Privacy Policy

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Laidlaw Opera Trust (“we”, “our”, “us”) is committed to keeping your personal information safe and meeting our responsibilities under privacy law. Given that your personal information can be used to identify you, we want you to be confident that we are using it responsibly.

This Privacy Notice gives you detailed information about why and when we collect your personal information when you use our website (www.laidlawopera.org) and other services, how we use your personal information, how we keep it secure, and how you can let us know if you would like us to change how we manage it.

1. Who we are
2. What personal information we may hold about you
3. Where we obtain your personal information
4. How we use your personal information
5. Our lawful bases
6. Retaining your personal information
7. How we share your personal information
8. International data transfers
9. How we keep your personal information safe
10. Your rights
11. Other websites
12. Cookies
13. Updates to this Notice
14. Contact us

Laidlaw Opera Trust is a registered charity (number 1175245, registered as ‘Laidlaw Foundation’) that champions live opera by supporting opera companies and houses to expand their reach and repertoire sustainably, making opera accessible and inclusive for all. We do this through providing grants, organising events, conducting surveys, and many other activities.  

If you have questions regarding your personal information or its use, please contact us using the details set out in the ‘Contact us’ section below.

Personal information is any information that relates to an individual. It does not include information where the identity of the individual has been fully and effectively removed (anonymous data).

We collect the following personal information about you:

• Identification information, such as your name;
• Contact information, such as your email address, telephone number and home address;
• Age and gender information;
• Financial information, such as payment card details, billing address and donation information;
• Employment information, such as your job title and company you work for]

If you contact us, we may keep a record of our interaction with you, as well as your name and contact details.

When you access our website, we also collect information about your computer, including, where available, your IP address, operating system, and browser type. We do this for system administration purposes, including to analyse trends and gather broad demographic information for aggregate use so that we can improve the site, and deliver customised, personalised content.

Sensitive Personal information

Under data protection legislation, certain personal information is considered more ‘sensitive’ (e.g., information relating to race, ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, genetic data, biometric data (where used for identification purposes), health data, sex life, sexual orientation, and criminal offence data). We do not typically collect sensitive personal information.  3.

We collect and retain personal information about you that you have given us in different ways, for example where you:

• Make a donation;
• Apply for a grant;
• Register for or attend an event;
• Participate in our surveys and research;
• Use our website;
• Subscribe to our mailing lists;
• Contact us via email, phone, in person or by post;

We may collect personal information about you from third parties, including:

• partners we work with (such as opera companies, production companies, opera houses, festival organisers, ticketing agencies and research agencies); or
• any other third parties where we have consent to use your personal information.

We may use your personal information to:

• Contact you with important information relating to an event that you’ve booked
• Enable you to make use of our services
• Facilitate any transactions you wish to make with us, including donations
• Manage grants, including evaluating grant applications
• Organise events
• Conduct surveys
• Send you updates and information about Laidlaw Opera Trust and our events, or other services that we think might be of interest to you
• Contact you regarding fundraising events
• Learn from your experiences and feedback to develop our work
• Keep our database accurate, relevant and up to date.

5. Our lawful bases

We will only use personal information when the law allows us to (i.e., where we have a ‘lawful basis’). Most commonly, we will use your personal information in the following circumstances:

• Where it is necessary for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests. For example, we have a legitimate interest in providing strategic support to our partners such as opera houses and companies to help them build broader audiences;
• Where it is necessary for the performance of a contract with you;
• Where it is necessary to comply with a legal obligation (for example, reporting to HM Revenue and Customs or the Charity Commission).

In some circumstances, we may ask for your consent to use your personal information for a specific purpose. In particular, we may obtain your consent before we send you any email marketing, newsletters or other communications about topics and events which we think might interest you.

You may unsubscribe from our email communications by following the instructions in any email that we send you, or you can withdraw your consent and request us to remove your personal information at any time by emailing us at welcome@businessofopera.com.

We do not carry out any automated decision-making using personal information which produces legal effects or otherwise significantly affects individuals.

We will not keep personal information for longer than necessary, and the appropriate retention period will vary according to the intended purpose for which we collected the personal information.

The criteria we use to determine the retention period of personal information are: (i) the respective statutory retention period; (ii) our contractual and/or business relationships with you; (iii) (potential) disputes; and (iv) any guidelines issued by relevant regulators. After expiration of the retention period, the relevant information is routinely deleted, as long as it is no longer necessary for the fulfillment of a contract, the initiation of a contract or to protect or defend our position or that of a third party. If you have any questions about our retention periods, please contact us at welcome@businessofopera.com.

We may share your personal information with third parties, including the following:

• with partners we work with (such as opera companies, production companies, opera houses, festival organisers, ticketing agencies and research agencies)
• with contractors, suppliers, or other third parties that provide services on our behalf (such as website host providers);
• as part of a sale, merger or acquisition, or other transfer of all or part of our assets including as part of a bankruptcy proceeding;
• pursuant to a subpoena, court order, or other legal process or as otherwise required or requested by law, regulation, or government authority programs, or to protect our rights or the rights or safety of third parties;
• with our professional advisors, lawyers, accountants and auditors; or
• with your consent or as otherwise disclosed at the time of data collection or sharing.

We do not currently transfer personal information we hold to a country outside the UK. If we do so, we will take steps to ensure that your personal information is protected in accordance with appropriate safeguards. In particular, we will rely on the appropriate safeguards under data protection legislation, such as the UK International Data Transfer Agreement entered into by us and the overseas recipient, or where the Secretary of State has permitted the free flow of data to the relevant jurisdiction.

To protect your privacy we make sure your personal information is kept securely and disclosed only to relevant organisations or representatives who need to access it to perform their roles. While we seek to use appropriate organisational, technical and administrative measures to protect personal information within our organisation, unfortunately no data transmission or storage system can be guaranteed to be 100% secure. If you have reason to believe that your interaction with us is no longer secure, please immediately notify us in accordance with the “Contact us” section below.

Under certain privacy laws, you have rights relating to your personal information. You may have a right to the following:

• to request access to the personal information we hold about you;
• to request that we rectify or erase your personal information;
• to request that we restrict the processing of your personal information;
• to object to our processing of your personal information in certain circumstances;
• under certain circumstances, to ask us to transfer personal information to you or to a third party; and
• where we previously obtained your consent, to withdraw consent to processing your personal information.

To exercise these rights, contact us via the “Contact us” section below. Please be aware that we may be unable to comply with your requests, example if we are legally prevented from doing so or can rely on exemptions.

Additionally, you have the right to lodge a complaint against us, which you can do by contacting the Information Commissioner’s Office at www.ico.org.uk/concerns.

Our website contains links to other websites. Please note that when you click on one of these links, you are accessing another website for which we have no responsibility (even if you access the website via a link to one of our websites). We encourage you to read the privacy notices on all such websites.

Our website uses cookies to enhance your experience while using the site. Cookies are pieces of information that some websites transfer to the computer or device that is browsing that website and are used by many websites for record-keeping. For further details about our use of cookies, please visit our Cookie Notice here.

This Notice may change from time to time – for example, to take into account changes at Laidlaw Opera Trust or to reflect changes in regulation or legislation. It was last updated on 6 March 2025.

Updates to this Notice will be posted on this page – please check back from time to time. We will also use reasonable efforts to inform you of any significant changes by email where appropriate.

If you have any questions or concerns about this Privacy Notice or the way in which we handle your personal information, please email us at welcome@businessofopera.com.

You can also contact us at the following address:

2 New Bailey
6 Stanley Street
Salford
Greater Manchester
United Kingdom
M3 5GS

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