Privacy Policy
This Privacy Policy applies to all websites and web applications that link to this policy and are published by GIS Planning (“Sites”).
If you wish to amend any of the personal information that we hold about you or update your marketing preferences, you can do so at any time by contacting ftlocations@ft.com.
If you have any queries about how we use your personal information, please contact gis.privacy@ft.com.
Information we collect
This section details the information we may collect about you. We explain why and how we use it in later sections.
Service Information
If you decide to inquire about one of our products or services, register for a webinar, access our content, subscribe to a blog or newsletter, or RSVP to an event, we’ll ask you to provide us with some specific information, for example:
Basic personal details – such as name and title
Contact details – such as phone number and email address
Work details – such as job title, department, company name, and address.
Additional information
On occasion, we will ask you to voluntarily provide additional information, for example:
Your opinion of our products and services
Your professional opinion on investment attraction and marketing or other related current issues
Your marketing preferences, if we ask you about receiving further information about our products and services.
Information we obtain from partners and public sources
In some circumstances, we collect information about you from our partners or from publicly available websites and other sources to help us engage with potential customers and enhance the relevance of our products. For example, information may be obtained from you via interaction with our representatives at conferences.
Information we obtain through cookies and similar tools
We use cookies (and similar technologies) and analytics tools across our Sites to collect information about you. This information is used to improve the performance of the site and enhance your user experience. We provide detailed information about cookies and similar technologies below; examples of the information we collect in this way include:
Your location – We use cookies to monitor your approximate location. For example, if you are visiting one of our Sites from a commercial IP address, the IP address and location will be recorded to enable us to better understand the type of companies visiting our Sites. We may also use this information to tailor our marketing communications.
Your settings or preferences - We use cookies to remember your settings or saved items. For example, if you save your favourite properties, we use a cookie to remember this.
Your usage – We use cookies to understand how our customers and potential customers use and interact with our Sites and our communications. For example, we use technology on our Sites, which records the way you interact with our applications, including page scrolling, clicks and text entered. This helps us to identify usability issues and improve the assistance we can provide to users; it is also used for aggregated and statistical reporting purposes.
Your device – We use cookies to understand what type of device you are using to show you the best version of the site.
Some cookies are essential for the operation of our Sites. We use essential cookies for the following reasons:
Performance - We use performance cookies to monitor the performance of our Sites. This allows us to identify and fix any issues that arise. For example, we might use performance cookies to track improvements to our Sites.
Functionality - We use functionality cookies to allow us to remember your preferences. For example, we use functionality cookies to save your viewed properties into multi folders for your future use. We also use these cookies to deliver content on our Sites. For example, to host and enable registration for our webinars.
Analytics - We use analytics cookies to measure how users interact with content on our Sites. For example, we record the pages on our Sites that have been viewed and how long audiences have spent on that page. We also use analytics cookies to better understand our users by collecting information such as devices used and geographic location.
We also use third-party cookies on our Sites that fall into the categories above for the following reasons:
To help us monitor traffic on our Sites (like many companies, we use Google Analytics to do this)
To improve site functionality
For targeting purposes, for example, where you have expressed an interest in our products, either by joining one of our webinars or sending us an inquiry and signing up to our marketing emails, we may use a cookie to tailor the conversations you have with our sales representatives based on the parts of our Sites you view.
We also use pixels in our emails to tell us whether, and how many times, our emails are opened and verify any clicks through to links. We use this information for the following purposes:
Determining which of our emails are more interesting to users
Determining users’ activity and engagement with our products and services.
The pixel will be deleted when you delete the email. If you do not wish the pixel to be downloaded to your device, you should select to receive emails from us in plain text rather than HTML via your email provider settings.
If you chose to disable cookies on our Sites, certain sections of the site may not work properly.
Lawful basis for processing
We only process personal information where we have a lawful basis for doing so, such as the following:
User consent – This is where you have given us explicit permission to process personal information for a given purpose. For example, if you register for our webinars or complete one of our general inquiry forms, we would ask for your consent if we wanted to use your personal information for any other purpose, such as receiving information about our products and services. You have the right to withdraw this consent at any time by unsubscribing.
Legitimate business purposes – This is where we have a legitimate interest, as a business, to process personal information. For example, we retain information about webinars you have signed up to help tailor our marketing communications. We take due care to balance our interests against your right to privacy.
Contractual necessity – This is where we have to process personal information to meet our contractual obligations. For example, we will process the email addresses of client employees who manage our clients’ websites.
Legal obligation – This is where we have to process personal information in order to comply with the law. For example, we process and retain customer invoice information to comply with financial regulations.
How we use your personal information
We collect personal information for the following main reasons:
To provide our service – We require some of your basic personal information so our services work as you would expect, for example, providing access to our blogs and newsletters, downloading content, dealing with queries and notifying you of changes to our services.
To improve and maintain performance – In order to provide you with the best possible user experience and value, we need to make sure that our products and services work as they should. Using personal information helps us understand how our users experience our Sites and services, so we can make improvements. This includes analyzing onsite data to test new and existing events, products and developments.
To personalize our products and services – We improve your experience of our products and services by personalizing parts of our Sites and apps with the information you give us or your access permissions if you are managing a site we have built for a Client.
To communicate product changes and offers – We want you to get the most out of our products and services. To do this, we may include you in our email list to showcase our products. You are able to change your preferences at any time by unsubscribing. We also personalize our communications for strategic purposes. For example, we might contact you about an offer based on your use of our sister products, such as fDi Intelligence, which is provided by the Financial Times.
Recruitment – If you apply for a role with GIS Planning, we will process your information in order to facilitate the application process.
To administer prize draws and competitions – If you enter a prize draw or competition, we will process your information in order to run the competition or administer the prize draw. For example, we will process your address information if you are a winner and we need to send your prize by post. We may be required to publish or otherwise make available your name and/or region if you are selected as a winner in a competition or prize draw.
Who we share your personal information with
We disclose personal information to facilitate the running of our business or to provide specific services you have requested. Commonly, we will disclose information to:
Service providers – We engage service providers who help to support our business and improve our products. These service providers include, for example, fulfilment providers for delivery of our digital marketing; hosts, organizers and sponsors of our events; and organizations that host our Sites or databases. We have contracts in place with these service providers and they can only use your personal information under our instruction.
Social media providers – Information will be shared with social media platforms where you use components on our Sites provided by social media platforms (e.g. the “Facebook Recommend” function).
Other users – Our Sites are publicly accessible and anyone around the world who accesses our Sites will be able to see anything you post, such as comments on blog posts.
FT group – We share your information within the FT group to provide our services and to better understand the relationship between our products. More information about FT group is available in the “About Us” section on FT.com. For example, if you have expressed an interest in fDi Intelligence products from the Financial Times, you may be contacted about GIS products and services because we think these may be of particular interest to you.
Legal processes and successors in title – We, and our suppliers, may also disclose your information to comply with applicable laws, court orders or other valid legal processes, and to enforce or apply our terms of use, any services agreement, or any of our other rights. We may transfer or disclose your personal information to any entity which takes over or acquires our business.
How long we retain your personal information
We retain the majority of your personal information for as long as you continue to interact with or express an interest in our products and services; this allows you to continue accessing our content, products and services.
If you become inactive or cease to be interested in our products, we may delete elements of your personal information in line with the time periods below.
Where we don’t need to keep all of your information in full, we will obfuscate or aggregate it, for example, web activity logs. This is to ensure that we do not retain your information for any longer than is necessary.
A summary of how long your personal information is retained can be found below:
It is sometimes necessary for us to keep your personal information for longer periods of time, for example:
If there is a statutory requirement to retain it
If we require the information for legal reasons or there is a legitimate business need for us to retain it
To ensure we do not contact you if you have asked us not to.
How we keep your personal information secure
We have appropriate technical and administrative security measures in place to help ensure that our users’ information is protected against unauthorised or accidental access, use, alteration, or loss. For example, we use encryption technology to protect your personal information when at rest and in transit.
We operate a global business, so your personal information will be processed and stored in the United States of America as well as within the European Economic Area (EEA). For example, our global sales team need to access information about you in order to respond to your queries.
Information we process on behalf of our clients
We provide our clients with online tools to collect information about your activity on their sites, which may include the use of cookies or other similar technology; for example, Lead Forensics. In this capacity, we act as a processor on behalf of our clients; we do not control your data but have access to it for specific purposes such as training, continuity of services and generating reports. Information we process in this way includes:
Your email address, where you are an employee of our client and have permission to edit our client’s site listings
Your IP address
The company you work for, where you access our clients’ sites from an IP address associated with that company.
Your rights
Under data protection laws, you may have rights as an individual in relation to the personal data we hold about you. These rights might include:
The right to object to direct marketing
The right to access the personal data that we process about you
The right to request the deletion of your personal dataThe right to request the rectification of your personal data.
You can exercise these rights by contacting gis.privacy@ft.com.
You also have the right to lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority.
Where this Privacy Policy applies
Personal information is collected by GIS Planning, Inc and The Financial Times Limited on behalf of the Financial Times group of companies and its trading entities (including FDI Intelligence).
Our Sites are not intended for children under 16 years of age. We do not intentionally collect or use any information from children.
Our Sites contain links to third-party websites that are not subject to this privacy policy. We are not responsible for their content, use of personal information, or security practices.
If you have a query in regards to the processing of your personal information, please contact gis.privacy@ft.com.
EU Representative: The Financial Times Ltd
Registered Office: Bracken House, 1 Friday Street, London, England, EC4M 9BT, UK
Registered Number: 227590
ICO Registration Number: Z7087146
Privacy notice for California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA)
CCPA applies to the personal information that some businesses process about California residents. GIS Planning, Inc. does not meet the thresholds set out in CCPA for it to apply to us. If you have any questions, please email gis.privacy@ft.com.
Changes to this Privacy Policy
This policy is effective from 31/08/2020.
Any changes we may make to this privacy policy will be posted on this page. If changes are significant, we may choose to notify you by email or to clearly indicate on our home page that the policy has been updated.