Privacy Policy

Dairy Connect is the intelligence, influence and connection platform shaping dairy’s future. We take the handling of your personal information seriously, and this policy explains what we do with it. This website is owned and operated by Dairy Connect Ltd.

1. Who we are

Dairy Connect Ltd is the data controller for the personal information described in this policy.

If you have any questions about this policy or about how we handle your information, write to us at privacy@dairy-connect.com and we will respond within one month.

2. What this policy covers

This policy applies to the Dairy Connect website, our forum and event websites and registration pages, The Dairy Mail newsletter, and enquiries, correspondence and business contact with us.

Where we link to third-party websites, their privacy notices apply, not ours.

3. The information we collect

When you visit our websites

Technical information including IP address, browser type, device type, pages viewed and how you arrived at the site. Collected through cookies and analytics tools (see section 6).

When you register for an event or forum

Name, job title, organisation, email address, telephone number, and postal address where required for invoicing. We also collect any dietary or accessibility requirements you choose to tell us about, so we can cater for you properly. These fields are optional, and we delete them within 30 days of the event.

When you pay us

Registration and delegate fees, and Member subscriptions, are processed by Stripe, our payment provider. Card details are entered directly into Stripe's secure system, so Dairy Connect never sees or stores full card numbers. We retain a record of the transaction, the amount, and the invoice.

When you subscribe to The Dairy Mail

Email address, and where you provide them, name and organisation. We also record whether you open and click our emails, so we can understand what is useful to readers.

When you create a Dairy Connect account

A free Briefing account, or a paid Member subscription, needs an account. We record your email address and the details you give us when you create it: first and last name, organisation, job title, country, type of business and area of work, and, if you choose, a phone number and website. We record the date you agreed to our Terms of Business and the wording you were shown.

You sign in with a six-digit code we email to you, or with a password if you set one. Codes and account emails are sent through Transpond, our email service. Transpond will not deliver to an address that has unsubscribed from all Dairy Connect email, so unsubscribing from everything also stops sign-in codes arriving; if that happens, contact us and we will help.

When you open a report or a premium article we record which one, and when, so we can apply the monthly allowance of a free account and understand what is read. We do not share this reading data with anyone outside Dairy Connect.

If you subscribe as a Member, Stripe holds your payment details; we keep a record of your plan, its status and renewal dates, and your Stripe customer and subscription references. We also note your account in Capsule, our CRM, and match it to an existing contact record where there is one.

When you sign in with Microsoft or Google

You can choose to sign in to your Dairy Connect account with your Microsoft or Google account instead of an emailed code. If you do, Microsoft or Google confirms who you are and shares with us only your name, your email address and, where your account has one, your profile picture. We ask for nothing else: no access to your mailbox, contacts, calendar, files or any other data.

We use that information only to create your Dairy Connect account or sign you in to it, and to show your name on your account page. It is stored with your account in our member database (Supabase, hosted in London) and kept for as long as your account, as set out in section 9. We do not sell it, share it with anyone except the service providers listed in section 7, use it for advertising, or use it to train artificial intelligence models.

Dairy Connect's use of information received from Google APIs adheres to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements. You can remove Dairy Connect's access at any time from your Google account (Security, Your connections to third-party apps and services) or your Microsoft account (Privacy, Apps and services), and you can ask us to delete your Dairy Connect account by writing to privacy@dairy-connect.com.

When you contact us or do business with us

Contact details and the content of your correspondence, including enquiries about sponsorship, exhibiting, speaking or membership.

When you list your company in the Partner Directory

If you ask to list your company in the Partner Directory, we collect the details you give us about your organisation and a contact name and work email address. We may also fetch publicly available information from the website you give us, to draft the listing for your approval. Listing details are held in Capsule and published on the Partner Directory only once you have approved them.

4. Why we use your information, and our lawful basis

What we do	Why	Lawful basis
Register and admit you to events and forums	To deliver the event you have booked	Contract
Take payment and issue invoices	To complete your booking	Contract; legal obligation
Cater for dietary and accessibility needs	To make the event usable and safe for you	Explicit consent
Send The Dairy Mail	To deliver the newsletter you asked for, or that comes with your Briefing account	Consent where you subscribed on its own; legitimate interests where it comes with your account
Send you information about our events, forums and research	To keep industry contacts informed about relevant activity	Legitimate interests / consent
Analytics and site improvement	To understand what our audience reads and needs	Consent
Respond to enquiries and manage business relationships	To run the business	Legitimate interests
Run your account, sign you in and record what you read	To provide the account, apply the monthly reading allowance and understand what is read	Contract
Take payment for Member subscriptions	To provide the plan you bought and keep the records the law requires	Contract; legal obligation
Publish and maintain a Partner Directory listing	To list your company as you have asked us to	Contract; legitimate interests
Keep financial and contractual records	To meet accounting and legal obligations	Legal obligation

Where we rely on legitimate interests, we have considered whether our interest is outweighed by your rights, and you can object at any time (see section 10).

5. Marketing and The Dairy Mail

The Dairy Mail is single opt-in. You receive it because you asked for it, because it comes with the free Briefing account you created (we tell you so when you create it), or because you gave us your address while doing business with us and we believed it would be useful to you. Unsubscribing from The Dairy Mail does not close your account.

We never sell, rent or trade our mailing list.

Every email we send includes an unsubscribe link that works immediately and without conditions. You can also email privacy@dairy-connect.com and we will remove you.

6. Cookies and analytics

We use cookies and similar technologies to make our sites work and to understand how they are used. Non-essential cookies are set only with your consent, which you give through our cookie banner and can change at any time.

• Google Analytics, to measure site traffic and understand which content is read
• LinkedIn Insight Tag, to measure the performance of our advertising and content on LinkedIn

One strictly necessary cookie is set without consent, and only when you sign in to read a report. dc_session tells the site you are signed in and expires after 90 days, or sooner if you sign out. It holds no tracking data and is not shared with anyone. You can end it at any time with the Sign out control on the reports page.

The site also keeps a record of your cookie choice in your browser’s local storage, so we do not ask you again on every page. That record contains only your choice, not anything about you.

7. Who we share your information with

We do not share delegate lists with sponsors, exhibitors or commercial partners. If you meet a sponsor or exhibitor at one of our events and choose to share your details with them directly, that is between you and them.

We do share information with service providers who process data on our behalf, under written contract and only on our instructions. These fall into the following categories:

• Accounts, sign-in and the member database: Supabase (hosted in London, United Kingdom)
• Customer relationship management (CRM): Capsule CRM
• Email and newsletter distribution: Transpond
• Event ticketing and registration: Eventcube
• Payment processing and subscriptions: Stripe
• Website hosting, security checks and infrastructure: Cloudflare

We may also disclose information where we are required to by law, or to establish, exercise or defend legal claims.

8. International transfers

Our own operations, and our records, are based in the United Kingdom.

Some of the service providers we use, including our analytics providers, may process data outside the UK. Where that happens, the transfer is covered by an adequacy regulation or by the UK International Data Transfer Addendum, and we take steps to ensure your information receives an equivalent level of protection.

9. How long we keep your information

We keep personal information for as long as we need it for the purpose we collected it, and then delete it.

Record type	Retention
Delegate and event registration records	5 years from the date of the event
Financial and invoice records	6 years from the end of the relevant financial year (statutory)
Newsletter subscribers	For as long as you remain subscribed, and 12 months after unsubscribing
Enquiries and correspondence	5 years from last contact
Dietary and accessibility requirements	30 days after the event
Accounts and profiles	While your account is open, and 24 months after your last sign-in
Reading records (which reports and premium articles you opened)	24 months
Partner Directory listings	For as long as the listing is live, and 12 months after it is removed

You can ask us to delete your information sooner (see section 10).

10. Your rights

Under UK data protection law you have the right to:

• Be informed about how we use your information, which is the purpose of this policy
• Access a copy of the information we hold about you
• Rectify information that is inaccurate or incomplete
• Erase your information where we no longer have a good reason to keep it
• Restrict how we use your information while a query is resolved
• Object to processing based on legitimate interests, and to direct marketing at any time
• Data portability, to receive your information in a portable format
• Withdraw consent at any time, where we rely on consent

To exercise any of these, email privacy@dairy-connect.com. We will respond within one month. We do not charge a fee, and we may ask you to confirm your identity before we act.

11. Keeping your information secure

We use appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect personal information against loss, misuse and unauthorised access, including access controls, encryption in transit, and contractual security obligations on our suppliers. No system is perfectly secure, but we take this seriously and review our arrangements regularly.

12. Children

Our sites and events are aimed at dairy industry professionals and are not directed at children. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 18.

13. Changes to this policy

We review this policy periodically and will update it when our practices change. The date at the top shows when it was last revised. We will flag material changes on our website.

14. Complaints

If you are unhappy with how we have handled your personal information, please tell us first at privacy@dairy-connect.com so we can put it right.

You also have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office: