We are PPL PRS Limited (‘PPL PRS‘, ‘we‘, ‘our’ and ‘us’). We are a joint venture between the UK’s two music licensing organisations – Phonographic Performance Limited (‘PPL’) and PRS for Music Limited (‘PRS’). We provide TheMusicLicence, which allows you to legally play or perform music in your business or organisation and covers virtually all commercially released music. Our contact details are listed in section 11 of this notice.
This notice describes the ‘personal data’ that is collected and used by us. ‘Personal data’ is information that relates to an identified or identifiable living individual person.
As our licensees are typically businesses or organisations, much of the information that we collect and use is not personal data. However this information will include personal data in certain circumstances, such as where:
- we correspond or speak with an individual that represents your business or organisation;
- your business trades as a sole trader or partnership;
- you, as an individual, choose to browse our website; or
- you, as an individual, visit our premises.
In these circumstances, PPL PRS is a ‘data controller’ of personal data as defined in the UK GDPR and Data Protection Act 2018.
This notice tells you:
- what personal data we might collect from you;
- what personal data we might collect about you from other sources;
- how we might use your personal data;
- what personal data of yours we might share with others;
- how long we might keep your personal data for;
- your rights about the personal data you give us; and
- how you can contact us.
This is our main privacy notice. Additional terms or privacy notices may also apply to your personal data, as well as containing other important personal data about your dealings with us.
The personal data that we may collect about you will vary depending on how you interact and engage with us.
a. Licensees
The information we that collect from our licensees (or individuals that represent our corporate licensees) includes:
- your name;
- your contact details;
- voice recordings of telephone calls with you;
- any correspondence that you send to us;
- licensing application forms which you provide to us for calculating whether a licence is required or the size of licence fee payable (for example, usage statistics or revenue information); and
- in the case of licensees that are individuals:
- financial & credit card information (collected via a secure payment processor); and
- your date of birth where you choose to provide it.
We mostly obtain this information directly from our licensees. We may also obtain information about you from third parties (see point 2 below) and when you use our website (please see point 1b below).
b. Website visitors
We collect the information that you provide on the PPL PRS website (pplprs.co.uk), including:
- submitting a contact form;
- applying for or taking out TheMusicLicence;
- paying an invoice;
- signing up to receive our newsletters and publications;
- accepting our terms and conditions;
- using our webchat service;
- entering a competition or survey;
- clicking our social network account sharing buttons; and
- when you report a problem to us.
The information that you give us may include:
- your name;
- your contact details;
- if you are a registered website user, your username; and
- financial and credit card information (collected via a secure payment processor).
We may also collect information about how you interact with our website, such as:
- how long you spend on each page or how you found our site;
- whether certain cookies are stored on your device; and
- technical information such as the Internet protocol (IP) address used to connect your computer to the Internet, your login information, browser type and version, time zone setting, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform.
Please see our cookie policy for further details about this, including how we use your personal data.
If you are signed up to our newsletters or other online or email publications, we will collect personal data about how you interacted with them (such as whether you opened our emails or whether you clicked on any of the links within them).
c. Visitors to our premises
If you arrange a visit our premises, we collect your name and contact details, as well as other details such as the reason for your visit.
d. Sensitive personal data
We do not currently collect or use sensitive personal data (also known as ‘special category personal data’) within our licensing operations.
e. Children
This website is not intended for children and we do not knowingly collect data relating to children in our licensing operations.
- websites, social media accounts, field visits and business directory listings to identify licensee contact details and music usage and make contact with you in order to discuss your requirement for TheMusicLicence;
- business partners and subcontractors who assist us in delivering our services to you (such as those in technical payment and delivery services) who may share your personal data with us (such as your contact and payment details);
- our authorised licence agents regarding the licence that has been issued to you (for example certain trade bodies may issue licences under an agency arrangement with us);
- where applicable, your authorised representatives regarding your licence or in relation to any enquiries that your authorised representatives raise on your behalf; and
- our shareholders PPL and PRS in order to provide our services to you.
We need to have a valid reason to use your personal data. This is called a ‘lawful basis’. We use your personal data under the following legal bases:
a. Consent
We use your personal data where you have given us your consent, such as:
- to send you direct marketing by email in relation to our services, news and events or other products and services provided by us; and
- for the use of cookies and similar technologies in accordance with our Cookies Policy and the personal data provided to you when those technologies are used.
When we process personal data based on your consent, you have the right to withdraw consent at any time.
b. Contract fulfilment
We may process your personal data when we need to fulfil a contract with you, such as:
- administering your licence in accordance with TheMusicLicence terms and conditions;
- providing our services to you; and
- communicating with you in the course of fulfilling our contract.
c. Legitimate interests
We process your personal data when we have a legitimate interest to do so (provided that our interests are not overridden by your data protection rights).
Our legitimate interests include where we use your personal data to:
- verify music usage or establish whether a licence is required;
- verify your identity;
- process your application for a licence;
- collect your licence fee;
- maintain and administer licensee records;
- send you important information about PPL PRS Limited or your account;
- administer our business in accordance with our Code of Conduct;
- investigate and respond to comments, complaints, enquiries or requests you or others may send us;
- personalise, monitor, improve and protect our products, content, services and websites, both online and offline;
- carry out market research;
- inform strategic development, business intelligence and staff training and development purposes;
- deal with legal claims and compliance, regulatory and investigative issues (for example, debt recovery) as necessary (including disclosure of such information in connection with legal process or litigation);
- prevent, investigate and detect crime, fraud or anti-social behaviour;
- if you are a website visitor, display personalised advertisements to you; and
- if you are a visitor to our premises, to provide you with access to our premises and facilities including health and safety requirements.
d. Legal and regulatory obligations
We may process your personal data to comply with our legal and regulatory obligations. For example:
- complying with personal data requests from law enforcement agencies;
- ensuring compliance with statutory obligations in our role as an agent of PPL and PRS, such as the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 and the Collective Management of Copyright (EU Directive) Regulations 2016; and
- compliance with more general legal obligations (such as under company law, employment law, or data protection laws) or the direction or order of any court, tribunal, law enforcement authority or government agency.
a. Affiliates
We may share your personal data in connection with the administration of your licence with PRS or PPL.
b. Agents or representatives of licensees
We may share the personal data of licensees with agents or representatives authorised to deal with us on the licensee’s behalf.
c. Licensee agents or industry bodies
We may share the personal data of licensees with agents or industry bodies who carry out licensing operations for us.
d. Government authorities and/or law enforcement
We may share personal data with government authorities and/or law enforcement officials if required for the purposes above, if mandated by law or if we have a legitimate interest in doing so in order to comply with applicable laws.
e. Parties connected with an acquisition of the business
In the event that the business is sold or integrated with another business, we may share personal data with our advisers, any prospective purchaser’s advisers, and the new owners of the business.
f. Copyright infringement, fraud and improper activities
We may share personal data 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 PRS or its employees.
g. Other third parties
We may share personal data with selected other third parties not listed for the purposes identified above. Such third parties include professional advisors, marketing agencies, systems providers, system integrators, social networks, music usage monitoring providers, business directories (for verification purposes), outsourced service partners, and parties connected in litigation or legal processes.
In respect of website visitors, we send certain information to Google, including the URL of the page you’re visiting, your IP address and a unique identifier for advertising. Google may also set cookies on your browser or read cookies that are already there. For more information, please visit Google’s Privacy & Terms site.
- we will only keep your personal data for as long as we need to, and
- we think about what type of personal data it is, the amount collected, how sensitive or intrusive it might be and any legal requirements.
We aim to store the personal data that we process within the United Kingdom or the European Economic Area (which is a territory recognised by the United Kingdom as giving adequate protection).
However it is possible that your personal data may be sent outside of these geographic areas, for example to third party service providers (who can be located worldwide).
Any international transfers will take place in compliance with relevant data protection laws and on the basis of appropriate and suitable safeguards.
For further information on international transfers, please submit a request using the contact details set out below.
We use cookies and other tracking technologies on our website and in some of our emails. Please see our Cookie policy for more details on the cookies and tracking technologies which we use, and the purposes for which we use them.
PPL PRS 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).
We may give access to some areas of our website to registered users only. We ask that you do not share usernames, passwords or any other secure access information with anyone – you are responsible for keeping this information confidential and secure. You must notify us in the event that such information is revealed to, or accessed by, anyone else or where you become aware of a breach of confidentiality or any unauthorised use of this website.
You have the right to:
- ask to access and receive a copy of your personal data;
- correct, delete, object to or restrict processing of your personal data; and
- obtain the personal data you provide in a structured, machine readable format.
Please note that most of these rights are not absolute. These rights may be limited, for example if fulfilling your request would reveal personal data about another person, or if you ask us to delete personal data which we are required by law or have compelling legitimate interests to keep.
Please note you may be asked to supply us with proof of identity and other additional personal data before we will be able to provide you with a response to your request. We aim to respond within one month of receiving your request or identifying information (if required), and we will let you know if we anticipate your request taking any longer.
You have the right to object to and opt-out of marketing and you can do so by, for example, following the opt-out link in our emails. If you opt-out of receiving marketing emails you will still receive non-marketing emails from PPL PRS which contain essential information about your licence.
You also have the right to withdraw consent wherever we rely on your consent to use your data. See section 3 for more information on when we rely on consent.
You have the right to object to and opt-out of cookies. If you wish to opt-out of cookies, you can manage your consent by following the instructions in our Cookie policy
If you wish to submit a request in relation to any of the rights above, please contact our customer service team, or see section 11 below.
If you have any concerns about data protection, we would like you to give us an opportunity to help resolve them.
To submit any queries regarding this privacy notice, please email dataprotection@pplprs.co.uk or write to us at:
Data Protection
Legal Department
PPL PRS Ltd
Mercury Place
St. George Street
Leicester LE1 1QG
If you do not think we are handling your personal data adequately or you have unresolved concerns, you have the right to lodge a complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office. For further information, including contact details, please visit www.ico.org.uk.
This privacy notice will be amended from time to time if we make any changes in the way we collect, store and use personal data, or if there is a change in law. Please check back regularly to view any updates. If the changes are significant or we think you need to be aware of them, we will take steps to notify you of the changes.
