Privacy Policy

Hardman & Swainson LLP of S106 New Wing, Somerset House, Strand, London WC2R 1LA (“we” “our”, “us”) administer this website and as per the Data Protection Act 1988 (as amended) is the “data controller” in respect of the Personal Data (as defined below) submitted by you when you visit our website hardmanswainson.com (the “Website”). This privacy policy sets out the fair and lawful basis upon which we collect and process personal data.

What personal data do we collect?

When you visit our Website we may ask you to provide or otherwise collect the following information about you and your interests (“Personal Data”): Contact Information: Depending on the page of the Website you visit, we may ask you to provide details of your name, telephone number, address, email address. Submissions Information: Draft manuscripts and other creative material submitted via the Website (or other means) for us to review as well as profession, manuscript synopsis, whether or not previously published. Employment Information: Job title, prior experience, references, CV and or other information relating to your personal professional employment history. Financial Information: Bank details, payment details  and associated information required to carry out our duties as a literary agency; Technical Information: Details of specific content and or pages you visit on our Website (including duration of visits), technical information including the Internet Protocol (IP) address used to connect your computer to the Internet, device(s) you use to access our Website, your geographical location.

We receive information including Personal Data about you in three ways: (i) you may provide us information; (ii) we may collect information about you in the course of your visiting our Website; and (iii) third parties may provide us information about you where you have given them consent to do so.

Why we collect and how we use personal data

Information you give us: This is information about you, including under any or all of the above Personal Data Categories, that you give us by filling in forms on the Website. We use this information because you have asked us to do something/provide you information, because it is otherwise necessary in relation to a contract or transaction that you are entering into with us, or for the other purposes set out in this Privacy Policy. This includes: where you submit Contact Information; where you submit Employment Information in order to apply for a position with us and for us to review your application; where you submit Submissions Information in order for us to review a draft manuscript or other materials at our invitation; where you submit Contact Information.

Information we collect about you: We also use cookies (which are small text files stored in your browser) and cookie-like software. These collect information that tell us how you use our Website as well as providing other Interests Information and Technical Information. This helps us make our Website relevant to your interests and needs. We may use a persistent cookie (a cookie that stays linked to your browser) to record your details so we can recognise you if you visit the Website again. You can choose to refuse cookies or set your browser to let you know each time a website tries to set a cookie.

Information we receive from third parties: We may also receive and process Contact Information, Interest Information and Technical Information about you from other organisations/individuals such as book publishers.

We may share Personal Data about you with the following service providers who we engage to process such Personal Data for the purposes described herein. Advertising Providers: Facebook; Google; Website Performance Service Providers: Google Analytics; Amazon; Data Storage Providers: Dropbox. We may also share Personal Data about you if we are required to do so in order to comply with any legal obligation or to protect our legal rights (or those of our clients).

Your rights

We try to be as open as we reasonably can about the Personal Data that we process. If you would like specific information, please get in touch with us. You have legal rights (i) to make a “subject access request” to access your Personal Data; (ii) to request and be given your Personal Data in machine readable format for the purposes of your passing such data to third parties; (iii) to request rectification or removal of your Personal Data; and (iv) to object to processing of your Personal Data and/or to have its processing restricted. We will store and process your Personal Data only for as long as is reasonably necessary for us to perform the services/activities we are undertaking and to comply with our legal obligations. Please note that our Website may, from time to time, contain links to and from third party websites. If you follow a link to any of these websites, please note that these websites have their own privacy policies and that we do not accept any responsibility or liability for these policies.

The transmission of information via the internet is rarely completely secure. Although we will do our best to protect your Personal Data, we cannot guarantee the security of your Personal Data once transferred to us; any transmission is at your own risk. Once we have received your Personal Data, we will use strict procedures and security features to try to prevent unauthorised access. If you have complaints relating to our processing of your Personal Data, you should contact us in the first instance. You may also raise complaints with the Information Commissioner who is the statutory regulator.