Privacy Notice

Visitor Survey Privacy Notice

Thank you for taking part in this survey.

We will not be collecting your contact details unless you wish to have a copy of the survey emailed to you – if you do choose this option we will not store your contact details, they will only be used to send the survey through the automated system. You do not have to provide contact details at any point during this survey unless you wish to.

Visitor Survey Privacy Notice

Historic Environment Scotland (HES) are committed to protecting your personal data and your privacy. This privacy notice explains how we process any personal data we collect from you through this visitor survey.

Further information on our Privacy Notice and Data Protection Policy

Usage of personal data

This privacy notice describes how HES manages the personal data that individuals provide in our visitor surveys.

We request the following personal data in our visitor surveys:

  • how far you have travelled
  • primary mode of transport
  • whether this is your first visit
  • postcode from where that day’s journey began

These are all optional. The survey can be completed without providing this information.

We request the following special category data in our visitor surveys:

  • age range
  • number of people and children in visiting group
  • gender
  • sexual orientation
  • race / ethnicity
  • identifying with a physical / mental health condition
  • identifying with a different gender
  • pregnancy status
  • carer status

These are also all optional. The survey can be completed without providing this information.

No names or contact details are requested so the survey is anonymous.

However some individual’s provide additional personal data. This could be through the comments they make about visiting a site, giving their contact details or providing specific facts about their life. We delete any email addresses that a visitor provides.

Once a survey has been completed and submitted by a visitor, we anonymise the special category data. We analyse it so we can learn about what we did well and how we can improve the visitor experience.

We use the special category data to form a picture of the visitor demographics at our sites and to assess and minimise barriers to site enjoyment.

We publish some survey feedback and comments on our website and publications to encourage visitors to engage with our sites.

We use overall enjoyment scores as a Key Performance Indicator (KPI) and publish it in our Annual Operating Plan, as well as on our website and publications.

Third party processing and security of your data 

We are using Citizen Space Consultation Hub to provide this. We require Delib, the software company who operate Citizen Space Consultation Hub, like all third parties, to respect the security of your personal data and only permit them to process your personal data in accordance with our instructions for a specified purpose.

You can see more details on how we manage your data in Citizen Space in our Privacy Policy

Storage of personal data  

Information you provide will be stored by Delib and HES. The personal data will be stored for 24 months on Delib and then deleted automatically.

The data will be held on a secure network in HES for 5 years and then deleted. Special category data is stored separately from the other survey data on our secure network for 5 years.

Data Sharing

We share anonymised and aggregated data with third parties, such as consultants, to learn how to improve the visitor experience and site enjoyment. We also use it to minimise barriers to access.

We share overall enjoyment scores with other organisations, such as the National Trust for Scotland, and Forestry and Land Scotland, for benchmarking exercises.

We share postcode data with our HES Corporate Analysis and Performance Reporting Team. They analyse how many people are visiting the site for the first time and from where they travelled from that day. We do this so we are able to analyse how many visitors are visiting for the first time from areas of social and economic deprivation and to allow us to understand the audiences we are reaching.

We share travel data with our Climate Change Team to analyse carbon footprint and impacts of visits.

Further information 

If you would like further information, please contact us: 

Telephone: 0131 668 8600 
Email: dataprotection@hes.scot 

Data Protection Officer 
Historic Environment Scotland 
Longmore House 
Salisbury Place 
Edinburgh, EH9 1SH   

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