PRIVACY POLICY
1. Introduction
Technical Services (UK) Ltd trading as Viscofans, (hereafter referred to as “Viscofans” or “we”, “us” or “our”) respect your privacy. Viscofans is firmly committed to the safe and secure processing of personal data, the need to safeguard the privacy of our clients and visitors to our website, and to maintaining compliance with applicable data protection law. We have implemented appropriate technical and organisational measures to protect your data against loss or unlawful access.
The following statement sets out how we collect and process your personal data.
Please also note that our privacy policy may be updated from time to time in line with changes to data protection laws. Should you have any questions about our privacy policy, including any requests to exercise your legal rights, please contact the Information Controller using the details set out in this policy.
2. The data we collect about you
Personal data, or personal information, means any information which identifies an individual. It does not include anonymous data whereby the identity of the individual has been removed.
We may collect, use, store and transfer different kinds of personal data about you which we have grouped together follows:
Contact Data includes email address, phone number, billing address or delivery address.
Identity Data includes first name, last name or similar identifier, title and gender.
Financial Data includes bank account and payment card details.
Transaction Data includes details about payments to and from you of services you have purchased form us.
Marketing and Communications Data includes your Contact Details for us to send marketing communications to you.
Profile Data includes your username and password, quotes of orders made by you, your preferences, feedback or survey responses.
Technical Data includes internet protocol (IP) address, browser type and version, time zone setting and location, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform and other technology on the devices you use to access this website.
Usage Data includes information about how you use our website and services.
We also collect, use and share “Aggregated Data” such as statistical or demographic data for any purpose. Aggregated Data may be derived from your personal data but is not considered personal data in law as this data does not directly or indirectly reveal your identity. For example, we may aggregate your Usage Data to calculate the percentage of users accessing a specific website feature. However, if we combine or connect Aggregated Data with your personal data so that it can directly or indirectly identify you, we treat the combined data as personal data which will be used in accordance with this privacy notice.
We do not collect any Special Categories of Personal Data about you (this includes details about your race or ethnicity, religious or philosophical beliefs, sex life, sexual orientation, political opinions, trade union membership, information about your health and genetic and biometric data). Nor do we collect any information about criminal convictions and offences.
3. How your personal data is collected
We use a variety of different methods to collect data from and about you including through:
Direct interactions
You may give us your Identity and Contact Data by filling in forms or by getting in touch with us through this website. This includes personal data you provide when you:
- Register for a Viscofans’ trade account
- subscribe to our services, events, publications or newsletters
- request marketing material to be sent to you
- send us information about a request for a quote or proposal
- contact us in relation to a business, media, supplier or career enquiry
- apply for a role with Viscofans
- give us some feedback or review our service
Automated technologies or interactions
As you interact with our website, we may automatically collect technical data about your equipment, browsing actions and patterns. We collect this personal data by using cookies, server logs and other similar technologies. Please see our cookie policy below for further details.
Third parties or publicly available sources
We may receive personal data about you from analytical providers.
4. How we use your personal data
We will only use your personal data when the law allows us to. Most commonly, we will use your personal data in the following circumstances:
- where we need to perform the contract we are about to enter into or have entered into with you
- where it is necessary for our legitimate interests (or those of a third party) and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests
- where we need to comply with a legal or regulatory obligation
Section 5 gives more information about the lawful basis that we will rely on to process your personal data.
Generally, we do not rely on consent as a legal basis for processing your personal data. You have the right to opt out from marketing at any time by clicking the unsubscribe link in any email you receive from us or contacting us directly.
5. Why we use your personal data
In the table below, we have described all the ways we plan to use your personal data, and which of the legal bases we rely on to do so. We have also identified what our legitimate interests are where appropriate.
Note that we may process your personal data for more than one lawful ground depending on the specific purpose for which we are using your data.
Purpose/Activity | Type of data | Lawful basis for processing including basis of legitimate interest |
To register you as a new customer | (a) Identity (b) Contact | Performance of a contract with you |
To process and deliver your order including: (a) Manage payments, fees and charges (b) Collect and recover money owed to us | (a) Identity (b) Contact (c) Marketing and Communications (d) Financial (e) Transaction | (a) Performance of a contract with you (b) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to recover debts due to us) |
To manage our relationship with you may include: (a) Telling you about changes to our terms or privacy policy (b) Asking you to leave a review or take a survey | (a) Identity (b) Contact (c) Marketing and Communications | (a) Performance of a contract with you (b) Necessary to comply with a legal obligation (c) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to keep our records updated and to study how customers use our services) |
To enable you to participate in a competition or complete a survey | (a) Identity (b) Contact (c) Usage (d) Marketing and Communications | (a) Performance of a contract with you (b) Necessary for our legitimate interests (to study how customers use our services, to develop them and grow our business) |
To administer and protect our business and this website (including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, system maintenance, support, reporting and hosting of data) | (a) Identity (b) Contact (c) Technical | (a) Necessary for our legitimate interests (for running our business, provision of administration and IT services, network security, to prevent fraud and in the context of a business reorganisation or group restructuring exercise) (b) Necessary to comply with a legal obligation |
To deliver relevant website content, marketing communications and advertisements to you. To contact you following you making a request for further information from us via the website. To measure or understand the effectiveness of the advertising we serve to you. | (a) Identity (b) Contact (c) Profile (d) Usage (e) Marketing and Communications (f) Technical | Necessary for our legitimate interests (to study how customers use our services, to develop them, to grow our business and to inform our marketing strategy. |
To use data analytics to improve our website, services, marketing, customer relationships and experiences | (a) Technical (b) Usage | Necessary for our legitimate interests (to define types of customers for our products and services, to keep our website updated and relevant, to develop our business and to inform our marketing strategy) |
To enable you to apply for jobs at Viscofans, to match you to jobs, to contact you in relation to the recruitment process, and to share your details internally with relevant hiring managers. | (a) Identity (b) Contact (c) Usage (d) Marketing and Communications (e) Technical (f) Profile | Necessary for our legitimate interests (to recruit applicants into roles at Viscofans) |
To keep your recruitment information on file (if you have asked us to do so) to contact you about future jobs at Viscofans which match your profile and to contact you about jobs, services, news and other developments | (a) Identity (b) Contact (c) Usage (d) Marketing and Communications (e) Technical (f) Profile | Necessary for our legitimate interests (to recruit applicants into roles at Viscofans) |
Marketing
We strive to provide you with choices regarding certain personal data uses, particularly around marketing and advertising. If you no longer want to receive marketing communications you can click the unsubscribe link in any email you receive from us or contact directly.
We may use your Identity, Contact, Technical, Usage and Profile Data to form a view on what we think you may want or need, or what may be of interest to you. This is how we decide which services and offers may be relevant for you.
You will receive marketing communications from us if you:
- have requested information from us
- purchased services from us
- provided us with your contact details when we met you at an event, conference or meeting
and, in each case, you have not opted out of receiving marketing communications from us.
Opting out
You can ask us to stop sending you marketing messages at any time by clicking the unsubscribe link in any email you receive from us or by contacting us directly.
Where you opt out of receiving these marketing messages, Viscofans may still hold personal data provided to us as a result of a service purchase, service experience or other transaction with Viscofans.
Change of purpose
We will only use your personal data for the purposes that we collected it for, unless we reasonably consider that we need to use it for another reason and that reason is compatible with the original purpose. If you wish to get an explanation as to how the processing for the new purpose is compatible with the original purpose, please contact us directly.
Please note that we may process your personal data without your knowledge or consent, in compliance with the above rules, where this is required or permitted by law.
6. Disclosures of your personal data
We may have to share your personal data with the parties set out below for the purposes set out in the table in paragraph 4 above.
- Internal Third Parties as set out in the Glossary
- External Third Parties as set out in the Glossary
- Third parties to whom we may choose to sell, transfer, or merge parts of our business or our assets. Alternatively, we may seek to acquire other businesses or merge with them. If a change happens to our business, then the new owners may use your personal data in the same way as set out in this privacy notice.
We require all third parties to respect the security of your personal data and to treat it in accordance with the law. We do not allow our third-party service providers to use your personal data for their own purposes and only permit them to process your personal data for specified purposes and in accordance with our instructions. We will not disclose any personal data you have given to us other than as described in this statement, unless you have authorised us to so do, or if we are required to do so by law. Please note that if at any time Viscofans is required by law to release information about you, Viscofans will do so and will co-operate fully with the relevant authorities.
7. International transfers
We do not transfer your data outside the European Economic Area (EEA).
8. Data security
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.
9. Data retention
How long will you use my personal data for?
We will only retain your personal data for as long as necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for, including for the purposes of satisfying any legal, accounting, or reporting requirements.
To determine the appropriate retention period for personal data, we consider the amount, nature, and sensitivity of the personal data, the potential risk of harm from unauthorised use or disclosure of your personal data, the purposes for which we process your personal data and whether we can achieve those purposes through other means, and the applicable legal requirements.
By law we keep basic information about our customers (including Contact, Identity, Financial and Transaction Data) for six years after they cease being customers for tax purposes.
In some circumstances we may anonymise your personal data (so that it can no longer be associated with you) for research or statistical purposes in which case we may use this information indefinitely without further notice to you.
10. Your legal rights
Under certain circumstances, you have rights under data protection laws in relation to your personal data. They are rights to do the following. Request access to your personal data (commonly known as a “data subject access request”). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.
- Request correction of the personal data that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate data we hold about you corrected, though we may need to verify the accuracy of the new data you provide to us.
- Request erasure of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to delete or remove personal data where there is no good reason for us continuing to process it. You also have the right to ask us to delete or remove your personal data where you have successfully exercised your right to object to processing (see below), where we may have processed your information unlawfully or where we are required to erase your personal data to comply with local law. Note, however, that we may not always be able to comply with your request of erasure for specific legal reasons which will be notified to you, if applicable, at the time of your request.
- Object to processing of your personal data where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party, such as the seller of a property) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground as you feel it impacts on your fundamental rights and freedoms. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal data for direct marketing purposes. In some cases, we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process your information which override your rights and freedoms.
- Request restriction of processing of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your personal data in the following scenarios: (a) if you want us to establish the data’s accuracy; (b) where our use of the data is unlawful but you do not want us to erase it; (c) where you need us to hold the data even if we no longer require it as you need it to establish, exercise or defend legal claims; or (d) you have objected to our use of your data but we need to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to use it.
- Request the transfer of your personal data to you or to a third party. We will provide to you, or a third party you have chosen, your personal data in a structured, commonly used, machine-readable format. Note that this right only applies to automated information which you initially provided consent for us to use or where we used the information to perform a contract with you.
- Withdraw consent at any time where we are relying on consent to process your personal data. However, this will not affect the lawfulness of any processing carried out before you withdraw your consent. If you withdraw your consent, we may not be able to provide certain products or services to you. We will advise you if this is the case at the time you withdraw your consent.
If you wish to exercise any of the rights set out above, please contact us using the details provided above.
No fee usually required
You will not have to pay a fee to access your personal data (or to exercise any of the other rights). However, we may charge a reasonable fee if your request is clearly unfounded, repetitive or excessive. Alternatively, we may refuse to comply with your request in these circumstances.
What we may need from you
We may need to request specific information from you to help us confirm your identity and ensure your right to access your personal data (or to exercise any of your other rights). This is a security measure to ensure that personal data is not disclosed to any person who has no right to receive it. We may also contact you to ask you for further information in relation to your request to speed up our response.
Time limit to respond
We try to respond to all legitimate requests within one month. Occasionally it may take us longer than a month if your request is particularly complex or you have made a number of requests. In this case, we will notify you and keep you updated.
11. Glossary
Lawful Basis
Legitimate Interest means Viscofans’ interest in holding and managing your details to enable us to give you the best service/product and the best and most secure experience. We make sure we consider and balance any potential impact on you (both positive and negative) and your rights before we process your personal data for our legitimate interests. We do not use your personal data for activities where our interests are overridden by the impact on you (unless we have your consent or are otherwise required or permitted to by law). You can obtain further information about how we assess our legitimate interests against any potential impact on you in respect of specific activities by contacting us.
Performance of Contract means processing your data where it is necessary for the performance of a contract to which you are a party or to take steps at your request before entering into such a contract.
Comply with a legal or regulatory obligation means processing your personal data where it is necessary for compliance with a legal or regulatory obligation that we are subject to.
Third Parties
Internal Third Parties
Other companies owned by Technical Services (UK) Ltd and who are based in the EU.
External Third Parties
Service providers acting as processors based in the European Union and outside the European Union who provide IT and system administration services.
Professional advisers acting as processors including marketing professionals, lawyers, bankers, auditors and insurers based in the European Union or outside the European Union who provide consultancy, banking, legal, insurance and accounting services.
HM Revenue & Customs, regulators and other authorities who require reporting of processing activities in certain circumstances.
Your legal rights
You have the right to:
Request access to your personal data (commonly known as a “data subject access request”). This enables you to receive a copy of the personal data we hold about you and to check that we are lawfully processing it.
Request correction of the personal data that we hold about you. This enables you to have any incomplete or inaccurate data we hold about you corrected, though we may need to verify the accuracy of the new data you provide to us.
Object to processing of your personal data where we are relying on a legitimate interest (or those of a third party) and there is something about your particular situation which makes you want to object to processing on this ground as you feel it impacts on your fundamental rights and freedoms. You also have the right to object where we are processing your personal data for direct marketing purposes. In some cases, we may demonstrate that we have compelling legitimate grounds to process your information which override your rights and freedoms.
Request restriction of processing of your personal data. This enables you to ask us to suspend the processing of your personal data in the following scenarios: (a) if you want us to establish the data’s accuracy; (b) where our use of the data is unlawful but you do not want us to erase it; (c) where you need us to hold the data even if we no longer require it as you need it to establish, exercise or defend legal claims; or (d) you have objected to our use of your data but we need to verify whether we have overriding legitimate grounds to use it.
12. Cookie policy
Cookies’ are small text files that are stored by the browser on your computer or mobile phone. They are widely used to make websites work, or work more efficiently, as well as to provide information to the owners of the site.
Websites can read from and write to these files, allowing them recognise user preferences or return visitors.
Note that cookies are not software, they are not programs, they cannot carry viruses and they cannot install any kind of malware on the host computer.
The data collected within these cookies are anonymised data based on IP addresses and do not contain any individual information.
There are two types of cookies: persistent cookies and session cookies.
Persistent cookies save a file for an extended period on your computer and are used, for example, with functions that describe what information is new since you last visited the particular Web Site. Session cookies are stored temporarily in your computer’s memory while you are visiting the Web Site and browsing a page, and are used, for example, to determine what language you have chosen. Session cookies are not stored in your computer for an extended period, but are deleted when you close your browser.
Viscofans uses both types of cookies for the following purposes: (i) to collect visitor statistics; (ii) to enable the user to remain logged in to e.g. the subscription service on our Web Site; (iii) to remember user preferences, e.g. language, font size, etc.; and (iv) to remember user agent properties, e.g. screen resolution, connection speed, etc.
Google Analytics
This Web Site uses Google Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Google Inc. (“Google”). Google Analytics uses “cookies”, text files that are stored on your computer to help analyse the use of the Web Site. The information generated by the cookie about your use of this Web Site (including your IP address) might be sent to a Google server in the U.S. and stored there. Under the authority of Viscofans, Google will use this information to evaluate your use of our Web Site, compile reports on Web Site activity for Viscofans and provide other Web Site activity and internet related services for Viscofans. In addition, Google may also transfer this information to third parties if required by law or if third parties process the information on Google’s behalf. To see details on what Google Analytics collects and how it is used please refer to http://www.google.com/intl/en/analytics/privacyoverview.htm
You may refuse the use of cookies by changing the settings on your browser. Alternatively, if available for your browser, you can use the “Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on” available at http://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout?hl=en . We would point out, however, that if you refuse the use of cookies, you may not be able to use all the features of this Web Site.
How to opt-out from cookies in your browser
All modern browsers allow you to change your cookie settings. These settings will typically be found in the ‘options’ or ‘preferences’ menu of your browser. To understand these settings use the ‘Help’ option in your browser for more details.
13. Social media widgets
Our Web Site includes social media features, such as the “Twitter” button, and widgets, such as the “Share This” button or interactive mini-programs that run on our Web Site. These features and widgets may collect your IP address, which page(s) you are visiting on our Web Site, and may set a cookie to enable the feature or widget to function properly. Social media features and widgets are either hosted by a third party or hosted directly on our Web Site. Your interactions with these features and widgets are governed by the privacy policy of the company providing it.