Privacy policy

Our commitment to privacy

Your privacy is important to us. To protect your privacy we provide this notice to explain our online information practices and the choices you can make about the way information about you is collected and used. To make this notice easy to find, we make it available at every point where personally identifiable information may be requested.

The information we collect

This notice applies to all information collected or submitted on the Victoria and Albert Museum's website, this includes areas of the website where you can create an account, comment on blogs, sign up for newsletters, enter competitions, and book tickets for events or exhibitions as well as information collected automatically by cookies, if enabled.

Please refer to the Privacy & Security page for information about your protection while making an online purchase from the V&A shop.    

Collection and storage

You can browse the V&A site without telling us who you are or revealing any personal information about yourself or your location. Once you submit information to us you are no longer anonymous. Any personal information that you give to us will be transferred and stored on secure local servers in a safe, confidential and secure environment.

The way we use information

We use the personal information you give us as a research tool to develop the content of the Museum's website, to develop our understanding of our visitors and to determine how best to serve them. We may use the information to provide you with details of the Museum's services and for this reason each screen that asks for data gives you the opportunity to opt out of receiving such data.

We use return e-mail addresses to answer the e-mails we receive. Such addresses are not used for any other purpose and are not shared with outside parties.

We will not send your data to third parties and we will not send data to areas where an adequate data protection policy is not in place.

When we may use your details to contact you

Competitions: Winners of competitions are notified directly by the V&A, unless stated otherwise in the competition Terms & Conditions. The V&A Marketing Department keep information gathered through web competitions for approximately three months on a secure local server. All entrants who have agreed to be sent the V&A e-newsletter have their details sent to PatronMail (see ‘E-newsletters’ below). Entrants who have agreed to be sent third-party information have their contact details sent to the relevant organisations. Entrants who have declined to receive further information will have their contact details deleted from the server after approximately three months.

E-newsletters: All users who agree to be sent an e-newsletter via the web are sent through automatically to the web subscription page at PatronMail. The sign-up is handled by PatronMail and the data is stored securely on their server offsite. All data collected via PatronMail is for V&A use only. PatonMail do not have the rights to use or redistribute any of our data.

Communities: If you have contributed to one of the V&A online communities or uploaded content to one of our activities, we may very occasionally contact you.

Social networking sites: Where we are active on third party sites which feature social networking or sharing we may very occasionally contact you directly in relation to activities we are running on those sites.

User ID’s and web contributions

If you submit content to the V&A website under a user name or create a user account, your user ID will be visible to the public alongside any submission you make. No other private information will be viewable.

Spam filtering

All user submissions to the website are subject to quality assessment by the Mollom spam filtering service. The quality of the content is analysed and verified at mollom.com to determine if it is unwanted or desirable and to ensure that submissions are not inappropriate, distracting or illegal. Mollom uses a secure authentication scheme meaning that the V&A account cannot be hacked or impersonated.  

Information collected automatically

The website collects some anonymous information about you automatically as you move through the site. This information is used to help us monitor how you and other visitors use the site, allowing us to provide an improved service throughout the site. The information collected automatically does not, however, contain anything that can identify you personally.

Some sections of the V&A website use cookies (small amounts of data) to store information on your local computer or mobile device hard drive. These cookies do not contain any personal data; they only serve to provide you with information tailored to your individual needs.

Certain areas of the website will also contain third party cookies, eg embedded Flickr or YouTube content. The V&A is not responsible for these cookies and you should refer to the appropriate third party website Privacy Policy for further information.  

Cookies can be turned off by you at any time in your internet browser. This can vary depending on which browser you are using so it is advised that you check the ‘Help’ menu in your browser for the most up-to-date instructions. Please note that disabling cookies will mean that some websites will not work properly and may mean that you are prompted to re-enter information on each visit that the cookies would otherwise have stored.

How you can access or correct your information

You can access all your personal identifiable information that we collect online and maintain by logging in to your account and viewing your profile page. You can correct factual errors in your personally identifiable information within your account via your profile page or by sending the webmaster a request that credibly shows error. Amendments or deletions to personal information will roll out to all activity you have had on the site. You can unsubscribe from email newsletters at any time by clicking on the link that appears at the bottom of every newsletter.

To protect your privacy and security, we will also take reasonable steps to verify your identify before granting access and making corrections.

Links to non-V&A websites

The V&A accepts no responsibility or liability for content on third party websites. Users clicking on links to external sites should check the Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy of the site they are visiting.

Our commitment to data security

To prevent unauthorised access, maintain data accuracy and ensure the correct use of information, we have put in place physical, electronic and managerial procedures to safeguard and secure the information we collect online.

Changes to the privacy policy

We may amend this privacy policy at any time by posting changes on this page. Amendments will automatically take effect upon appearing on this page. The last date of revision will always appear on the privacy policy.

How to contact us

If you have any questions or concerns about our privacy policy, please e-mail us at: webmaster@vam.ac.uk

Last updated: September 2010