Our Privacy Notice gives you detailed information on when and why we collect your personal information, how we use it and how we keep it secure.

Aside from helping us deliver truly exceptional performances and events, the information you share with us means you’ll receive a more personalized and rewarding experience e.g. information about performances, exhibitions and new works that may interest you as well as a smoother ticket-buying process.

Although it is not compulsory to provide all of the information listed below, should you choose not to, then the ROH may not be able to provide you with the full range of services that we have to offer.

Registering with the ROH has many benefits, not least the opportunity to manage your personal information and receive information about our work. You can register with us at any time on our registration page.

Royal Opera House Covent Garden Foundation (the 'Royal Opera House' or ‘ROH’) is a charitable company limited by guarantee incorporated in England and Wales (Company number 480523) Charity Registered (Number 211775). The Royal Opera House is the data controller of your personal information.

Contact details for the Royal Opera House

Telephone +44 (0)20 7240 1200

Message us via our website www.roh.org.uk/contact

If you have questions regarding your information or its use, please contact our Data Protection Manager, Leah Hurst by email: dpm@roh.org.uk or by phone: +44 (0)20 7240 1200 or +44 (0) 20 7212 9664

WHO DOES THIS APPLY TO

This privacy notice is for visitors to the ROH as well as to our website, and all our members, donors and supporters.

HOW WE COLLECT YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

Generally, we collect your information when you decide to interact with us. This could include purchasing tickets online, over the phone or in person or it could be where you sign up to receive emails from us. We also look at how our audience use our website, so that we can offer the best possible experience whether you’re booking tickets or just trying to find out more about our latest productions.

We collect information in several ways which are listed below:

1. When you create an account at www.roh.org.uk. Your account allows you to do the following:

• Buy tickets, gift certificates or packages of tickets
• Join as a member
• Make a donation
• Buy merchandise such as DVDs from our online shop
• Make a booking at one of our restaurants or bars
• Register for special interest lists e.g. student’s scheme, welcome performances, cinema, surveys and competitions
• Download a free programme for a cinema screening

2. When you use the ROH or our restaurant’s website or our app to pre-order drinks or food.

3. If you contact us by phone to book tickets.

4. If you book tickets in person at the box office.

5. If you contact us by post, e.g. application forms for Friends and Access members.

6. If you contact us by Live chat or messaging through social media

7. When you visit our website: we use cookies to help make the experience of using our website better and to personalise the service you receive from us – this means we will remember your previous visits and track the pages on our website that you visit. For more information please see our Cookie Policy. When you visit www.roh.org.uk the ROH’s web server automatically records your public internet protocol ('IP') address and also generates a log file.

8. From time to time, we may also get data about you from third parties – please see the ‘Why we collect your personal information and how we use it’ section for more details. This could include other artistic venues where you have seen the ROH’s work or partners that we have run competitions with.

9. We use closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras on all our premises for the purposes of crime prevention and public safety. CCTV cameras are in operation at the front-of-house (i.e. all areas in the Royal Opera House that are used by the public), back-of-house (i.e. areas closed to the public) and exterior of the premises. Our security personnel also use body worn CCTV cameras (or ‘bodycams’) on our premises for the purposes of crime prevention and public safety. The bodycams are used to record incidents involving the public which warrant a recording to be made. An incident is considered as any engagement with a member of the public which in the opinion of our security personnel is confrontational and may involve instances of aggression, threats, or physical or verbal abuse.If you wish to see more detail on how CCTV or Bodycam footage is used and stored please contact dpm@roh.org.uk.

Royal Opera House – CCTV Privacy Notice (PDF. 34.5KB)

Royal Opera House – Body Worn CCTV Cameras Privacy Notice (PDF. 27.5KB)

THE TYPES OF INFORMATION WE COLLECT

We only collect the information that is necessary to carry out our business, provide the particular service you’ve requested and to keep you informed. There are occasions when you can choose not to give us certain information, but this for example, may limit the level of personalisation we offer e.g. you may not get to hear about an event you would have loved to have attended.

The type of information we collect depends on where and when it is gathered.

Information we obtain directly from you

When you create an account with us, register on our website or purchase tickets or other items from us online, by post or phone we need to collect information from you in order to provide the service you are requesting.

We may collect:

• Prefix and name
• Gender
• Email address
• Date of Birth
• Contact phone number(s)
• Payment card details. Please note, we will not hold payment information for any longer than it takes to process your transaction.
• Delivery address(s)
• Billing address

If you create a Young ROH account, we may also collect:

• Title and full name
• Date of Birth
• Proof of ID may also be requested at the door to make sure you are aged 16 to 25

When you use our or our restaurants website or app to pre-order drinks or food, we collect:

• Prefix and name
• Contact phone number
• Email address

If you register for the Learning Platform we may collect:

• Name of school (whether teacher or pupil)
• Postcode of school
• Courses undertaken via The Learning Platform
• Confirmation that you are over 13

If you register for the access scheme, we may also collect:

• Prefix and name
• Email address
• Contact phone number(s)
• Address
• Contact preferences
• Seating requirements (including step access)
• Facilities and services
• Accessible performances
• Personal assistant details
• Disability status for discounted tickets and companion tickets

When you purchase a ticket to a streaming service for our productions we may also collect:

• Your email
• Password
• Payment details
• Recipients email if being purchased as a gift

When visiting our website we may collect the following information:

• Automatically populated IP address: a public IP address is a unique number which allows a computer, group of computers or other internet connected device to browse the internet. The log file records the time and date of your visit, the pages that were requested, the referring website (if provided) and your internet browser version. This information is collected to help diagnose and manage the website, to audit the geographical make-up of users, and to establish how they have arrived at the website.
• Cookies: for further information about Cookies and how the ROH uses them, please read the ROH Cookie Policy.

Information we obtain independently from you

Your information may be shared with us by independent organisations, for example other arts organisations that the ROH has worked with. These independent organisations will only do so when it is required to complete a contract and/or when you have indicated your consent. You should check their Privacy Notice when you provide your information to understand fully how they will process and safeguard your data.

Third Party Organisations

We may combine information you have given to us with this additional information available from external sources. This will only be done when you give permission to the relevant third-party organisations to share the data they hold on you, or if the data is already publicly available.

Social Media

Depending on your settings or the privacy policies for social media and messaging services like Facebook, WhatsApp or Twitter, you may give us permission to access information from those accounts or services. In addition if you contact us via personal messaging within social media we keep a transcript within Talkdesk.

Information available publicly

We may include information found in places such as Companies House and information that has been published in articles/ newspapers.

We use a number of different sources to aid us in our fundraising activities, including newspaper websites and archives, housing market websites and the electoral roll as well as official websites of companies, charities and other arts organisations. This could also include data analysis to interpret your data and predict how likely you are to be interested in particular areas of our work. In addition to general use of the internet we also make use of company, director and shareholder information from publicly available information providers, such as the below organisations:

If you would like further information on how we process data please contact dpm@roh.org.uk

Children Under 13

Our services are not directed to children under 13 and we do not intentionally collect any information on children under 13 years of age. However, we recognise that whilst only those over 13 should sign up to the Learning Platform, the material on the Learning Platform is intended for use by children under 13 and thus some children may create user accounts. We do not collect any personally identifiable information when individuals sign up to the Learning Platform but if you become aware that your child or a child who is one of your pupils has created an account, please contact us at dpm@roh.org.uk

WHY WE COLLECT YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION AND HOW WE USE IT

The information we hold on you will be used in a number of ways. Here are the main ones: to provide a service you have requested, offer you a personalised experience and understand our audience’s needs better, inform you of events or updates you’ve asked for or contact you if we need to obtain or provide additional information (e.g. cast changes).

Under the UK Data Protection Act, we can only use your personal data if we have a legal basis for doing so. The list below sets out a more specifically how we use your personal data, the purpose of the processing and the legal basis upon which rely for the processing.

• To fulfil ticket, merchandise, donation and membership requests - we rely on the performance of a contract with you.
• To process payments - we rely on the performance of a contract with you. (Please note that the ROH does not store any Credit Card or other payment information once the transaction has been completed.)
• Provide the best possible customer service, to be able to answer your queries about your booking or purchase, and to help us with internal administration.
• Contact you with important information relating to your booking or purchase, such as confirming your order, reminding you of an upcoming performance you’ve booked for or letting you know about cast changes or building works that may affect your visit - We rely on our legitimate interest of keeping you informed about your upcoming visit to the ROH.
• Send you updates via email about what’s on, offers and news or about supporting us – We rely on your consent for this.
• Email you about a specific topic you’ve requested to hear more on such as cinemas, our student scheme or other projects – We rely on your consent for this.
• Share your details with other arts organisations whose work you may have seen at or in collaboration with the ROH. These organisations will contact you to let you know how they collected your data and to check that you’re still happy to hear from them. You will always be able to opt out of their communications by contacting them directly – We rely on your consent for this.
• Manage the access scheme to assist and support you to book the most suitable seats for yourself and your guests according to your specific requirements – We rely on your consent for this.
• Learn about your interests and preferences so that we can contact you with information and adverts that would be relevant to you – We rely on our legitimate interest to learn about your interests to tailor our marketing, and your consent for us to send you marketing material.
• For classifying our audience into groups or segments, using booking and publicly available information. These segments help us to understand our audience better and ensure we’re sending relevant messages to each group We rely on our legitimate interest to understand our audience better.
• Measure and understand how our audiences respond to a variety of marketing activity so we can ensure our activity is well targeted, relevant and effective - We rely on our legitimate interest to improve our marketing material and to have it relevant for the intended audience.
• Share your pseudonymised details with such Social Media platforms as Facebook and Instagram to show you advertising on said platforms or via other third party advertising that may appear on other websites you use. The information shared with these platforms is pseudonymised to protect your personal data – We rely on our legitimate interest to market to you on social media.  
• Undertake consumer research where we may contact you to ask you to participate in consumer research either via an online or telephone survey or in person. You are under no obligation to participate in research and, should you provide any further information, the ROH will inform you how any further information will be used – We rely on your consent for this.
• Analyse and continually improve the services we offer including our artistic output, our website and our other products – We rely on our legitimate interest in improving the services we offer.
• The use of CCTV recording equipment in and around our premises – We rely on our legitimate interest to monitor the ROH to provide a safe and secure environment for our staff and guests.
• Undertake due diligence to detect and reduce fraud and credit risk – We rely on the ROH having a legal obligation to perform this processing.
• To fulfil a ticket purchase to an online stream of our productions, either live or a recorded performance, for yourself – We rely on the performance of a contract with you.
• To fulfil a ticket purchase to an online stream of our productions, either live or a recorded performance, as a gift for someone else – We rely on the performance of a contract with you to process your data and that of the person you are gifting the ticket to.
• For a small number of our audience, where we want to better understand people’s engagement with the ROH and their potential interest in supporting us further. Before contacting a small number of individuals we may seek additional information including ROH booking and connections, business network information and publicly available information relating to: residential location, wealth and assets, family (this does not include information about children unless given personally by the individual concerned), career, donations to other organisations (including political parties where they are made public by the individual) and hobbies and interests to create a profile of their interests and preferences. This helps us understand the background of the people who may choose to support us and helps us to make requests for gifts to those who may be able and willing to give. We may also use publicly sourced images to help identify individuals who attend our special events – we rely on our legitimate interest in identifying suitable persons who would be interested in supporting the ROH.

HOW WE HANDLE YOUR INFORMATION AND OTHER ORGANISATIONS

The ROH will never share, sell, rent or trade your personal information to any third parties for marketing purposes without your prior consent. We will ask for your consent to share personal information with like-minded arts organisations whose shows you will have seen here at the ROH or in collaboration with us at another venue.

Automated decision making

We do not undertake any automated decision-making processes.

Who we share your information with

Some of our service providers may have access to your data in order to perform services on our behalf – payment processing is a good example of this. We make sure anyone who provides a service for the ROH enters into an agreement with us and meets our standards for data security. They will not use your data for anything other than the clearly defined purpose relating to the service that they are providing.

We may share your details with:

• Service providers who work on behalf of the ROH for the performance of any contract we enter into with them or you, for example payment processing, fulfilment of online orders, printers and mailing houses, marketing agencies, database services, website hosting or email delivery service.
• Named third party organisations if you ticked the relevant opt-in box when you purchased tickets. In these instances, we may supply your personal information to that specific organisation only.
• Other organisations such as competition organisers if you choose to take part in such activities that need administration by third parties and you choose to opt in for contact from those organisations.
• Third party data services, for example Experian, who help us to segment and understand our audience by providing additional information so that we can send the most relevant and targeted communications possible.
• Third party advertisers (such as Facebook or Google) to help us identify customers similar to our audience or to serve relevant adverts to you on third party websites or social media platforms. The information shared with these advertisers is pseudonymised: processed in such a manner that the data can no longer be attributed to you. This may include replacing or removing information to protect your personal data.
• Where required to do so (for example, if required to do so by the ‘know your donor’ principles under charity law or a court order), or when requested by the police or a regulatory or government authority investigating illegal activities.

The ROH is not responsible for the privacy notices and practices of other websites even if accessed using links from www.roh.org.uk and recommends that you check the notices of each website you visit and contact its owner or Data Protection Manager if you have any concerns or questions.

Despite all our precautions, no data transmission over the internet is 100% secure. We cannot guarantee the security of any information which you disclose to us and so wish to draw your attention to the fact that you do so at your own risk.

International Transfers

As part of the services offered to you through the ROH website, the personal information you provide may be transferred to countries outside the UK and the European Economic Area (EEA). By way of example, this may happen if any of the computer servers used to host the website are located in a country outside of the UK or EEA. If the ROH transfers your personal information outside of the UK or EEA in this way, we will take steps to ensure that your privacy rights continue to be protected as outlined in this privacy notice.

The ROH may transfer your data to the USA to organisations such as Facebook, Google or Wordfly. The USA has weaker data protection laws than that of the EEA and therefore we are working to ensure that they have suitable safeguards in place to protect the transfer of data.

HOW WE PROTECT YOUR DATA

The ROH is committed to protecting the personal information you entrust to us. We adopt robust and appropriate technologies and policies, so the information we have about you is protected from unauthorized access and improper use e.g. your online account is encrypted and our own network is protected.

The ROH works with a specialist privacy consultancy to support our compliance if you’d like further information, please contact Securys at info@Securys.co.uk

DATA RETENTION

We will keep your information only for as long as is reasonably necessary for the purposes set out in this privacy notice and to fulfil our legal obligations. We will not keep more information than we need. The retention period will vary according to the purpose, for example if purchasing a ticket only, we will typically keep your data for up to seven years from the date of your last transaction. If you are further engaged with the Royal Opera House (for example, as a member) we may keep your data for longer. For further information about how long we will keep your information, please contact the Data Protection Manager using the contact details outlined in this notice. All requests to delete your data are acted on upon request.

YOUR RIGHTS

You should find it easy to access and amend the personal information that we hold on you, or request that we stop contacting you. It’s your data and we want to make sure you feel in control of it.

If you have an online account with us, you can amend your personal details and email contact preferences at any time. Simply sign in on the web site and access your account by selecting your name at the top of the page.

Or, if you prefer, you can contact us by phoning, emailing, or writing using our contact details below.

Every email we send to you will include details on how to change your communications preferences or unsubscribe from future communications.

If you would like to see what information we hold about you, you can sign into your online account and make any changes required. You can also request full details of personal information we hold about you under the Data Protection Act 2018, by contacting the Data Protection Manager. Please send a description of the information you would like to see, together with proof of your identity to dpm@roh.org.uk

At any time you have the right to ask the ROH to amend or stop how it uses your personal information including for marketing purposes. You can do this by signing in to the website and accessing your account details or if you don’t have an account or if you prefer to, you can contact us by phoning, emailing or writing using our contact details below.

You have the right to get information held about you by us corrected. If you have any concern about the accuracy of your personal data, please let us know using the below contact details.

If you would like us to remove the personal information we hold about you, please contact us using the below contact details.

By email: dpm@roh.org.uk By phone: +44 (0)20 7240 1200 By post: Royal Opera House, Bow Street, Covent Garden, London, WC2E 9DD

You have the right to lodge a complaint with the supervisory authority, The Information Commissioner’s Office – www.ico.org.uk

You can contact them at:

https://ico.org.uk/make-a-complaint/

Information Commissioner’s Office

Wycliffe House

Water Lane

Wilmslow

Cheshire

SK9 5AF

Email: icocasework@ico.org.uk

Telephone: 0303 123 1113

UPDATES OR CHANGES TO THE PRIVACY NOTICE

This notice was updated in December 2023. It may be updated to take into account changes at the ROH or for example to reflect changes to regulation or legislation.

Updates to this notice will be posted on this page – please check back from time to time. We may also inform you of any changes where we hold an appropriate email address for you.

Further information on data protection regulations and laws can be found here.