Westie Whisky Tours Privacy Policy
Last Updated: 14 May 2025
1. Who We Are
Welcome to Westie Whisky Tours! We are a whisky tour business based in Scotland, dedicated to providing unique and memorable whisky experiences. Westie Whisky Tours is owned and operated by Tim Ridley.
Our contact details are:
- Name: Westie Whisky Tours
- Owner: Tim Ridley
- Address: Ramsay House, Glenalmond College, Perth, PH1 3RY
- Phone Number: +44 7946 839738
- Email Address: [email protected]
- Website: https://westiewhisky.co.uk
We are committed to protecting your privacy and handling your personal data in an open and transparent manner. This privacy policy sets out how we collect, use, and protect any information that you give us when you use our website or services, in accordance with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018.
2. The Type of Personal Information We Collect
We currently collect and process the following information:
- Identity Data: Including first name, last name, title, and, where necessary for age verification for tour participation, date of birth.
- Contact Data: Including billing address, delivery address (if applicable for merchandise), email address, and telephone numbers.
- Booking Data: Including details about the tours you book with us, dates, number of participants, any special requests or preferences you provide (e.g., dietary requirements if food is included, accessibility needs).
- Financial Data: When you make a booking or purchase, we will collect payment card details. Please note that we do not store your full payment card details. These are processed by our third-party payment processors who are compliant with payment card industry (PCI) standards. We will only store a reference to the transaction.
- Technical Data: Including internet protocol (IP) address, browser type and version, time zone setting and location, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform, and other technology on the devices you use to access this website.
- Usage Data: Including information about how you use our website and services, such as the pages you visit and the features you use.
- Marketing and Communications Data: Including your preferences in receiving marketing from us and your communication preferences.
- Health Data (Special Category Data): In limited circumstances, we may collect information about your health if it is relevant to your ability to participate in a tour safely (e.g., mobility issues, allergies if food/drink is provided). We will only collect this with your explicit consent and for the specific purpose of ensuring your safety and comfort.
3. How We Get Your Personal Information and Why We Have It
Most of the personal information we process is provided to us directly by you for one of the following reasons:
- When you make an enquiry or booking for one of our whisky tours: This includes information provided online, by phone, or by email.
- When you subscribe to our newsletter or marketing communications.
- When you contact us with questions or provide feedback.
- When you participate in competitions or surveys.
- When you interact with our website: We may automatically collect Technical Data about your equipment, Browse actions, and patterns by using cookies and similar technologies (please see our Cookie Policy for more details).
We may also receive personal information indirectly in the following scenarios:
- From a third party who books a tour on your behalf (e.g., a friend, family member, or travel agent). We will assume they have your consent to provide us with your information.
- From analytics providers such as Google Analytics (based outside the UK/EU) to help us understand website traffic and usage patterns.
We use the information that you have given us in order to:
- Process and manage your tour bookings: This includes confirming your booking, sending you tour information, and managing any changes or cancellations.
- Communicate with you: To respond to your enquiries, provide customer support, and send you important updates about your tour.
- Personalise your experience: To tailor our tours and communications to your interests and preferences.
- Process payments: For tour bookings and any other products or services you purchase from us.
- Improve our website and services: By analysing how our website is used and gathering feedback.
- Marketing communications: To send you information about our tours, special offers, and news that we think may be of interest to you, where you have consented to receive such communications or where we have a legitimate interest to do so and you have not opted out.
- Ensure the health and safety of our guests and staff.
- Comply with legal and regulatory obligations: Including age verification for participation in whisky tastings and maintaining records as required by law.
- Verify your identity and prevent fraud.
4. Lawful Basis for Processing Your Personal Information
Under the UK GDPR, the lawful bases we rely on for processing this information are:
- (a) Your Consent: We rely on your consent for certain activities, such as sending you direct marketing communications via email or text message, or when processing special category health data you provide for your safety on a tour. You are able to remove your consent at any time. You can do this by contacting Tim Ridley at [email protected] or by using the “unsubscribe” link in our marketing emails.
- (b) We have a Contractual Obligation: When you book a tour with us, we need to process your personal information to fulfil our contract with you (e.g., to arrange the tour, take payment).
- (c) We have a Legal Obligation: We may need to process your personal information to comply with the law (e.g., for age verification purposes, for financial record keeping).
- (d) We have a Legitimate Interest: We may process your information where it is necessary for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests. This includes:
- Administering and improving our website and services.
- Managing our relationship with you.
- Preventing fraud.
- Ensuring the security of our systems.
- For some direct marketing activities (where consent is not required).
5. Data Sharing
We may have to share your personal data with the parties set out below for the purposes outlined in section 3:
- Service Providers: We may share your information with third-party service providers who perform functions on our behalf, such as:
- Payment processors to handle your payments securely.
- IT and system administration service providers.
- Email marketing service providers (if you subscribe to our newsletter).
- Analytics providers to help us understand our website usage.
- Potentially, with specific distilleries or venues if required for booking purposes and they need guest information in advance (we will inform you if this is the case).
- Tour Guides: Our trusted tour guides will have access to necessary information (e.g., names of participants, any specific needs you’ve communicated) to ensure the smooth running of your tour.
- Professional Advisers: Including lawyers, bankers, auditors, and insurers based in the UK who provide consultancy, banking, legal, insurance, and accounting services.
- HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC), regulators, and other authorities based in the United Kingdom who require reporting of processing activities in certain circumstances.
- Third parties to whom we may choose to sell, transfer, or merge parts of our business or our assets. Alternatively, we may seek to acquire other businesses or merge with them. If a change happens to our business, then the new owners may use your personal data in the same way as set out in this privacy policy.
We require all third parties to respect the security of your personal data and to treat it in accordance with the law. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes and only permit them to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions.
International Transfers
Some of our external third parties (e.g., analytics providers, email marketing services) may be based outside the UK. Whenever we transfer your personal data out of the UK, we ensure a similar degree of protection is afforded to it by ensuring at least one of the following safeguards is implemented:
- We will only transfer your personal data to countries that have been deemed to provide an adequate level of protection for personal data by the UK authorities.
- Where we use certain service providers, we may use specific contracts approved by the UK authorities which give personal data the same protection it has in the UK.
Please contact us if you want further information on the specific mechanism used by us when transferring your personal data out of the UK.
6. Data Security
We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used, or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered, or disclosed. We limit access to your personal data to those employees, agents, contractors, and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal data on our instructions, and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality.
We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected personal data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so.
7. Data Retention
We will only retain your personal data for as long as reasonably necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, regulatory, tax, accounting, or reporting requirements. We may retain your personal data for a longer period in the event of a complaint or if we reasonably believe there is a prospect of litigation in respect to our relationship with you.
To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal, regulatory, tax, accounting or other requirements.
For example:
- Booking information will generally be kept for up to 6 years after the tour for tax and accounting purposes.
- Information provided for marketing consents will be kept until you withdraw your consent.
When it is no longer necessary to retain your personal data, we will securely dispose of it.
8. Your Data Protection Rights
Under data protection law, you have rights including:
- Your right of access: You have the right to ask us for copies of your personal information.
- Your right to rectification: You have the right to ask us to rectify personal information you think is inaccurate. You also have the right to ask us to complete information you think is incomplete.
- Your right to erasure: You have the right to ask us to erase your personal information in certain circumstances.
- Your right to restriction of processing: You have the right to ask us to restrict the processing of your personal information in certain circumstances.
- Your right to object to processing: You have the right to object to the processing of your personal information in certain circumstances (e.g., for direct marketing).
- Your right to data portability: You have the right to ask that we transfer the personal information you gave us to another organisation, or to you, in certain circumstances.
- Rights in relation to automated decision making and profiling: We do not currently conduct automated decision making or profiling.
You are not required to pay any charge for exercising your rights. If you make a request, we have one month to respond to you.
Please contact Tim Ridley at [email protected] or Ramsay House, Glenalmond College. Perth, PH1 3RY if you wish to make a request.
9. Cookies
Our website uses cookies to distinguish you from other users of our website. This helps us to provide you with a good experience when you browse our website and also allows us to improve our site. For detailed information on the cookies we use and the purposes for which we use them, please see our Cookie Policy [Insert Link to Your Cookie Policy Here].
10. Links to Other Websites
Our website may contain links to other websites of interest. However, once you have used these links to leave our site, you should note that we do not have any control over that other website. Therefore, we cannot be responsible for the protection and privacy of any information which you provide whilst visiting such sites and such sites are not governed by this privacy statement. You should exercise caution and look at the privacy statement applicable to the website in question.
11. Changes to This Privacy Policy
We keep our privacy policy under regular review. Any changes we make to our privacy policy in the future will be posted on this page and, where appropriate, notified to you by e-mail. Please check back frequently to see any updates or changes to our privacy policy. This policy was last updated on 14 May 2025.
12. How to Complain
If you have any concerns about our use of your personal information, you can make a complaint to us at:
Westie Whisky Tours Attention: Tim Ridley, Glenalmond College, Perth, PH1 3RY, [email protected], +44 7946 839738
You can also complain to the ICO if you are unhappy with how we have used your data. The ICO’s contact details are:
Information Commissioner’s Office Wycliffe House Water Lane Wilmslow Cheshire SK9 5AF Helpline number: 0303 123 1113 ICO website: https://www.ico.org.uk
