DDQINVEST Limited (“DDQINVEST”, “we”, “us”, “our”) is the operator and copyright holder of DDQINVEST.com

DDQINVEST is an independent publisher of financial content.

This privacy policy (“Privacy Policy”) tells you what personal information we collect about you, how we collect it, and what we will do with it. It applies when you:

• Visit our websites
• Order services from our websites
• Create an account to use our websites
• Update your profile and other account details
• Subscribe to or receive our newsletter, magazines, and other marketing messages
• ‘Follow’, ‘like’, post to, or interact with our social media accounts, including Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube
• Submit correspondence to us, make an inquiry, provide feedback or make a complaint by post, over the phone, by email, or on our website
• Register for and/or attend our virtual and physical events
• Complete questionnaires or surveys
• Register for a magazine, subscribe to our newsletter and mailing lists
• Submit a CV and/or an application to a job vacancy
• Have a face-to-face meeting with us
• Otherwise, interact with us

This Privacy Policy also explains what rights you have to access or change your personal information.

Our websites are not intended for children. We do not knowingly collect or maintain the personal information of children under the age of 18. If you are under the age of 18, please do not access our websites at any time or in any manner. We will take appropriate steps to delete the personal information of persons under the age of 18.

About us

DDQINVEST Ltd (“DDQINVEST”). DDQINVEST is a company registered in England and Wales (company number 10961753).

Visitors to our websites

Personalization, website usage, and Third-Party Analytics

We collect certain information about how you use and access our websites even where you have not created a DDQINVEST account or logged in. This might include:

• information about your device, operating system, and IP address;
• your login information;
• your browser type and version;
• information about your visit, including URL, clickstream (i.e. your journey to, through, and from our site), length of visits to certain pages, and page interaction information.

We collect this information by, for example, using cookies and other similar technologies, and we sometimes use third-party services such as Google Analytics to analyze website user activity on our behalf. You can see what cookies we are using for personalization at any time here. 

Your DDQINVEST account and profile

To read some of our content and use our services we may ask you to create a DDQINVEST account (your profile). To do this we ask you to provide us with your email address (in the case of our professional websites this should be your work email address), a password, your name, job title/position, the company you work for (if applicable), and other information prompted on the registration page. We ask that you provide accurate information: we may use publicly available information on the Internet (such as LinkedIn) to verify that your email address is valid, along with other information you provide at the time of registration. The information you provide is stored in our secure databases and is used to create, maintain, and/or add to your user profile.

How we use your profile

When you visit our websites we use a cookie to assign you a randomly generated unique identifier. We log your activity on our websites against this identifier in our databases. Once in our databases, this information will be added to your user profile and we use this data to provide you with access to our websites in a manner convenient and optimal to you, deliver you content and advertisements that are relevant to you, and improve your user experience.

Sharing Your Profile

We only share your personal information with service providers and other third parties we work with to deliver our services to you. We do not share your personal information with third-party advertisers unless you have given us your consent to do so. We may share, however, an aggregated and anonymized version of this information with companies that advertise, or may advertise, on our websites. By allowing companies to advertise on our websites we are able to offer you content for free.

Third-party marketing content

If you are (a) a professional reader of DDQINVEST or (b) a consumer reader who has opted in to receive third-party marketing about our selected partners, we may send marketing emails to you on behalf of asset managers and other financial institutions containing their relevant marketing and advertising messages. We never pass your details to them directly, but may use trusted third-party data processing companies to send such marketing emails on our behalf or to manage our email suppression lists. We ensure that they handle your data securely and delete it from their systems when no longer needed for the purpose we have shared it with them. For more information on our third-party data processing companies, please see the section titled “Sharing and disclosing your information” below or email marketing@ddqinvest.com

You may unsubscribe from emails relating to our selected partners at any time in the ‘My Account’ section of the websites, by using the embedded links set out in the emails or by replying to the relevant emails you receive from us. 

DDQINVEST Emails and Marketing

We will send you our daily newsletters and emails about our news, events, new website features, or services that we believe may interest you if you are (a) a professional account holder or (b) a consumer account holder and you have opted-in to receive our daily newsletters and such other DDQINVEST marketing messages.

You can opt-out of receiving such messages at any time in the ‘My Account’ section of the websites, by using the embedded links set out in our emails or by replying to the relevant emails you receive from us. You can also use the ‘My Account’ section to choose to subscribe to any of our other more specific news emails that you want to receive.

If you are a professional reader of our websites, we may use the information you have provided us with, along with the information we have collected from your website activities, to subscribe you to email newsletters that we feel would be relevant to you. You can opt-out of these in the same way as all other newsletters. If, as a consumer reader of our websites, you opt-in to receive direct marketing from us we will send you carefully selected emails marketing our events and other products. These will never be excessive or irrelevant to you and you can opt-out of receiving them at any time via the ‘My Account’ section of the website, by using the embedded links set out in our emails, by replying to the relevant emails you receive from us, or by emailing marketing@ddqinvest.com

As part of our marketing efforts, we may also match personal information that you provide to us directly with other information about you obtained from or held by third-party sources (such as social media platforms). We may use this personal information to inform our marketing strategy and to tailor and show advertisements more relevant to you.

Social media interactions

We will use your personal information to interact with you on social media platforms including Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube, for example, to respond to comments and messages, post, ‘retweet’ and ‘like’ posts. When you interact with us on social media platforms, we may collect the information you share with us on such platforms and also keep records of our interactions.

User and customer support

We will use your personal information to provide customer service and support, deal with inquiries or complaints about our websites and services, and manage our relationship with you, which will include notifying you about changes to our website terms and conditions or this Privacy Policy. We may also share your information with our third-party service providers as necessary to provide such customer support.

If you contact us with a complaint or query, we may keep a record of any phone number/email address used to call/email our customer service team as well as the correspondence and the period of time it took for us to deal with a query or any request you had. We may also record your levels of satisfaction with the services we have provided. We will also collect any information contained in any other correspondence between us.

Events registration and participation

This section is applicable to both virtual and physical events unless we explicitly refer to one of them.

If you sign up to attend one of our events we will ask you to provide your personal and professional details, such as your name, surname, title, job title/position, company you work for (if applicable) as well as your contact details. This is so we can assess your suitability to attend our event, contact you to let you know if you meet our criteria, and share with you all logistical information.

If you register for one of our events we will use this information internally for liaising with you and ensuring that you are added to appropriate workshops and seminars at the event.

If you are coming to one of our physical events we may ask you for further information such as your dietary requirements, passport details, and any special needs or requirements in accordance with the Discrimination Act 2010. This information (in particular so-called “special categories” of particularly sensitive personal information such as, for example, information about your race or ethnicity, or your health and genetic data) will be treated with the utmost respect and will only be used for logistical purposes to make sure you have a comfortable and enjoyable experience at our event. We have in place appropriate safeguards which we are required by law to maintain when processing such data. We process special categories of personal information only with your explicit consent, where it is needed for reasons of substantial public interest for equal opportunities monitoring, or where we need it to carry out our legal obligations.

Sharing your event information

We may pass some of the information we collect at registration to our event sponsors so that they know who will be attending the event. We will always let you know in advance about the identity of such event sponsors. They may contact you after the event for feedback via call or email and send you marketing via email. We are not responsible for their privacy practices and their interactions with you – it is up to you whether you remain in contact with them.

We may share your job title and company name with potential sponsors so they know the caliber of people that attend our events.

Surveys at events

At the events, we may ask you to complete surveys. At physical events, we conduct surveys via electronic tablets or on paper. These may be used to gain feedback on our events or allow us to find out more about the type of funds or assets you have under management (if relevant). Some may give you a chance to tell us about your organization and if you think there is anyone else there that would like to attend one of our future events. This information is added to your user profile and aids us in continuing to offer you relevant content and invite you to future events.

We also sometimes run surveys at our events on behalf of the event sponsors. If this is the case, we will check that you are happy to share your answers and other personal data with the relevant sponsor. For more information about how we use and share survey data, please see the section titled “Questionnaires and Surveys” below.

Recording at our events

There will be a photographer and/or videographer at our events. If you are filmed, photographed, and/or recorded as part of any of our events, your image or likeness may be used for future event show guides, in promotional material, sponsor, and media partner coverage in print, online or social media channels.

Questionnaires and Surveys

At DDQINVEST we value your opinion and we often run surveys and questionnaires in person, via email, or telephone. These are primarily conducted for our own purposes such as to allow us to study how our websites and services are used and to stay engaged with our audience but are also sometimes conducted by us on behalf of third parties. When they are carried out on behalf of third parties we will always state that this is the case at the beginning of the survey, inform you about the identity of the third party, and give you the right to object to our sharing of your personal data (such as name and email address) with such third parties. In certain circumstances, we may also share anonymized and aggregated survey data with such third parties to protect your privacy.

When we conduct the surveys for our own purposes, the answers you give may be aggregated and anonymized, and used for both internal and external presentations and news stories. Survey information will also be stored in our database and added to your user profile.

Magazine registration

In order to send you a hard copy of one of our magazines, we ask you to provide us with your contact details such as your name and postal address. This is shared with our printers, courier services, and other service providers for logistical purposes but we never share it with any other companies for marketing purposes. The address will be added to your user profile in our database and may be used for geographical profiling.

As with our other communications, you can always opt-out of receiving our magazines and other materials via post. You can do so by sending an email to us at marketing@ddqinvest.com

Face to face meetings

At DDQINVEST we like to engage with our audience and we will sometimes request the chance to meet you and ask you questions. We will usually record and then transcribe any meeting that we have with you. Any opinions that you express will be stored in our database and will be linked to your user profile.

Please also note that if you visit our offices, your image and voice may be captured by our CCTV cameras which we use for security purposes.

DDQINVEST Fund Manager Ratings

DDQINVEST operates a rating system based on the performance of fund managers. As part of this, if you are an active fund manager, you may be contacted by DDQINVEST staff for your photograph, a short biography, date of birth, career history, and any other relevant information. They will ask you if you are happy for us to use and publish this information as part of your manager profile. If you agree, then this information will be added to our database and published online. We will regularly check in with you that this information is up to date and that you are happy with our continued publication of it.

Recruitment

If you submit a CV or job application to DDQINVEST, whether directly or via an agent or recruiter, you may share with us additional information about your academic and work history, qualifications, skills, projects, and research that you are involved in, references, proof of your entitlement to work, your national security number, your passport or other identity document details, and any other such similar information. We will collect and use this information to process your job application and we may contact your recruiter, current and former employers, and/or referees to obtain further information about you and your application.

Compliance with policies, procedures, and laws

We may collect and use your personal information to protect, investigate, and deter against fraudulent, unauthorized, or illegal activity, including identity fraud as well as to enable us to comply with our policies and procedures and enforce our legal rights, or to protect the rights, property or safety of our employees. 

Legal basis for using your personal information

We will only use and otherwise process your personal information where we have a legal basis to do so. The legal basis will depend on the purposes for which we collect and use your personal information. In almost every case the legal basis will be one of the following:

• consent: for example, where you have provided your consent to receive certain marketing from us. You can withdraw your consent at any time, including by clicking on the “unsubscribe” link at the bottom of any marketing email we send you;
• our legitimate business interests: Where it is necessary for us to understand our readers, promote our services, and operate a safe and lawful business, provided in each case that this is done in a legitimate way that does not unduly affect your privacy and other rights. For example, we will rely on this legal basis when we conduct certain market analysis to understand our readers in sufficient detail so we can improve our services;
• performance of a contract with you (or in order to take steps prior to entering into a contract with you): for example, where you have asked us to provide one of our services to you and we need to use your contact details and financial information in order to deliver this service; or
• compliance with the law: Where we are subject to a legal obligation and need to use your personal information in order to comply with that obligation.

Sharing and disclosing your information

In connection with the purposes described above, we will share your personal information when relevant with third parties such as:

• our suppliers, business partners, and service providers we work with to deliver our services to you and to market and advertise our services;
• any selected third parties and sponsors that you consent to our sharing your information with;
• our corporate affiliates and other members of our group of companies;
• regulators and governmental bodies and other authorities who require reporting of processing activities in certain circumstances;
• prospective sellers and buyers of our business or assets, only in the event that we decide to sell or buy any business or assets; and
• other third parties, including but not limited to legal or other advisors, regulatory authorities, licensing bodies, courts, law enforcement agencies, and government agencies) where necessary to enable us to enforce our legal rights, or to protect the rights, property, or safety of our employees, or where such disclosure may be permitted or required by law.

Data transfers

As many of our external third parties are based outside the European Economic Area (EEA), their processing of your personal information will involve a transfer of data outside the EEA, including to countries that have less strict, or no data protection laws, when compared to those in the European Union.

Whenever we transfer your information as described in the paragraph above, we will take steps that are reasonably necessary to ensure that adequate safeguards are in place to protect your personal information and to make sure it is treated securely and in accordance with this Privacy Policy. In these cases, we rely on approved data transfer mechanisms (such as the EU “Standard Contractual Clauses” and the EU-US “Privacy Shield”) to ensure your information is subject to adequate safeguards in the recipient country. Please contact us using the contact details at the top of this Privacy Policy if you want further information on the specific mechanism used by us when transferring your personal data out of the EEA.

Our security and retention of your information

We want our users and members to feel confident using our services and are committed to protecting the information that we collect by using appropriate technological and operational security measures. For example, information transmitted to us over the internet is secured using Secure Socket Layer (SSL) technology and industry-standard firewalls. We also ensure information once received is stored securely and only accessible with the correct authorization.

We retain your information only for as long as is necessary to provide you with the services that you have requested from us, for as long as we reasonably require to retain the information for our lawful business purposes, or where we are legally permitted to do so. We operate a data retention policy and look to find ways to reduce the amount of information we hold about you and the length of time that we need to keep it.

Data Protection Contact

DDQINVEST’s data protection contact details and credentials are below:

Data Protection Contact
marketing@ddqinvest.com

Your rights to your personal data

You have certain rights in respect of the information that we hold about you, including:

• the right to be informed of the ways in which we use your information, as we seek to do in this Privacy Policy;
• the right to ask us not to process your personal data for marketing purposes;
• the right to request access to the information that we hold about you;
• the right to request that we correct or rectify any information that we hold about you which is out of date or incorrect;
• the right to withdraw your consent for our use of your information in reliance of your consent, which you can do by contacting us using any of the details at the top of this Privacy Policy;
• the right to object to our using your information on the basis of our legitimate interests or those of a third party and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground;
• the right to receive a copy of any information we hold about you (or request that we transfer this to another service provider) in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format, in certain circumstances;
• in certain circumstances, the right to ask us to limit or cease processing or erase information we hold about you; and
• the right to lodge a complaint about us to the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (https://ico.org.uk/) as well as a right to lodge a complaint with the relevant authority in your country of work or residence. If you have any concerns about the way we have processed your personal information, we request that you initially contact us (using the contact details above) so that we can investigate, and hopefully resolve, your concerns.

Please note that we may need to retain certain information for our own record-keeping and research purposes. We may also need to send you service-related communications relating to your website user account even when you have requested not to receive marketing communications.

How to exercise your rights

If you wish to exercise your ‘Right to Access’, ‘Right to be Forgotten’, or any other right under the General Data Protection Regulation, then please get in touch with us at marketing@ddqinvest.com

We will comply with your requests unless we have a lawful reason not to do so.

What we need from you to process your requests

We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and to enable you to access your personal information (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is a security measure to ensure that personal information is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it. We may also contact you to ask you for further information in relation to your request to speed up our response.

You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal data (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request is clearly unfounded, repetitive, or excessive. Alternatively, we may refuse to comply with your request in these circumstances. We will try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month. Occasionally it may take us longer than a month if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests. In this case, we will notify you and keep you updated.

Third-party links and websites

Our websites may include links to third-party websites, plug-ins, and applications. Clicking on those links or enabling those connections may allow third parties to collect or share data about you. We do not control these third-party websites and are not responsible for their privacy statements. When you leave our website, we encourage you to read the privacy notice of every website you visit.

Changes to this Privacy Policy and your duty to inform us of changes

We may make changes to this Privacy Policy from time to time. We will post any changes to our site, or notify you of any material changes by e-mail.

It is important that the personal data we hold about you is accurate and current. Please keep us informed if your personal data changes during your relationship with us by updating your profile account information or contacting us via the contact details at the top of this Privacy Policy.