The following statement explains the Horticultural Trades Association policy regarding the personal information we collect about you.

1. Statement of intent

You may be asked to submit personal information about yourself (eg name and email address etc) in order to receive or use services on our website. Such services include competitions and consumer surveys.

By entering your details in the fields requested, you enable the Horticultural Trades Association to provide you with the services you select. Whenever you provide such personal information, we will treat that information in accordance with this policy. Our services are designed to give you the information that you want to receive. The Horticultural Trades Association will act in accordance with current legislation and aim to meet current Internet best practice.

2. Information on visitors

During the course of any visit to the Plant For Life website, the pages you see, along with something called a cookie, are downloaded to your computer (see point 3 for more on this). Most, if not all, websites do this, because cookies allow the website publisher to do useful things like find out whether the computer (and probably its user) has visited the site before. This is done on a repeat visit by checking to see, and finding, the cookie left there on the last visit.

3. What is a cookie?

When you enter a site your computer will automatically be issued with a cookie. Cookies are text files that identify your computer to our server. Cookies in themselves do not identify the individual user, just the computer used. Many sites do this whenever a user visits their site in order to track traffic flows.

Cookies themselves only record those areas of the site that have been visited by the computer in question, and for how long. Users have the opportunity to set their computers to accept all cookies, to notify them when a cookie is issued, or not to receive cookies at any time. The last of these, of course, means that certain personalised services cannot then be provided to that user.

4. Submitting personal information

When you supply any personal information to Horticultural Trades Association (eg for competitions, consumer surveys or registering for Incentives access) we have legal obligations towards you in the way we deal with that data. We must collect the information fairly (see the notices on particular webpages that let you know why we are requesting the information); we must let you know how we will use it; and we must tell you in advance if we decide to pass the information on to anyone else. We will hold your personal information on our systems for as long as you use the service you have requested, and remove it in the event that the purpose has been met, or, in the case of membership access, you no longer wish to continue your registration as a registered user. We will ensure that all personal information supplied is held securely, in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998.

5. Access to your personal information

You have the right to request a copy of the personal information the Horticultural Trades Association holds about you and to have any inaccuracies corrected.

6. Direct marketing and user surveys

From time to time we may send you details of other Horticultural Trades Association services and products that may be of interest to you. The Horticultural Trades Association will keep a record of information provided by you. Please note that any information you provide to the Horticultural Trades Association will only be used within the Horticultural Trades Association. It will never be supplied to third parties without first obtaining your consent unless we are obliged by law to disclose information.

www.plantforlife.info is provided by the Horticultural Trades Association.

Postal Address

• Horticultural Trades Association
  Horticulture House
  19 High Street
  Theale
  Berkshire
  RG7 5AH
  
  
• Tel: 0118 930 3132
• Fax: 0118 932 3453

Electronic

• General enquiries: plantforlife@the-hta.org.uk
• Journalists/Press: press.office@the-hta.org.uk
  
• Web: www.the-hta.org.uk