Purpose
We use your information to provide, maintain and improve the High Life Highland website and to understand how it is used.
This includes:
- Managing cookies and tracking your preferences
- Analysing how visitors use our website to improve our services
- Supporting our online advertising activity
- Directing you to external platforms where you can make bookings, complete forms or make purchases
Description
Cookies and Website Analytics
Our website uses cookies — small text files stored on your device — to help us understand how visitors use our site. We use CookieYes to manage cookie consent. You can choose which types of cookies you accept when you visit our website.
Cookies we may use include:
- Strictly necessary cookies – essential for the website to function (no consent required)
- Analytics cookies – to understand how visitors interact with our site (e.g. pages visited, time spent)
- Functional cookies – to remember your preferences
- Advertisement cookies – to support our online advertising activity and measure its effectiveness
We use Google Analytics to help us understand how visitors use our site. Google Analytics collects information such as pages visited, time spent on the site, and how you arrived. This data is aggregated and anonymised — it does not identify you personally.
We also use Google Signals, which allows Google to link your visit to your Google account (if you are signed in) to support cross-device reporting, audience building, and ad personalisation for our Google Ads campaigns. This only occurs if you have consented to advertisement cookies.
We use Metricool to analyse website and social media performance. Metricool may collect information about how you interact with our website as part of this analysis.
Some pages on our website include embedded YouTube videos. If you click play on a video, YouTube will load and may set its own cookies on your device. This only occurs when you actively play a video. Please refer to Google's privacy policy for details of the cookies YouTube sets.
Links to External Platforms
Some links on our website take you to forms, services or shops hosted on third-party platforms. These include:
- Online forms – hosted on Alchemer
- Library account login and services – hosted on Spydus
- Leisure and fitness booking and account login – hosted on Gladstone
- Our online shop – hosted on Shopify at a separate web address
- Event booking – hosted on Ticket Tailor
When you use any of these external platforms, your information is collected and held by that platform — not on our website. Each platform has its own privacy policy which will apply to the information you provide.
If you don't give us your information
- Strictly necessary cookies cannot be disabled as they are required for the website to work
- If you decline analytics or functional cookies, some features of the site may not work as expected
Conditions for processing personal information
We process your personal information under the following lawful bases:
Article 6(1)(a) Consent – for non-essential cookies, where you have accepted them via our cookie banner
Article 6(1)(f) Legitimate interests – for website analytics to improve our services, where this does not override your rights
Article 6(1)(a) Consent – for advertisement cookies and Google Signals, where you have accepted advertising cookies via our cookie banner
Your rights
Under UK GDPR you have the following rights in relation to your personal data:
| Right | What this means for complaint data |
| Right of Access (SAR) | You may request a copy of the personal data we hold about you. We will respond within one calendar month. |
| Right to Rectification | If information we hold is inaccurate, you can ask us to correct it. |
| Right to Erasure | You can ask us to delete your data. However, this right is limited where we are processing under legal obligation – we cannot erase records relating to an open or recently closed complaint. |
| Right to Restriction | You can ask us to pause processing in certain circumstances, e.g. while you contest the accuracy of the data. |
| Right to Object | Where we process under legitimate interests, you can object to processing. We will cease unless we can demonstrate compelling grounds to continue |
| Right to Portability | This right does not apply to complaint data, as processing is not based on consent or contract. |
To exercise any of these rights, please contact our Data Protection Officer using the details below.
Find out more about your rights
Who we share your information with
We use the following trusted third-party services to operate our website. These may process personal information on our behalf:
- CookieYes – cookie consent management
- Google Analytics – website analytics
- Google Ads – online advertising
- Google Signals – cross-device reporting and audience building for Google Ads (where you have consented to advertisement cookies)
- Metricool – website and social media performance analytics
- YouTube – embedded video content (cookies set only when you play a video)
External platforms linked from our website (such as Alchemer, Shopify and account login providers) act as independent data controllers for the information you provide to them, and their own privacy policies apply.
For a list and more information on third party processors please visit: www.highlifehighland.com/GDPR/Data-Processors
International transfers
Some of our third-party service providers may process data outside the UK. Where this occurs, we ensure appropriate safeguards are in place, such as UK adequacy regulations or Standard Contractual Clauses.
Google Analytics, Google Ads and YouTube data may be transferred to and processed in the United States. Google relies on Standard Contractual Clauses as the safeguard for these transfers. For more information, see Google's Data Processing Terms:
https://business.safety.google/dataprocessingterms/
Metricool is headquartered in Spain and operates within the UK GDPR framework. Data may be processed within the European Economic Area.
How long we hold your information
- Cookie data: retained for the duration set by each cookie — see our Cookie Policy for details
- Website analytics data: retained for 14 months, in line with our Google Analytics data retention settings
Automated processing
Our website analytics tools use automated processing to analyse patterns in how visitors use the site (such as popular pages and traffic sources). This is used only to improve our services and does not involve automated decision-making that produces legal or similarly significant effects on individuals.
Cookie policy
Our website uses cookies, including those set by CookieYes (our consent management platform) and Google Analytics. For full details of the cookies we use and how to manage your preferences, please see our Cookie Policy: https://www.highlifehighland.com/cookie-policy
Data controller
The data controller is The Highland Council. High Life Highland provide services on behalf of the Data Controller.
If you are unhappy with the way we have processed your data
In the first instance, please contact our DPO:
Data Protection Officer
Highland Council Headquarters
Glenurquhart Road
Inverness
IV3 5NX
01463 702029
You have the right to make a complaint to the ICO at any time:
Information Commissioner’s Office
Wycliffe House
Water Lane
Wilmslow
Cheshire
SK9 5AF
0303 123 1113
