Privacy

PPL takes your privacy very seriously. This privacy notice contains information about how we may collect and use your personal data, and about your data protection rights.

1. About this notice

2. When and why we collect your personal data

3. Lawful basis for using your personal data

4. Sharing and transferring your personal data

5. Keeping your personal data

6. Your rights in respect of your personal data

7. Other important information

 

1. About this notice

This privacy notice applies primarily to our dealings with:

  • PPL members – which for the purposes of this privacy notice, is used to describe:
    • Performers registered with us (or applying to register with us);
    • Recording rightsholders who are members of PPL (or applying to join); and/or
    • Authorised representatives of performers or recording rightsholders;
  • PPL licensees (including applicants and potential licensees);
  • All users of the PPL website and related services such as the myPPL online portal.

This is our main privacy notice. Other, specific terms – such as the terms of your PPL registration/membership, your PPL licence, any other contract you may have with PPL, or the terms of use for the PPL website and myPPL – may also apply to your personal data, as well as containing other important information about your dealings with PPL.

We operate this privacy notice in accordance with the applicable provisions of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Data Protection Act 2018 (the “Data Protection Laws”). We reserve the right to update this privacy notice from time to time, so please check for changes or updates. This version of our privacy notice is effective from 25 May 2018.

For the purposes of this privacy notice, the data controller in relation to all PPL data processing matters is Phonographic Performance Limited, whose registered address is 1 Upper James Street, London, W1F 9DE.

In relation to VPL data processing matters, such as the processing of personal data in the context of dealings with VPL members or VPL licensees, this privacy notice also applies. In such cases, references below to PPL also apply to VPL, and the relevant data controller is Video Performance Limited, registered at the same address.

If you have any queries about this privacy notice, you can write to us at the above address, or email info@ppluk.com. Please clearly state your query as being a data protection query, to help us deal with your query more effectively.

2. When and why we collect your personal data

Members

We may collect personal data from you in the course of (and for the purposes of):

  • Processing an application to register with or become a member of PPL (whether that application relates to you personally, or to your business/organisation, or where you are making the application as an authorised representative on another’s behalf);
  • Registering your repertoire information with us, including the handling/processing of recording rightsholder claims to repertoire, and/or performer claims relating to performances on that repertoire;
  • Dealing with any membership-related queries from you;
  • Where you use our international collection service, making or processing repertoire claims to/from (or resolving overlapping mandates with) other collective management organisations in the course of providing that service; and
  • Providing you with other services/information in the ordinary course of PPL’s dealing with its performers and recording rightsholder members.

This may include obtaining personal information about you from third parties, such as where:

  • An authorised representative provides it to us on your behalf;
  • A recording righsholder provides performer information as part of registering repertoire;
  • It is provided by licensees as part of music usage reporting under their PPL licences;
  • An overseas collective management organisation provides it to us in the course of our international collections service for recording rightsholders or performers;
  • It is provided as part of evidence to resolve a repertoire dispute/overlapping mandate; or
  • It is otherwise obtained in the ordinary course of PPL’s services to performers and recording rightsholders (such as taking steps to identify the performers on recordings in order to ensure that they receive any equitable remuneration to which they are entitled).

The types of personal data collected by us may include:

  • Name and address;
  • Contact details including email address and telephone number(s);
  • Payment details (e.g. for making PPL distribution payments to you);
  • Repertoire details (relating to both recordings and performances), including all information submitted via the myPPL online portal;
  • Information reasonably required to verify your identify (and copies of documents containing such information);
  • Information required for regulatory purposes such as tax-related information;
  • Information contained in your registration/membership application and any correspondence between you and us relating to your registration/membership.

Licensees

We may collect personal data from you in the course of (and for the purposes of):

  • Processing an application for, or the renewal of, a PPL licence (whether that licence relates to you personally, or to your business/organisation);
  • Administering your PPL licence, including in relation to music usage reporting obligations, audit/inspection rights or otherwise;
  • Your payment of a licence invoice (including where you make payment online);
  • Dealing with any licence-related queries from you; and
  • Compliance/enforcement activity, relating to breach of licence or copyright infringement.

This may include obtaining personal information about you from third parties, such as where:

  • An authorised representative deals with us regarding your licence application or administration on your behalf;
  • A business partner, service provider or other agency deals with you regarding your licence, or the potential need for a licence, on our behalf; or
  • It is provided to us in relation to compliance/enforcement activities (such as information provided by Ofcom in relation to broadcast licensees, or by PPL PRS Ltd, which carries out public performance licensing on our behalf).

The types of personal data collected by us may include:

  • Name and address;
  • Contact details including email address and telephone number(s);
  • Payment details (e.g. for making any licence refund payments to you);
  • Information included as part of licence applications (including on application forms and online applications);
  • Information obtained in the course of identifying whether you (or your business/organisation) require a PPL licence, and/or calculating applicable licence fees;
  • Information about your compliance with your PPL licence.

Website/myPPL users

The various types of personal data referred to above may be collected in the course of your use of the PPL website or (if you are a PPL member), the myPPL online portal. In addition:

  • We may collect personal data (including name, address and other contact details) from other users of the PPL website where e.g. those users submit queries or complete web forms via the PPL website, for the purpose of responding to those users;
  • We may collect personal data (including name, address, other contact details and past/present career information) from those applying for employment opportunities at PPL via our website;
  • We may automatically collect certain technical information from website users, such as the type/version of internet browser you use, the website from which you linked to our website, and your computer’s IP address. Please also see our Cookie Policy.

3. Lawful basis for using your personal data

We will only use your personal data where we have a lawful basis for doing so under the Data Protection Laws. This will usually be one or more of the following:

  • Contract
  • Legal obligation
  • Legitimate interest

Contract

We may use your personal data where it is necessary to fulfil a contract with you, or if you ask us to do something before entering into a contract with you.

This mainly applies to our members and licensees, and includes our use of personal data for the purposes described above in the “Members” and “Licensees” sections of “When and why we collect your personal data”.

Legal obligation

We may use your personal data where it is necessary to comply with a legal obligation.

This may include processing your personal data in the course of PPL carrying out statutory obligations that are specific to PPL’s role as a collective management organisation, such as fulfilling performers’ rights to equitable remuneration under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or compliance with the Collective Management of Copyright (EU Directive) Regulations 2016. It may also include PPL’s compliance with more general legal obligations (such as under company law, employment law, or the Data Protection Laws) or the direction or order of any court, tribunal, law enforcement authority or government agency.

Legitimate interest

We may use your personal data where it is necessary to achieve a legitimate interest (having taken account of your interests, rights and freedoms).

Our legitimate interests include:

  • Carrying out PPL’s membership, licensing and other operations;
  • Providing you with important information about PPL, and/or your PPL membership or licence (including notifying you of key actions or deadlines, or the services we offer);
  • Enabling you to personalise your use of our online services;
  • Carrying out customer satisfaction surveys and other research in order to monitor and improve our services, including analysis of the use of our website, myPPL and other online services we provide;
  • Consulting with licensees or members about potential changes (such as consulting licensees about proposals for new or significantly amended licensing tariffs);
  • Conducting marketing activities (other than where the Data Protection Laws require consent for such activities);
  • Training and developing our staff;
  • Keeping our records up to date and verifying the accuracy of the information we hold;
  • Responding to queries and complaints, and complying with our Code of Conduct;
  • Undertaking corporate governance activities, including general meetings;
  • Complying with our legal and regulatory obligations, enforcing our contractual or other legal rights, and defending any legal claims against us;
  • Taking appropriate steps to protect your personal data from accidental loss, destruction or damage, or unauthorised or unlawful access; and
  • Prevention of theft, fraud or other criminal acts.

4. Sharing and transferring your personal data

Sharing your personal data

In connection with the purposes described above in the “Members” section of “When and why we collect your personal data”; PPL may share members’ personal data:

  • With members’ authorised representatives;
  • With other collective management organisations (and similar bodies), whether in the UK or around the world;
  • With other organisations (including the BPI and IFPI) in relation to anti-piracy activities for the benefit of members; and
  • By providing members, licensees and others with access to, or search facilities for, PPL’s Repertoire Database.

In connection with the purposes described above in the “Licensees” section of “When and why we collect your personal data”; PPL may share licensees’ personal data:

  • With licensees’ authorised representatives;
  • With business partners, service providers or other agencies who deal with licensees on our behalf; and
  • With PPL PRS Ltd, which carries out public performance licensing on our behalf.

Generally, we may share your personal data:

  • With third party service providers, agents, subcontractors and other organisations for the purposes of providing services to us (including providers of legal or financial services, or providers of IT services such as cloud, hosting and email services), or providing services to you on our behalf;
  • With relevant third parties when required by applicable law (such as when PPL is required to respond to subpoenas, court orders or legal process); and
  • With relevant third parties in order to investigate, prevent, or take action regarding suspected copyright infringement, fraud or other criminal/illegal/improper activities, or potential threats to the rights, property or safety of PPL or its employees.

When we voluntarily share personal data with third parties, we only provide the information they reasonably require in relation to the purpose for which we are sharing it, and place obligations on those third parties such as requiring them to keep your personal data secure and only to use it in accordance with our agreement with them.

Transferring your personal data outside the EEA

In the course of using or sharing your personal data in accordance with this privacy notice, PPL may transfer your Personal Data to locations outside the European Economic Area (EEA), such as where it is shared:

  • With other collective management organisations, located worldwide; or
  • With third party service providers, agents, subcontractors and other organisations, located worldwide.

When we transfer personal data outside the EEA, we seek to ensure that it will be protected appropriately. Typically, this is addressed through our contract with the data recipient under which the transfer takes place.

5. Keeping your personal data

We will not keep your personal data for longer than is necessary, bearing in mind the purposes for which we collect and use it (as described in this privacy notice).

In determining how long it is necessary to keep your personal data, we have regard to criteria including the following:

  • The nature of your relationship with us;
  • The nature of PPL’s role as a licensing body and membership organisation, its contractual obligations to members and licensees and its legal obligations relating to performers’ equitable remuneration;
  • PPL’s legitimate interests in relation to data processing; and
  • The length of time we reasonably need to retain system entries, documents and other information (which may include personal data) for legal, financial or regulatory reasons.

For example, we will retain personal data relating to members and licensees for as long as they are members and licensees (in order to administer that member or licensee relationship), and typically for at least 6 years afterwards (for legal, financial and regulatory reasons).

6. Your rights in respect of your personal data

Under the Data Protection Laws, where we collect, process and keep your personal data, you have various rights in respect of that data. These are summarised below.

Please note that most of these rights are not absolute; they only apply in certain circumstances and are subject to certain limitations. For example, some of these rights will not apply because of the lawful basis upon which PPL is processing the data. Also, data controllers are not obliged to comply with manifestly unfounded or excessive requests.

If you notify us that you wish to exercise any of these rights against PPL, we will inform you if we consider that it is a case where the rights do not apply or if any limitations are applicable.

Your rights are:

  • The right to request a free copy of the personal data that we hold about you.
  • The right to have corrections made to any personal data we hold about you.
  • The right to have certain personal data erased.
  • The right to restrict our processing of your personal data.
  • The right to request that we transfer, either to you or to another data controller, a digital data file comprising a copy of the personal data you have provided to us.
  • The right to object to us processing your personal data for direct marketing (which is an absolute right) or where our processing is based on a legitimate interest (in which case we may continue to process it if our legitimate interest outweighs the objection).

Where we send you communications such as member newsletters, with information about key actions and deadlines, or details of our services and events for members, we will usually be doing so based on our contractual relationship with you or our legitimate interests (see above).

This means we do not usually need your consent to send you such communications. However, if there are circumstances where we do need your consent, we will ask for this consent separately and clearly.

You also have the right to opt out of receiving such communications at any time by using the “unsubscribe” link in emails we send you, or by notifying us in writing of your wish to opt-out. Please bear in mind that if you choose to opt out of receiving such communications, you may not receive useful information from us that is relevant to your dealings with PPL.

7. Other important information

Security measures

PPL has security measures in place to protect against accidental loss, destruction or damage, or unlawful or unauthorised use, of your personal data.

However, no computer system or information can ever be fully protected against every possible risk and it is not possible to guarantee the security or integrity of personal data when you send or transmit it to us (such as via email or over the internet).

Access to secure services

We may give access to some areas of our website, or to services such as the myPPL online portal, to registered users only. Where we give or make available to you any user names, passwords, log-in details or other secure means of access (“Access Information”), in order for you to access these secure areas/services, you are responsible for the security of that Access Information and should keep it secure and confidential at all times. Please notify PPL immediately if your Access Information is obtained by anyone else, or if you become aware of any attempts to make unauthorised access to our secured areas/services.

Third party websites

Our website may contain links to other websites operated by third parties. This policy does not apply to (and we are not responsible for) those other websites, so we encourage you to read the privacy notices of those other websites if/when visiting them.

Complaints

If you have any concerns regarding the treatment of your personal data by PPL, please let us know, in order that we can seek to resolve them. However, if you ultimately remain concerned, you have the right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), as the UK’s data protection regulator. Please see www.ico.org.uk for more information.