Privacy policy
Turner and Townsend Limited ("Turner & Townsend", “We”, “Us”) is committed to ensuring your privacy is protected. We use your personal information for numerous purposes and this privacy policy is to be transparent about why and how we process personal information. To find out more about our specific processing activities, please go to the relevant sections of this privacy policy.
Please take your time to read this privacy policy carefully and when using our website, this privacy policy should be read alongside our terms and conditions.
Please note that we have a separate policy that applies to job applicants at Turner and Townsend and if you have applied for a position with us, or are considering submitting an application to us, that privacy policy will be provided to you and will set out how your personal information will be used.
- About us
- Our processing of your personal information
2.1. Prospective and existing clients
2.2. Our suppliers
2.3. Industry contacts
2.4. Users of our websites - What marketing activities do we carry out?
- How long do we keep your personal information for?
- What is our approach to sending information overseas?
- How do we protect your information?
- Automated decision making
- Your rights
- Cookies policy
- Contacting us
- Updates to this privacy policy
1. About us
Turner & Townsend Limited is a company registered in England and Wales under company Number 6468643, our registered office is at Low Hall, Calverley Lane, Horsforth, Leeds LS18 4GH.
At Turner & Townsend we’re passionate about making the difference. That means delivering better outcomes for our clients, helping our people to realise their potential, and doing our part to create a prosperous society.
Turner & Townsend was originally founded as a single UK-based quantity surveying partnership in 1946. Since then, we have grown to become a world-leading professional services company, with 112 offices around the globe. We offer independent advice on all aspects of analysis, planning and monitoring on large scale projects and programmes, to deliver faster, cheaper, safer and more efficient working practices. We safeguard the commercial interests of clients embarking on investment programmes across real estate, infrastructure and natural resources.
To enable us to provide our construction consultancy services, we need to collect and process personal information. This makes Turner & Townsend a "data controller" for any personal information that you provide to us and we are responsible for complying with data protection laws.
If you have any questions about this privacy policy please contact us using the details set out in section ten.
2. Our processing of your personal information
The types of personal information that we collect and our uses of that personal information will depend on your relationship with us. For example, we will collect different personal information depending on whether you are a client, supplier, or website user.
Special categories of personal information is information that relates to health, genetic or biometric data, criminal convictions, sex life, sexual orientation, racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs or trade union membership. A full list of what is considered to be special categories of personal information can be accessed on the Information Commissioner’s Office website. We do not routinely collect special categories of personal information, however we may receive information that falls into this category from you from time to time, for example if you attend one of our events we will ask if you have any dietary requirements.
Where you provide personal information to us about other individuals (for example, your employees) we will also be data controller of and responsible for their personal information. You should refer them to this privacy policy.
In order to make this privacy policy as user friendly as possible, we have split it into different sections. Please click on the link to the section below that best describes your relationship with us:
- prospective or existing clients
- contacts at our suppliers
- users of our website users.
If you are an employee or a prospective employee i.e. you are applying for work with us, we have separate candidate and employee privacy policies. Please contact us using the details set out in section ten if you would like a copy.
2.1 Prospective and existing clients
If you submit an enquiry to engage our services and/or become a client of Turner & Townsend, this section will be relevant to you and sets out our uses of your personal information.
What personal information will we collect?
- Your name, work address, company and contact information such as your telephone numbers and email addresses.
- Your survey responses if we have invited you to complete a survey.
- Information obtained about you from a business credit report (such as a Dun & Bradstreet report), risk report or as a result of carrying out financial/sanction checks on you.
- Your readability rates or engagement with communications we send you.
- Information about any e-learning courses you have taken, skills and scores assessment.
- Information obtained through our use of cookies. You can find out more information about this in section nine.
- Information gathered from publicly available sources such as internet search engines like Google, Companies House, Government department websites and social media sites, including Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram and Vimeo.
- Information about your role or job title.
- Your marketing preferences.
What special categories of personal information will we collect?
We do not routinely collect your special categories of personal information, however where you attend one of our events we will request information on any dietary requirements you may have to make sure that suitable refreshments are provided for you at the event, and this may indicate your religious beliefs, or information about access requirements you have which may indicate information about your physical health such as wheelchair accessibility.
How will we collect your personal information?
We will collect information directly from you when:
- You contact us by email, telephone and through other written and verbal communications;
- You provide information to us about courses you have taken and the results of such courses;
- You request information about our products and services, promotions or subscribe to a newsletter or bulletin;
- You contact us to make a complaint;
- You complete a customer satisfaction form;
- You open any communication we sent and we receive engagement/readability rates;
- We invite you to an event; and
- You use our website.
We will also collect personal information from our third party providers when you complete a survey using Survey Monkey, Type Form, Google Forms etc.
What will we use your personal information for?
We may use your personal information for a number of different purposes. In each case, we must have a "legal ground" to do so. We will rely on the following “legal grounds” when we process your "personal information":
- We need to use your personal information to enter into or to perform the contract that we hold with you. For example, in order to register you as a client or to enter into a contract with you;
- We have obtained your consent; or
- We need to use your personal information for a legitimate business purpose (e.g. to keep a record of marketing activities, business and accounting records, manage our business operations, to develop a business relationship and improve our products and services). In each case, we assess our need to use this personal information for these purposes against your rights to privacy to ensure we are protecting your rights.
When we use your special categories of personal information we need to have an additional legal ground. We will rely on the following legal ground when we process your special categories of personal information:
- We have your explicit consent.
| Purpose for processing | Legal grounds for using your personal information | Legal ground for using your special categories of personal information |
|---|---|---|
| To set you up as a client. | It is necessary to enter into or perform your client agreement. | None |
| To provide our services which include: programme strategy and set up, programme management, project management, cost and commercial management, procurement, controls and performance, safety, health and quality, advisory and technology and data services. | It is necessary to enter into or perform your client agreement | None |
| To generally communicate with you and resolve any complaints that you might have |
|
None |
| To send you invoices and payment information for our services. | It is necessary to enter into or perform your client agreement. | None |
| To send you survey invites directly to you or through our third-party service providers such as SurveyMonkey and to obtain client feedback on our services |
|
None |
| To liaise with you to obtain client testimonials or references | We have a legitimate business purpose (to ask for client testimonials to demonstrate our service offerings and capabilities) | None |
| To track readability or engagement with communications we send | We have a legitimate business purpose (to monitor how successful and well-received our communications are) | None |
| To communicate with you and provide you with marketing communications and information about promotions and events. |
|
None |
| To make sure that any dietary or access requirements you have are accommodated for at events. | We have a legitimate business purpose (to ensure suitable refreshments for your dietary requirements and/or accessibility requirements) | We have your explicit consent |
| To provide access to training sessions and workshops on our e-learning platform |
|
None |
| Managing our business operations such as maintaining accounting records and client records, developing business and strategy and client relationships, reviewing business processes and activities including analysis, review, planning and business transaction and receiving professional advice (such as accountants, tax advisers and legal advisers). | We have a legitimate business purpose (to run our business efficiently and effectively). | We have your explicit consent |
| To apply for and claim on our own insurance. | We have a legitimate business purpose (to have our own insurance cover in place). | None |
Who will we share your personal information with?
We will keep your personal information confidential and we will only share it where necessary for the purposes set out above with the following parties:
- Other companies in our Turner & Townsend Group of companies.
- Third party suppliers we appoint to help us carry out our everyday business activities such as IT suppliers, auditors, lawyers, marketing agencies and third parties we appoint to assist with gathering survey responses including SurveyMonkey, document management providers, tax advisers, third party suppliers who assist us with any events we host such as EventBrite and third party services providers that we engage in connection with a project you instruct us on, for example architects and engineers.
- Selected third parties in connection with any sale, transfer or disposal of our business.
- Our insurers, lawyers and other external advisors.
2.2 Our suppliers
Contacts at our Suppliers
If you are a supplier, sub-consultant, contractor or a sole trader supplier to Turner & Townsend, this section will be relevant to you and sets out our uses of your personal information.
What personal information will we collect?
- Your name, work and home address, contact information such as your telephone numbers, email addresses and your emergency contact details.
- Where applicable, we will ask for evidence of your professional memberships and course qualifications.
- Information you provide when completing our Supplier Pre-Qualification Questionnaire (such as information about your business and its practice and our Anti-Bribery and Corruption Declaration.
- Information obtained through our use of cookies. You can find out more information about this in section nine.
What special categories of personal information will we collect?
Whilst we do not actively request any special categories of personal information from you, there are some scenarios where we collect special categories of personal information:
- We carry out due diligence questionnaires on suppliers we engage or contract with. Therefore, this may mean that you may provide (as part of your responses) or we may receive your special categories of personal information such as your nationality or details of any criminal convictions you may have; or
- Where you attend one of our events we will request information on any dietary requirements you may have to make sure that suitable refreshments are provided for you at the event and this may indicate your religious beliefs or information about access requirements you have which may indicate information about your physical health such as wheelchair accessibility.
How will we collect your personal information?
We will collect information directly from you when:
- You contact us by email, telephone and through other written and verbal communications;
you bid for work to us; - You provide us with an annual declaration in relation to anti-bribery and corruption, through our Supplier Anti-Bribery & Corruption Declaration;
- You provide us with your details relating to a specific project/opportunity; and
- You complete our Supplier Pre-Qualification Questionnaire or provide details to be uploaded to our supplier database.
What will we use your personal information for?
We may use your personal information for a number of different purposes. In each case, we must have a "legal ground" to do so. We will rely on the following “legal grounds”, when we process your "personal information":
- We need to use your personal information to enter into or to perform the contract that we hold with you. For example, to communicate with you to engage your services.
- When we need to use your personal information for a legitimate business purpose (e.g. to keep business records and to maintain business working relationships). When using your personal information for these purposes, we will always assess our need to use your personal information for these purposes against your right to privacy to ensure that we are protecting your rights.
- We have obtained your consent.
When we use your special categories of personal information we need to have an additional legal ground. We will rely on the following legal grounds when we process your special categories of personal information:
- We have your explicit consent.
- We need to use such special categories of personal information to establish, exercise or defend legal rights, such as when we are facing legal proceedings or want to bring legal proceedings ourselves.
| Purpose for processing | Legal grounds for using your personal information | Legal ground for using your special categories of personal information |
|---|---|---|
| Managing our business operations (e.g., dealing with new business proposals and supplier tender processes) | We have a legitimate business purpose (to run our business efficiently and effectively, to arrange bids so that we engage reputable suppliers). | None |
| To communicate with you | We have a legitimate business purpose (to engage with clients and communicate with them regularly). | None |
| To maintain your details on our internal supplier database so that we can engage you for services | We have a legitimate business purpose (to process your details on our internal system to enable us to engage you for your services) | None |
| To carry out annual declarations | We have a legitimate business purpose (to comply with our internal required checks when engaging suppliers). | We have your explicit consent. |
| To send you invites to an event and marketing communications |
|
We have your explicit consent. |
| Managing our business operations such as maintaining accounting records and general business records, developing business and supplier relationships, reviewing business processes and activities including analysis, review, planning and business transaction and receiving professional advice (such as accountants, tax advisers and legal advisers). | We have a legitimate business purpose (to run our business efficiently and effectively). | We have your explicit consent. |
| To apply for and claim on our own insurance. | We have a legitimate business purpose (to have our own insurance cover in place). | None |
Who will we share your personal information with?
We will keep your personal information confidential and we will only share it where necessary for the purposes set out above with the following parties:
- Other companies in our Turner & Townsend Group of companies.
- Third party suppliers we appoint to help us carry out our everyday business activities such as IT suppliers, auditors, lawyers, document management providers and the provider who maintains our internal supplier management database tax advisers, third parties including SurveyMonkey who we appoint to assist with gathering annual declarations responses, third party suppliers who assist us with any events we host such as EventBrite and third party service providers that we engage to deliver client projects (including architects and engineers).
- Selected third parties in connection with any sale, transfer or disposal of our business.
- Our insurers, lawyers and other external advisors.
2.3 Industry contacts
If you are an industry contact, for example any of the following:
- academics or futurists
- journalists, media and industry associations
- partners of Turner & Townsend
- any third parties who refer work to us
- any third party or individual whom we communicate and work with to deliver services and projects.
This section will be relevant to you and sets out our uses of your personal information.
What personal information will we collect?
- Your name, work address and contact information such as your telephone numbers and email addresses.
- Your work bio, CV and job title.
- Information gathered from publicly available sources such as internet search engines like Google, company websites and social media sites including LinkedIn.
- Information relating to your marketing preferences and interests.
- Information obtained through our use of cookies. You can find out more information about this in section nine.
What special categories of personal information will we collect?
We do not routinely collect your special categories of personal information, however where you attend one of our events we will request information on any dietary requirements you may have to make sure that suitable refreshments are provided for you at the event and this may indicate your religious beliefs or information about access requirements you have which may indicate information about your physical health such as wheelchair accessibility.
How will we collect your personal information?
We will collect information directly from you when:
- You contact us by email, telephone and through other written and verbal communications; or
- We invite you to an event; or
- You refer work to us; or
- We work with you/work together; or
- Through other verbal/written/on-line communications.
What will we use your personal information for?
We may use your personal information for a number of different purposes. In each case, we must have a "legal ground" to do so. We will rely on the following “legal grounds”, when we process your "personal information":
- We need to use your personal information to enter into or to perform the contract that we hold with you. For example, to communicate with you to engage your services and/or to enter into sponsorship agreements;
- When we need to use your personal information for a legitimate business purpose (e.g. to keep business records and to maintain business working relationships). When using your personal information for these purposes, we will always assess our need to use your personal information for these purposes against your right to privacy to ensure that we are protecting your rights; or
- We have obtained your consent.
When we use your special categories of personal information we need to have an additional legal ground. We will rely on the following legal ground when we process your special categories of personal information:
- We have your explicit consent.
| Purpose for processing | Legal grounds for using your personal information | Legal ground for using your special categories of personal information |
|---|---|---|
| Managing our business operations (e.g., dealing with new projects and customer demands and referrals of work) | We have a legitimate business purpose (to run our business efficiently and effectively, to ensure a seamless customer service). | None |
| To communicate with you | We have a legitimate business purpose (to engage with industry contacts for the benefit of our customers). | None |
| To maintain your details so that we can engage you for customer services or projects | We have a legitimate business purpose (to process your details on our internal system to enable us to engage you for your expertise and industry knowledge) | None |
| To send you invites to an event and marketing communications |
|
We have your explicit consent. |
| Managing our business operations such as maintaining accounting records and general business records, developing business and industry relationships, reviewing business processes and activities including analysis, review, planning and business transaction and receiving professional advice (such as accountants, tax advisers and legal advisers). | We have a legitimate business purpose (to run our business efficiently and effectively). | We have your explicit consent. |
Who will we share your personal information with?
We will keep your personal information confidential and we will only share it where necessary for the purposes set out above with the following parties:
- Other companies in our Turner & Townsend Group of companies.
- Our customer/potential customer in the event of a referral.
- Third party suppliers we appoint to help us carry out our everyday business activities such as IT suppliers, auditors, lawyers, document management providers, third party suppliers who assist us with any events we host such as EventBrite.
- Selected third parties in connection with any sale, transfer or disposal of our business.
- Our insurers, lawyers and other external advisors.
2.4 Users of our website
Users of our website
If you are a visitor to our website, this section will be relevant to you and sets out our uses of your personal information.
What personal information will we collect?
- Contact information you submit to us, such as your telephone numbers, email addresses and marketing preferences.
- Information obtained through our use of cookies. You can find out more information about this in section nine.
What special categories of personal information will we collect?
We do not routinely collect your special categories of personal information, however where you attend one of our events we will request information on any dietary requirements you may have to make sure that suitable refreshments are provided for you at the event and this may indicate your religious beliefs or information about access requirements you have which may indicate information about your physical health such as wheelchair accessibility.
How will we collect your personal information?
- General information submitted to us via email or via the website, for example where you provide your details such as your name, contact details and company name to request a publication or information about our services and products.
- Information such as IP address and browsing history obtained through our use of cookies. You can find more information about this in our cookies policy in section nine.
What will we use your personal information for?
We may use your personal information for a number of different purposes. In each case, we must have a "legal ground" to do so. We will rely on the following “legal grounds”, when we process your "personal information":
- We need to use your personal information for a legitimate business purpose (for example to maintain business records, to monitor usage of the website and to inform marketing preferences/strategy. In each case we assess our need to use this personal information for these purposes against your rights to privacy to ensure we are protecting your rights.
- We have your consent.
When we use your special categories of personal information we need to have an additional legal ground. We will rely on the following legal ground when we process your special categories of personal information:
- We have your explicit consent.
| Purpose for processing | Legal grounds for using your personal information | Legal ground for using your special categories of personal information |
|---|---|---|
| Managing our business operations (e.g. improving our business processes) | We have a legitimate business purpose (to ensure that our website works and is easy to use). | None |
| To communicate with you and to provide you with requested information about our services or products | We have a legitimate business purpose (to engage with clients and visitors to our website and to answer any queries received). | We have your explicit consent. |
| To supply publications and to reserve your place at an event |
|
We have your explicit consent. |
| To send you invites to an event and marketing communications |
|
We have your explicit consent. |
Who will we share your personal information with?
We will keep your personal information confidential and we will only share it where necessary for the purposes set out above with the following parties:
- Other companies in our Turner & Townsend Group of companies.
- Third parties who we have entered into contractual arrangements with to provide services we need to carry out our everyday business activities such as IT suppliers, website providers and Google Analytics.
3. What marketing activities do we carry out?
We will use your personal information to provide you with marketing communications in the form of regional/global publications, newsletters, thought leadership pieces, apps usage, and information about and invites to events that we have organised (for example to corporate events, webinars and workshops) via email, telephone and social media which we think may be of interest to you or where you have expressly asked us to send to you.
We may at times conduct surveys, opinion polls or other sentiment collection methods via email, our Website and associated online platforms. Participants will be asked for personal data such as their email address and full name, job title, company and telephone number, in addition to opinions and feedback. This information will be used in the context of the survey and not for any other purposes, unless clearly stated.
You can opt-out of marketing communications at any time by contacting us using the details set out in section ten below.
4. How long do we keep personal information for?
We will keep your personal information for as long as reasonably necessary to fulfil the purposes set out in section two above, and to comply with any applicable privacy laws in the countries in which we operate. The exact time period will depend on your relationship with us and the type of personal information we hold about you.
When determining how long to retain your personal information, we will also take into consideration a number of factors including whether there are any existing contractual obligations we may owe you or you may owe us and whether there are anticipated or actual disputes, complaints or legal proceedings.
We have a retention policy in place which governs how long we will hold different types of information for. The exact time period will depend on your relationship with us and the type of personal information we hold and any legal obligations relating to the retention of personal data, for example:
- Personal information relating to prospective employees is kept for three years if the candidate provides their consent. If the candidate does not consent, then this information deleted from our systems after 30 days; and
- Security information pertaining to our employees i.e. their name, security card details and which offices they have access are retained for seven years.
If you would like further information regarding the periods for which your personal information will be stored, please contact us using the details set out section ten.
5. What is our approach to sending your personal information overseas?
As we are a global organisation, there will be instances where your personal information is transferred to countries outside of the European Economic Area ("EEA") namely because our group companies all use the same systems and we have intra-group reporting obligations. We may also transfer your personal information to third party suppliers who are based outside the EEA or when third parties who act on our behalf transfer your personal information to countries outside the EEA. Where such a transfer takes place, we will take the appropriate safeguarding measures to ensure that your personal information is adequately protected. We will do so in a number of ways including:
- Entering into data transfer contracts and using specific contractual provisions that have been approved by European data protection authorities otherwise known as the "standard contractual clauses". Find out more about standard contractual clauses.;
- Transferring personal information only to companies in the United States who are certified under the "Privacy Shield". The Privacy Shield is a scheme whereby companies certify that they provide an adequate level of data protection. Find out more about the Privacy Shield; or
we will only transfer personal information to companies in non-EEA countries who have been deemed by - European data protection authorities to have adequate levels of data protection for the protection of personal information. Find out more about this.
Depending on our relationship and your particular circumstances, we might transfer personal information anywhere in the world. An example of our regular data transfers outside the EEA is set out below:
| Country of transfer | Reason for the transfer | Method we use to protect your information |
|---|---|---|
| United States | We use SurveyMonkey Inc. to undertake client surveys and to assist in the administration of out supplier relationships/ Survey Monkey stores most of the data it collects in the US. | SurveyMonkey is Privacy Shield certified |
| USA, Mexico, Brazil, China, Hong Kong, Africa Oman, Australia, Indonesia, New Zealand, Indonesia Abu Dhabi, Philippines | Intra-group reporting, systems accessibility, training purposes and IT support | We have in place an intra-group agreement with Standard Contractual Clauses |
If you would like further information regarding our data transfers and the steps we take to safeguard your personal information, please contact us using the details set out in section ten.
6. How do we protect your information?
We have a package of technical and organisational measures in place to protect your personal information which have been adopted to comply with the latest data protection requirements. The measures cover various aspects of data security including the following:
- anti-virus, personal firewall and malware protection software;
- access control regimes;
- employee training and e-learning;
- regular internal and external penetration testing and incident and disaster recovery planning;
- use of firewalls which are reviewed on a frequent basis;
- use of password protection; and
- weekly and monthly scanning using industry standard vulnerability scanning tools.
Our security measures are kept under periodic review and are regularly updated to reflect developments in technology and security and changes to our business.
7. Profiling and automated decision making
We do not carry out any automated decision making or profiling activities.
8. Your rights
Under data protection laws you have a number of rights in relation to the personal information that we hold about you which we set out below. These rights might not apply in every circumstance. You can exercise your rights by contacting us at any time using the details set out in section ten. We will not usually charge you in relation to a request.
Please note that although we take your rights seriously, there may be some circumstances where we cannot comply with your request such as where complying with it would mean that we couldn't comply with our own legal or regulatory obligations. In these instances we will let you know why we cannot comply with your request.
The right to access your personal information
You are entitled to a copy of the personal information we hold about you and certain details about how we use it.
We will usually provide your personal information to you in writing unless you request otherwise. Where your request has been made electronically (e.g. by email), a copy of your personal information will be provided to you by electronic means where possible.
The right to rectification
We always take care to ensure that the information we hold about you is accurate and where necessary up to date. If you believe that there are any inaccuracies, discrepancies or gaps in the information we hold about you, you can contact us and ask us to update or amend it.
The right to restriction of processing
In certain circumstances, you are entitled to ask us to stop using your personal information, for example where you think that the personal information we hold about you may be inaccurate or where you think that we no longer need to use your personal information.
The right to withdraw your consent
Where we rely on your consent in order to process your personal information, you have the right to withdraw such consent to further use of your personal information.
The right to erasure
This is sometimes known as the 'right to be forgotten'. It entitles you, in certain circumstances, to request deletion of your personal information. For example, where we no longer need your personal information for the original purpose we collected it for or where you have exercised your right to withdraw consent.
Whilst we will assess every request, there are other factors that will need to be taken into consideration. For example we may be unable to erase your information as you have requested because we have a legal or regulatory obligation to keep it.
The right to object
In certain cases, you have the right to object to our processing. This arises in relation to:
- Marketing: You have control over the extent to which we market to you and you have the right to request that we stop sending you marketing messages at any time. You can do this either by clicking on the "unsubscribe" button in any email that we send to you or by contacting us using the details set out in section ten. Please note that even if you exercise this right because you do not want to receive marketing messages, we may still send you service related communications where necessary.
- Processing based on our justifiable purpose: Where we process your personal information on the basis of a justifiable purpose, you can object to such processing, unless our purpose outweighs any prejudice to your privacy rights.
The right to data portability
In certain circumstances, you can request that we transfer personal information that you have provided to us directly to a third party.
Rights relating to automated decision-making
We do not carry out any automated decision-making. If this changes, we will let you know and inform you of your rights relating to automated decision-making.
The right to make a complaint to the ICO
You have a right to complain to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) if you believe that we have breached data protection laws when using your personal information.
Visit the ICO's website for more information. Please note that lodging a complaint will not affect any other legal rights or remedies that you have.
9. Cookies
View our cookie policy.
10. Contacting us
If you would like further information about any of the matters in this privacy policy or if have any other questions about how we collect, store or use your personal information, you may contact us by emailing contactus@turntown.com.
11. Updates to this privacy policy
From time to time we may need to make changes to this privacy policy, for example, as the result of changes to law, technologies, or other developments. We will provide you with the most up-to-date policy and you can check our website periodically to view it.
This privacy policy was last updated on 06 January 2021.