Home » Support » Privacy and cookies

Privacy and cookies

1. Introduction

At the Coal Authority, we are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy.

This policy, together with our terms of use and cookie policy, sets out the basis on which any personal data we collect from you, or that you provide to us, will be processed by us. By visiting www.groundstability.com or www2.groundstability.com you are accepting and consenting to the practices described in this policy.

2. Who is the controller of your data?

The Coal Authority of 200 Lichfield Lane, Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, NG18 4RG is the controller of your personal data.

3. Who is the Data Protection Officer?

If you have any questions about this policy please contact our Data Protection Officer (DPO), Clare Wasteney at dataprotection@coal.gov.uk.

4. What personal data do we collect and what do we do with the information?

Most of the data we process about you comes from you. For example, you may give us information about yourself by filling in forms on our www.groundstability.com or www2.groundstability.com website, or by corresponding with us by phone, e-mail, or some other form of communication. This includes information you provide when you register to use our website, attending one of our webinars, subscribe to our service, search for a product or place an order on our website or if you have to report a problem with our website.

The information you give us may include your name, address, e-mail address, phone number and other information relevant to our services and products.

We will process additional personal information that you provide to us when using our website recruitment portal (for example: ethnic origin; gender; details of any disabilities; details of academic qualifications; details of employment history; details of memberships that are relevant to the position you are applying for; details of nominated referees (including: name, address and email address) and any documents you upload to our website, such as your CV).

5. Do you have to provide your personal data?

In most cases, providing your personal data to us is optional. However, if you do not provide it, we may not be able to fulfil your order. For example, if you order a product from our website, we will need details such as your name, address and payment card details to be able to take your payment and deliver your product to you. In other cases, you have a choice as to whether we collect your personal data. For example, you can turn off cookies on your browser and we will not place any cookies on your device or computer (although in this case you may not be able to use all of the parts of our website).

If you are a search provider, firm of solicitors, individual or other third party using the Groundstability website on behalf of another person, before you disclose any personal information relating to the another person(s) to us, you must ensure that the person consents to its disclosure. Please ask them to read this policy to find out how we will process their personal information.

6. What do we use your personal data for?

We use information held about you in the following ways:

  • to carry out our statutory obligations under the Coal Industry Act 1994 and the Coal Mining Subsidence Act 1991;
  • to carry out our obligations arising from any contracts entered into between you and us and to provide you with the information, products and services that you request from us;
  • for internal record keeping;
  • to provide you with information about other goods and services we offer that are similar to those that you have already purchased or enquired about;
  • to provide you with recommendations, suggestions and information about goods or services we feel may be of interest to you. If you are an existing customer, we will only contact you by electronic means (e-mail or SMS) with information about goods and services similar to those which were the subject of a previous sale or negotiations of a sale to you. If you do not want us to use your data in this way for marketing purposes, please let us know if you wish to opt out;
  • to notify you about changes to our service;
  • to administer our website and for internal operations, including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, research, statistical and survey purposes;
  • to improve our website to ensure that content is presented in the most effective manner for you and for your computer;
  • as part of our efforts to keep our website safe and secure;
  • if you use our online mining reports service, we will occasionally email you service information about the availability of this service during planned maintenance windows. You can unsubscribe from these at any time by following the links at the bottom of these emails.

In the event that you use our website recruitment portal, we may use your personal information to:

  • allow you to access some of the services available on our website recruitment portal (e.g. enable you to apply for any of the jobs advertised on our website recruitment portal);
  • remember your search preferences (e.g. remember jobs you have previously searched for);
  • send you an email notification if a vacancy is published that matches your job alert criteria;
  • assist us in monitoring the effectiveness of our equal opportunities policy.

7. What are the legal grounds for processing your personal data?

Data protection laws require us to tell you what legal basis we use for processing your personal data. These bases are set out in the applicable data protection laws. We generally use the following:

  • to carry out our statutory obligations under the Coal Industry Act 1994 and the Coal Mining Subsidence Act 1991;
  • the processing is necessary to perform a contract with you (i.e. the contract for the sale and purchase of a product/service), or to take steps requested by you before entering into this contract;
  • the processing is in our legitimate interests, and these interests are not overridden by your interests or rights in the protection of your personal data;
  • the processing is necessary to meet a legal obligation which applies to us.

When you use our website recruitment portal you might provide us with information which the law considers to fall within special categories (for example, details of your ethnic origin or of any disabilities)
in which case, we use one of the following grounds:

  • the processing is necessary to carry out our or your obligations and exercise our or your rights relating to employment law, social security and social protection law;
  • the processing is necessary for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims.

8. Who do we share your personal data with?

We may share your information with selected third parties including:

  • business partners, suppliers and sub-contractors for the performance of any contract we enter into with them or you;
  • analytics and search engine providers that assist us in the improvement and optimisation of our site.

We may disclose your personal information to third parties:

  • if we are under a duty to disclose or share your personal data in order to comply with any legal obligation, or in order to enforce or apply our terms of use.

Data that we collect through the use of our website recruitment portal may be shared with third parties at appropriate times, e.g. for the purposes of background checks. Statistical information about our users may also be provided to third parties (but those third parties will not be able to identify any individual user from that information).

9. How we use cookies

When we provide services, we want to make them easy, useful and reliable. Where services are delivered on the internet, this sometimes involves placing small amounts of information on your device, for example, computer or mobile phone. These include small files known as cookies. They cannot be used to identify you personally and they do not collect personal information.

These pieces of information are used to improve services for you through, for example:

  • enabling a service to recognise your device so you don’t have to give the same information several times during one task;
  • recognising that you may already have given a username and password so you don’t need to do it for every website page requested;
  • measuring how many people are using services, so they can be made easier to use and ensure there’s enough capacity.

Learn more and view how you can manage these small files yourself.

Our site/s use a number of different cookies. Below we explain the cookies we use and why we use them. When you visit our website you will see a banner which contains a consent statement in relation to our use of cookies in accordance with the terms of this policy. Other information is gathered during your use of our website (e.g. IP addresses or information obtained via cookies). With regard to each of your visits to our website we may automatically collect the following information:

  • technical information, including your IP address, geographical location, browser type and version, operating system, referral source, length of visit, page views and website navigation paths;
  • information about your visit, including the full Uniform Resource Locators (URL) clickstream to, through and from our website (including date and time), page response times, download errors, length of visits to certain pages and page interaction information.

9.1 Cookies for improving service

Google Analytics sets cookies to help us accurately estimate the number of visitors to the website and volumes of usage. This is to ensure that we are able to provide a faster service which is available when you want it.

Cookies on www2.groundstability.com domain

Name: PHPSESSID
Typical content: randomly generated number
Expires: at end of session – this cookie is not persisted on your device

Name: _ga
Typical content: randomly generated number
Expires: 2 years

Name: _gid
Typical content: randomly generated number
Expires: 30 minutes

Name: moove_gdpr_popup
Typical content: yes
Expires: after a year – this cookie is persisted on your device

Survicate is an external survey service that uses session and local storage to track usage to help the service function.

Cookies on our www.groundstability.com domain

The Coal Authority’s online Property Search Service (www.groundstability.com) uses the Google Analytics cookies outlined above, with additional cookies being required in order to run the application and to enable shopping basket functionality. These cookies are not permanent however and expire after you have left the site.

Name: JSESSIONID
Typical content: randomly generated number
Expires: at end of session (or upon logging out) – this cookie is not persisted on your device

Name: _gat-UA-25496666-1
Typical content: randomly generated number
Expires: 30 Mins

Name: machine.
Typical content: random number.
Expires: at end of session (or upon logging out).

Name: digiright
Typical content: application version number
Expires: after a year – this cookie is persisted on your device

The Coal Authority’s recruitment website, itrent, uses the following cookies to run the application. These cookies are not permanent and expire after you have left the site.

Name: BIGipServerPool_VS_172.17.34.88
Typical content: randomly generated number
Expires: at end of session (or upon logging out) – this cookie is not persisted on your device

Name: TS01e9c4f8
Typical content: randomly generated number
Expires: at end of session (or upon logging out) – this cookie is not persisted on your device

Name: cookie_consent_given
Typical content: yes
Expires: after a year – this cookie is persisted on your device

For further details on the cookies set by Google Analytics, please refer to the Google Code website.

9.2 Log files

Log files allow us to record visitors’ use of the site. We may use log file information to make improvements to the layout of the website and to the information in it, based on the way that visitors move around it. Log files do not contain any personal information about you.

9.3 Your right to refuse cookies and what happens if you refuse them

You can refuse cookies by activating the relevant setting on your browser. However, if you do so you may not be able to access all or parts of our websites. If you carry on using our websites and do not change your browser settings we will assume you consent to us using cookies as described above.

10. How long do we keep your personal data?

We may retain your information in order to comply with our legal and statutory grounds for processing your data.

If you use our website to apply for a job with us and you are successful in the applications process and accept a position with the Coal Authority, the data you entered at the application stage (including attached documents such as CVs and certificates) may be transferred to your employee record. If you are unsuccessful then your details will be erased after six months.

11. What are your rights?

You have several rights in relation to your personal data. These include accessing your data, correcting any mistakes, having your data erased, restricting the processing of your data, objecting to the processing of your data, data portability, and rights relating to automated decision making and profiling.

To exercise your rights please contact our DPO.

View further information on the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) website.

12. Contact and complaints

If you have any questions about this policy or about how we use your personal data please contact our DPO Clare Wasteney at dataprotection@coal.gov.uk. If you are unhappy about how we are processing your data or how we have responded to a request or complaint, you have the right to make a complaint to the UK’s data protection regulator, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).  View more details about how to contact the ICO on its website.