What is this Privacy Policy, GDPR and Data Protection for?
This privacy policy is for this website and governs the privacy of its users who choose to use it.
It explains how we comply with the GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation), the DPA (Data Protection Act) and the PECR (Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations).
Introduction
We appreciate the trust you place in us when sharing your personal data. The security of that data is very important to us. In this document, we will explain how we collect, use and protect your personal data.
We will also explain what rights you have with regards to your personal data and how you can exercise those rights.
This policy will explain areas of this website that may affect your privacy and personal details, how we process, collect, manage and store those details and how your rights under the GDPR, DPA & PECR are adhered to. Additionally, it will explain the use of cookies or software, advertising or commercial sponsorship from third parties and the download of any documents, files or software made available to you (if any) on this website.
Further explanations may be provided for specific pages or features of this website in order to help you understand how we, this website and its third parties (if any) interact with you and your computer/device in order to serve it to you. Our contact information is provided if you have any questions.
The Website
This website and its owners take a proactive approach to user privacy and ensure the necessary steps are taken to protect the privacy of its users throughout their visiting experience. This website complies to all UK national laws and requirements for user privacy.
Collection of personal data
We collect personal data from you for one or more of the following purposes:
- 1. To provide you with information that you have requested or that we think may be relevant to a subject in which you have demonstrated an interest.
- 2. To initiate and complete commercial transactions with you, or the entity that you represent, for the purchase of products and/or services.
- 3. To fulfil a contract that we have entered into with you or with the entity that you represent. In these circumstances it may be your entity, rather than yourself, that has provided us with your personal data.
- 4. To ensure the security and safe operation of our websites and underlying business infrastructure.
- 5. To manage any communication between you and us.
Technical information
In addition, to ensure that each visitor to any of our websites can use and navigate the site effectively, we collect the following:
- Technical information, including the IP (Internet Protocol) address used to connect your device to the Internet.
- Your login information, browser type and version, time zone setting, browser plug-in types and versions.
- Operating system and platform.
- Information about your visit, including the URL (Uniform Resource Locators) clickstream to, through, and from our site.
Our cookies policy, which can be viewed from the home page of each of our web sites, describes in detail how we use cookies.
Lawful basis for the processing of personal data
The table below describes the various forms of personal data we collect and the lawful basis for processing this data. Our business architecture, accounting and systems infrastructure and compliance organisation means that all personal data is processed on common, group-wide platforms. We have processes in place to make sure that only those people in our organisation who need to access your data can do so. A number of data elements are collected for multiple purposes, as the table below shows. Some data may be shared with third parties; where this happens, this is also identified below.
When we process on the lawful basis of legitimate interest, we apply the following test to determine whether it is appropriate:
The purpose test – is there a legitimate interest behind the processing?
Necessity test – is the processing necessary for that purpose?
Balancing test – is the legitimate interest overridden, or not, by the individual’s interests, rights or freedoms?
Storage of personal data
Our business is a UK-domiciled organisation whose primary offices are in the UK
The majority of our websites and web applications are hosted in the UK and are accessed only by our EU-based staff.
We operate a data retention policy in respect of all data, whether paper-based or digital, and those aspects of it that relate to personal data.
Email Mailing List & Marketing Messages
This website may operate an email newsletter program, used to inform subscribers about products and services supplied by this website. Users can subscribe through an online automated process should they wish to do so but do so at their own discretion. Some subscriptions may be manually processed through prior written agreement with the user.
Subscriptions are taken in compliance with UK Spam Laws detailed in the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003. All personal details relating to subscriptions are held securely and in accordance with the Data Protection Act 1998. No personal details are passed on to third parties nor shared with companies / people outside of the company that operates this website. Under the Data Protection Act 1998 you may request a copy of personal information held about you by this website’s email newsletter program if we have one. A small fee will be payable. If you would like a copy of the information held on you please write to the business address at the bottom of this policy.
E-mail and Other Communications:
We may contact You, by email or other means; for example, We may send You promotional offers on behalf of other businesses, or communicate with You about Your use of the Website or other Services. Also, We may receive a confirmation and/or other information when You open an email from Us. This confirmation and/or other information helps Us make emails more interesting and improve Our service. If You do not want to receive email or other mail from Us, please indicate preference through the newsletter or contact us.
Information You Provide to Us:
We receive and store any information You provide to Us. For example, We may collect Personal Information such as Your name, address, telephone number, email address, payment card information, browser information, and user name. You can choose not to provide Us with certain information, but then You may not be able to register with Us or take advantage of some features of Our Website or other Services.
External Links
Although this website only looks to include quality, safe and relevant external links, users are advised adopt a policy of caution before clicking any external web links mentioned throughout this website.
We cannot guarantee or verify the contents of any externally linked website despite our best efforts. Users should therefore note they click on external links at their own risk and we cannot be held liable for any damages or implications caused by visiting any external links mentioned.
Adverts and Sponsored Links
This website may contain sponsored links and adverts. These will typically be served through our advertising partners, to whom may have detailed privacy policies relating directly to the adverts they serve.
Clicking on any such adverts will send you to the advertisers website through a referral program which may use cookies and will track the number of referrals sent from this website. This may include the use of cookies which may in turn be saved on your computers hard drive. Users should therefore note they click on sponsored external links at their own risk and this website and its owners cannot be held liable for any damages or implications caused by visiting any external links mentioned.
Social Media Platforms
Communication, engagement and actions taken through external social media platforms that this website and its owners participate on are custom to the terms and conditions as well as the privacy policies held with each social media platform respectively.
Users are advised to use social media platforms wisely and communicate / engage upon them with due care and caution in regard to their own privacy and personal details. This website nor its owners will ever ask for personal or sensitive information through social media platforms and encourage users wishing to discuss sensitive details to contact them through primary communication channels such as by telephone or email.
This website may use social sharing buttons which help share web content directly from web pages to the social media platform in question. Users are advised before using such social sharing buttons that they do so at their own discretion and note that the social media platform may track and save your request to share a web page respectively through your social media platform account.
Shortened Links in Social Media
This website and its owners through their social media platform accounts may share web links to relevant web pages. By default some social media platforms shorten lengthy urls.
Users are advised to take caution and good judgement before clicking any shortened urls published on social media platforms by this website and its owners. Despite the best efforts to ensure only genuine urls are published many social media platforms are prone to spam and hacking and therefore this website and its owners cannot be held liable for any damages or implications caused by visiting any shortened links.
Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act Compliance
We are in compliance with the requirements of the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. We will not intentionally collect any information from anyone under 13 years of age. Our website, products and services are all directed at people who are at least 13 years old or older.
Blog if active
Should you choose to add a comment to any posts that we have published on our blog, the name and email address you enter with your comment will be saved to this website’s database, along with your computer’s IP address and the time and date that you submitted the comment. This information is only used to identify you as a contributor to the comment section of the respective blog post and is not passed on to any of the third party data processors detailed below. Only your name will be shown on the public-facing website although if the supplied email address is linked to a Gravatar account, your Gravatar photo will also be displayed.
If you are under 13 years of age you MUST obtain parental consent before posting a comment on our blog.
NOTE: You should avoid entering personally identifiable information to the actual comment field of any blog post comments that you submit on this website.
Where do we store the information?
No stored data will be transferred, backed up and/or recovered by us outside of the European Union.
Data retention policy
Account Data will due to tax regulations be retained for up to five full fiscal years from your cancellation of your Service account.
Configuration Data and System Generated Data will be erased immediately when you cancel the Service account.
End User Data will be erased on an ongoing basis after 12 months from registration, and immediately when you cancel the Service account.
Your consent
By using our site, you consent to this Privacy Policy.
Complaints
Should you wish to discuss a complaint, please feel free to contact us using the details provided above. All complaints will be treated in a confidential manner.
Should you feel unsatisfied with our handling of your data, or about any complaint that you have made to us about our handling of your data, you are entitled to escalate your complaint to a supervisory authority within the European Union. For the UK, this is the ICO (Information Commissioner’s Office), which is also our lead supervisory authority. Its contact information can be found at https://ico.org.uk/global/contact-us/.