This Policy explains how we do that – when and why we collect information, how we use it, the situations when other people can see or use it, and how we keep it secure. 

But just to set the scene in case you don’t want to read through all the details just now, we can be clear up front. We don’t sell, rent or trade email lists with anyone else.

We may process information about you that you have yourself provided to us or published generally on the internet through social media or on other websites. 

In all cases, we will have what identifying and communication information that is relevant and that we can sensibly obtain: that is, your name, email address, employer or business name, job title or position, contact address, social media addresses, and we may also capture some of the information published by you in your social media output to the extent that it may be relevant to our interactions. 

If you are or work for a prospect, we will aim to obtain and process information that is relevant to our building a business relationship with you and doing business together, which may relate to your business and your personal interests. 

If you are or work for a customer or supplier, we will also keep records of our interactions, the work we have done for you or commissioned from you, the progress of work, and financial and accounting records. 

If we are processing information about you purely because we are providing services to others, please see Section D below. Please note that your rights may be subject to applicable exemptions.

DOWNLOADS, NEWSLETTERS AND SERVICES

We monitor who opens what in our emails, and pre-set sequences of information we send you. We do this, so we can see if content is popular and generate more of it, or if it is not read. There may be sub-routines that trigger if you click on links or articles. These are designed to offer you more information about things you are interested in. You can unsubscribe from these sequences at any time. Existing Clients may receive emails about specific offers relating to things you have already purchased. You can unsubscribe from these at any time. We use automations (little sequences of emails that start when you ask for something in particular) to send you the information you asked for, to send you products you have bought and to administer services you have subscribed to. A lot of our onboarding for new products is by emails that send you hints and tips and little videos on ‘how to’. You can unsubscribe from these at any time, but they don’t go on for that long and you might want to wait for all the information as most people find it useful. We monitor who reads our mailing and automations, how many times, and which links you choose to use and read. We use this information to increase the content’s level of interest and help us improve what we send. You can remove your information from this monitoring by disabling cookies on your website browser before opening emails from us. From time to time, we contact individual email subscribers, but it is extremely rare. We use anonymised data about you from time to time to target advertising campaigns based on profiling the sort of person who wants to receive information from us. We ask our own sales and marketing people (both internal and external) to contact Prospects from time to time. This is normally because you have requested a call, or because we are actively trying to let you know about something you may benefit from. We are not a hard sell or cold calling based organisation but prefer to build long-term relationships with satisfied and relaxed clients.  

SOCIAL MEDIA

We have an active presence on social media. If you are using social media they are holding and using your information in accordance with their data privacy policy. If you ‘like’ any of our posts or ‘follow’ us or contact us on social media we keep a record of that. Your replies to us, messages you send us, and your other activity linked to our posts may be seen by members of our staff and by our associates. Our contracts with them hold them to high standards of protecting your information.

NO SALE OR EXCHANGE OF YOUR DATA

We do not sell or exchange your personal data with organisations who may want to sell you something or use your data for research or other purposes.

DATA LOCATION AND PLATFORMS

Like most small businesses, we do not have any tailor-made software – we use mainstream packages for everything from our Client records, to email, to accounting. This means that some of your data may be held in the EEA, and some may be held in services in the USA (with suitable data privacy shields) or elsewhere. We have picked mainstream suppliers with appropriate security standards.

For example, if our IT support wants to check the functionality of a laptop or back up, they may need temporary access to information that may include something about you. 

For example, if we invoice you, our Accountant needs to process the information in the invoice. 

Our team use our software to access any data they need. We do not permit copying or sharing by the team and actively monitor for any potential breaches. 

Your information/advice is held in the strictest confidence. Our team are all contracted to strict confidentiality clauses. 

We restrict who can export or download data that is held to a limited number of individuals who are authorised to back up data. 

If you want to know who is on our team, please email and ask us.

If you feel for some reason we have information we should not be keeping, or it is out of date or otherwise wrong, please let us know and we will take appropriate action. 

Most of the information we hold is not based on your individual consent but is based on our needing the information to run our business and provide our products and services. 

You have a "right to be forgotten" - but that does have some legal limits to it. If you want us to remove information about you, let us know. If you have been a Client, we may not be able to remove all data as we will have to ensure that we can continue to comply with legal, accounting, taxation and our insurer’s requirements.

Your information will be kept for the length of time set out in our retention period;

Email contact - until unsubscribed

Personal / business information - 6 months after the end of contracted works, unless otherwise stated/agreed in writing.

In a few situations we are processing personal data because we are under a legal obligation to do so. This principally relates to our business, accounting and tax records.

If you make an enquiry and we email you individually using our own email system or respond to an email sent to us at any of our business email addresses, a copy of that email will also be stored. If you make an enquiry via our website, we will keep details of that enquiry and response for our data retention period. We do not routinely keep special category data. To the extent we hold this, it was supplied or made publicly available by you.