Museums Privacy Notice

Lancaster City Museums are committed to protecting your privacy and security.

This privacy policy explains how and why we use your personal data and is intended to help ensure that you remain informed and in control of your information.

When do we collect your Personal Information?

In some instances, we collect data you provide to us. This includes information you freely give when you

• communicate with us
• purchase tickets, products or services
• sign up to receive communications from us
• give us permission to take and use a photograph of you
• make an object donation to our collection
• apply for employment or to volunteer with us
• enter into a contract with us.

What Personal Information do we collect?

Depending on your interaction with our Museums service, we may collect:

• personal details such as name, gender, date of birth, email, address, telephone etc.
• family and spouse/partner or next of kin details
• financial information (such as credit/debit card or direct debit details)
• your response to written correspondence with members of our staff
• details of the ways in which you wish to be contacted by us

if you are the parent or guardian of a child who we have photographed or one of our History Detectives Club members, your details will be recorded (as will your child’s).

Personal data generated by your involvement with the Museum

Your activities and involvement with the Museum will result in personal data being generated. This could include:

• details of your areas of interest in the Museum's collection
• your attendance at special events
• your participation in a museum event (e.g. a Podcast)
• where you have asked us for information or written to us
• your visits to our websites
• images of you captured by our CCTV systems
• your use of our public WIFI
• your purchasing history (where you have completed purchased online, or via email)
• how you have helped us by volunteering or by donating money or objects to us
• where you have applied for a job with us

Personal data from third parties

We may receive personal data about you from third parties, for example, if we partner with another organisation.

We may collect information from social media about you, or if you post on any of our social media pages.

We may receive some level of personal data if you visit or interact with our sites as part of a group.

Special category ('sensitive') personal data

We do not normally collect or store special categories of personal data. However, there are some situations where we may need to do so. These may include if you work or volunteer with us, or apply to do so, or if we need to know about any personal access or medical requirements you may have.

How we use your Personal Information?

We will only use your personal data for the purpose or purposes for which it was obtained.

Marketing

Only if you have specifically consented to this, will we use your personal data to communicate with you in order to promote our activities and events and to update you on news from the museums.

Administration

We use your personal data for administrative purposes including:

• maintaining records of donations in-line with national guidance requirements
• maintaining databases of any memberships or support
• processing any regular subscriptions
• performing our obligations under contracts and other supporters' agreements
• managing custody of our collection including our intellectual property rights
• carrying out due diligence to meet our compliance duties (for example, before making any acquisition into our collections, accepting financial support or making agreements for the supply of goods and services)
• processing enquiries and requests for information
• managing feedback, comments and complaints we receive
• fulfilling orders for tickets, goods or services (whether placed online, over the phone or in person)
• helping us respect your choices and preferences
• recruitment and staff management including pay, tax and pensions administration
• management of suppliers of goods and services
• managing your visit to the Lancaster City Museums (for example, health and safety,

Internal research and profiling

We may carry out research and analysis on our visitors, Friends and other supporters to determine the success of our service and to help us provide you with a better experience. During this process we may evaluate, categorise and profile your personal data in order to develop a wider visitor profile. Your personal data (such as contact details, name and full address will not be stored).

Do we share your information with anyone else?

We will never sell your personal data or share with third parties without your consent.

If you have opted-in to marketing, any communications will always come from us and will be incorporated into our own marketing.

If you use a payment card to purchase something from us online, we will pass your payment card details securely to our payment provider. We comply with the payment card industry data security standard (PCI-DSS) published by the PCI Security Standards Council.

We may share your personal data where required to do so for prevention of crime or for taxation purposes (for example, with the police, HMRC) or where otherwise required to do so by other regulators or by law.

Children and young people

Information for parents and guardians

We take great care to protect and respect the rights of all individuals in relation to their personal data, especially in the case of those aged 16 or younger.

We will not use the personal data of children or young people for marketing purposes and we will not profile it.

Personal data about children and young people is only accessible by our team on a strictly need-to-know basis.

History Detectives Club Membership

Membership of the History Detectives Club is available to individuals aged 16 and under.

As a parent/guardian, you will have signed the membership form and given us permission to record and store the personal data that you have provided.

Once your child’s membership has expired and/or they no longer wish to be members, their data will be deleted securely.

We will only use this data for reasons associated with being a member of the club.

CCTV

Where Lancaster City Museums premises are protected by CCTV you may be recorded when you visit. We use CCTV to help provide a safe and secure environment for visitors, for our staff and for the collection and to prevent or detect crime.

The system is managed in accordance with our standard operating procedures and with good practice guidance issued by Lancaster City Council. CCTV images will only be accessed by authorised security staff when requires and are stored for up to 30 days, unless flagged for review.

Your rights and how to find out more

You have a number of rights under data protection law, including the right to ask for a copy of the information we hold about you, and the right to object to our use of your information in certain circumstances.

For further information about your rights, how the Council uses your information, and how to get in touch if you have a query or complaint, please see the Council’s main privacy notice.

We reserve the right to amend this privacy notice at any time. However, we take your privacy very seriously and will never change our policies or practices to make them less protective of your personal information. 

Changes to this privacy policy

We may amend this privacy policy from time to time to ensure it remains up-to-date and continues to reflect how and why we use your personal data. The current version of our privacy policy will always be posted on the Lancaster City Council website.

Last updated: 26 March 2025