Who We Are

This privacy statement explains how we use any personal information which we collect about you when you use any any of our websites, mobile apps and virtual platforms.

It also describes AutomationSTAR’s general practices for handling Other Information (e.g., interests, demographics and services usage) collected through our AutomationSTAR services, or from a third party to the extent such information is associated with a particular device, user, or user account. We also describe the measures we take to protect the information, your options for choice and access, and how you can contact us about privacy practices.

We collect and use information about you to ensure that we can continue to provide you with a quality conference, community or visitor experience. We collect information about you when you register to attend a conference with us, when you download our content (e.g. eBooks), when you register for a webinar, and when you sign up for our newsletter, communications or community membership. We also collect information when you voluntarily complete customer surveys, provide feedback, when you submit to speak at one of our events and when you participate in competitions. Occasionally we might receive information about you from a third party, where you provided your consent to that third party, for example when we support another event, or work with a specialist third party data provider to build and maintain accurate and relevant data records. Website usage information is collected using cookies.

We collect the following: your name, email address, phone number and typically, relevant role-related information such as: company, industry, area of interest, job title and country. Upon booking for a conference or signing up for a community account, we ask for relevant information to administer your booking or account, for example billing address, contact number, username or profile picture. While certain information is marked required, other information is often optional.

Transaction Data which includes details about payments you have made and other details of products and services you have accessed or used via our websites. We do not store card details on our server. Credit and debit card payments are processed by Stripe on their secure payments server and all card details and fully encrypted and stored by them.

As part of AutomationSTAR organised events, video and photography equipment will typically be present. This includes the filming/ photography of events presentations, interviews with partners and delegates and highlights footage. Prior consent will be required for events presentations and interview footage to be shared. Meanwhile for events highlights footage or general photography, we do not normally obtain express consent from individuals who are incidentally caught on camera as part of the general scene. Signage will also indicate that photography will be taking place at our events. If an individual or organisation asks us to not to include them in the shot, due to a concern about privacy, we should normally do so, unless it is editorially justified to continue. Virtual events require recording of all talks and speakers will be visible.

We also collect, use and share Aggregated Data such as statistical or demographic data for any purpose. Aggregated Data is information that is not intended to reveal your specific identity to us, such as browser information, usage data, information collected through cookies and other technologies, demographic information, and aggregated information. Our services use cookies and other tracking technologies to function effectively and deliver certain features. For more information about how we use cookies and tracking technologies, please refer to our Cookie Policy.

Analytics: browser cookies, browsing behaviour, device information, IP address.

A/B testing and personalisation: browser cookies, browsing behavior, device information, IP address.

Marketing automation: browser cookies, browsing behavior, IP address, email, job title, topic of interest, data you give us during ticket booking or content access.

Retargeting: browser cookies, browsing behavior, IP address.

When you visit automation.eurostarsoftwaretesting.com, we collect information about your device to ensure we can continue to drive innovation and improve usability to benefit your online experience. Information can be collected through your IP address or through cookies placed on your device. Some cookies are needed for the proper functioning of the website. Examples of where these cookies are used include: to store how many items are in your shopping cart, to determine anonymously when you are signed in, and to allow you to move back and forth between browser screens. Other cookies are used for analytics purposes such as Google Analytics, which help us understand how and when you first visited our site, the frequency of your visits and the duration of time spent on our site. Finally, some cookies are used to provide you with personalised advertisements when you visit other selected websites, after your visit to automation.eurostarsoftwaretesting.com. These advertisements will be in the form of ‘banner advertising’ and will show you products that we believe you will be interested in, based on your browsing history on our website. You may also opt out of online interest-based advertising by taking the steps detailed in our Cookie Policy.

For more information about how AutomationSTAR uses cookies, please refer to our Cookie Policy.

In general, we will only retain your data for as long as you have asked us to provide you with content, or as long as you choose to remain active on our mailing list. If you stop interacting with us, we’ll send you a reminder after 12 months, another at 14 months, and delete your data completely after 18 months if we haven’t had any engagement from you.

However, if you participate as a delegate at a conference we keep a record of that data, on our conference tracker for historical purposes and to let you know about future conferences we believe will be of interest e.g. by location, or for purposes of loyalty discounts. You still have the right to opt-out or request to be forgotten at any point.

Please note, if you opt out of communications, we may not be able to perform the agreement we have or are trying to enter into with you (for example, to provide you with access to the AutomationSTAR Event Platform and particular services).

We collect information about you to manage your account, improve our services, deliver relevant content and recommendations (e.g. based on your job role or ‘area of interest’), and, if you agree (in other words, provide your consent), to email you about other products and services we think may be of interest to you. If you are a frequent user of our educational content or interact a lot with our competitions and marketing campaigns we will occasionally assume a ‘legitimate interest’ applies and may send you details of relevant new products and services.

If you are buying a ticket to attend one of our events, we will need to send you more information in order to serve you well, for example to process your order, share new session announcements and relevant content, activities or post-event information. If you enter into the process of buying a ticket but do not complete your purchase, we will contact you to ask if you require assistance or encountered a technical fault. We consider you a customer, and we will use the GDPR principle of ‘legitimate interest’ to complete the processing of your order, and to send you event and post-event information which we believe you need, in order to enjoy the full conference experience.

We may make your Personal Data available to third party service providers, such as contractors or agents, who help us manage or provide our products and services by, for example: developing or supporting products and features; sending email messages on our behalf; processing payments; fulfilling orders; delivering subscriptions; auditing; processing data or statistics; cleaning or enriching data and serving, customising or delivering marketing, delivering virtual events or providing access to conference apps.

Our third-party service providers may be based in countries outside your country of residence, including the United States, and may have different data protection laws than in your country. These third-party service providers are required to protect Personal Data entrusted to them and not use it for any other purpose than the specific service they are providing on our behalf. Where we ask third parties to work on our behalf, before sharing information we always make sure that they have sufficient information security measures in place.

Analytics: Hotjar, User Insights, Lead Forensics, ActiveCampaign,  Google Ads (Conversion Pixel)

A/B testing and personalisation: Optimizely, Google, ActiveCampaign

Marketing automation: Mailchimp, ActiveCampaign, Cognism, Mailjet

Registration & payments: WooCommerce, Stripe, Paypal

Advertising: Facebook Ads, Google Ads, LinkedIn Ads, Twitter Ads

Event services:  Crowdcast, Zoom, Whova, Hopin, Catapult, iLeads

Conference presentations may be made available on AutomationSTAR organised event apps for attendees or on AutomationSTAR websites either in the form of pdf or as recorded talks for members to access. Interview footage will be used in AutomationSTAR videos to promote content and marketing for AutomationSTAR organised events. Participants have the right to receive updates from AutomationSTAR for the usage of any footage in future campaigns/products.

Highlights footage will be processed following each conference to create highlights videos. All footage may also be used in events highlights videos to promote our future events and used in marketing campaigns on QualTech organised event websites, emails and social media. Photographs may be published on QualTech event websites and other online channels to promote our events, they may also be used in association with the event presentation library, as a cover image or thumbnail.

Beyond providing our services to you, QualTech Ltd will not share your information with companies outside the QualTech Group.

We would like to send you information about AutomationSTAR products and services that may be of interest to you.

In most cases we seek your explicit consent before sending you any marketing communications. In some cases, as referenced in the previous section, we use the principle of “legitimate interest” to send marketing information we believe is important or relevant based on the services you have signed up for. For example, if you are booked to attend a conference, or are a community member we will occasionally send you relevant information to help deliver the experience you might reasonably expect.

You may opt out of marketing communications at any point. You have a right at any time to stop us from contacting you for marketing purposes. All of our communications contain an unsubscribe link. You can also contact us to request this or request the right to be forgotten.

Please note that when you visit one of AutomationSTAR’s partners/sponsors at one of our conferences, or participate in a branded promotion or competition, our partners/sponsors may also ask if you want to sign up to receive marketing communications directly from them about their events, products and services. If you provide your personal details to any of our partners/sponsors, the use of that information will be governed by their privacy policy and cannot be managed through AutomationSTAR.

You have the right to request a copy of the information that we hold about you. If you would like a copy of some or all of the personal information we hold, please email [email protected]. We want to make sure that your personal information is accurate and up to date. You may ask us to correct or remove information which you find to be inaccurate.

Cookies are text files placed on your computer to collect standard internet log information and visitor behaviour information. This information is used to track visitor use of the website and to compile statistical reports on website activity. For further information visit www.aboutcookies.org. You can set your browser not to accept cookies and the above websites tell you how to remove cookies from your browser. However, in a few cases some of our website features may not function as a result e.g. remembering your order to speed up or complete a transaction.

We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered or disclosed. In addition, we limit access to your personal data to those employees, agents, contractors and other third parties who have a business need to know. They will only process your personal data on our instructions, and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality. We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected personal data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so. That said, we advise that no method of electronic transmission or storage is 100% secure and cannot guarantee absolute data security. If you have reason to believe that your interaction with us is no longer secure (for example, if you feel the security of any account you might have with us has been compromised), please immediately notify us of the problem by contacting us generally, or at [email protected].

We will retain your Personal Data for the period necessary to fulfil the purposes outlined in this Privacy Policy unless a longer retention period is required or allowed by law.

Our website contains links to other websites. This privacy policy only applies to this website so when you link to other websites you should read their own privacy policies.

We keep our privacy policy under regular review and we will place any updates on this web page. This privacy policy was last updated on 15th May 2022.

Please contact us if you have any questions about our privacy policy or information we hold about you. You can email us on:
[email protected]

For further information on the use of cookies – please refer to our cookies policy.