics data is not shared with third-party advertising networks.

An administrator can disable analytics collection Platform-wide at any time from the admin control panel, and analytics data is automatically deleted after a limited retention period.

6. Sharing Your Information We may share your information with: other members, where you choose to make information public (such as a business page, marketplace listing, forum post or review) or where you communicate directly with them; service providers who help us run Eventside, such as hosting and email delivery providers, under contracts that require them to protect your data; and authorities or third parties where required by law, to protect our rights, or to protect the safety of our users.

7. International Transfers Where any of our service providers are located outside the UK, we take steps to ensure your data continues to receive an adequate level of protection, such as relying on providers certified under recognised data protection frameworks or using standard contractual clauses approved by the UK authorities.

8. Data Retention We keep your account information for as long as your account is active, and for a reasonable period afterwards in case you wish to reactivate it or as required for legal, accounting or dispute-resolution purposes. Analytics data is retained for a limited period (shown in the admin control panel) and then automatically deleted. You can ask us to delete your account and associated personal data at any time, subject to Section 9.

9. Your Rights Under UK data protection law, you have the right to: access the personal data we hold about you; ask us to correct inaccurate data; ask us to delete your data, subject to certain exceptions; ask us to restrict or object to certain processing; and request a portable copy of data you've provided to us. To exercise any of these rights, raise a support ticket from the Help & Support page. You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) if you believe we have not handled your data properly.

10. Children's Privacy Eventside is not intended for use by anyone under the age of 18, and we do not knowingly collect personal data from children. If you believe a child has provided us with personal data, please contact us so we can remove it.

11. Security We use technical and organisational measures to protect your information, including encrypted connections, hashed passwords, optional two-factor authentication, and access controls that restrict who at Eventside can see personal data. No system is completely secure, but we work to keep your information safe and to respond quickly if something goes wrong.

12. Changes to This Policy We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time to reflect changes in our practices or legal requirements. Material changes will be highlighted on this page along with the date they take effect.

13. Contact Us and Complaints If you have questions about this Privacy Policy or how we handle your data, please raise a support ticket from the Help & Support page. If you're not satisfied with our response, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner's Office (ico.org.uk).