Privacy Policy

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1) Introduction

PQShield Ltd (we, us) are committed to protecting and respecting your privacy.

This policy, together with any other documents referred to in it, sets out the basis on which any personal data we collect from you, or that you provide to us, will be processed by us.

Please read the following carefully to understand our views and practices regarding your personal data and how we will treat it.

By visiting this website (Site) or engaging with us by email or over the phone, you are accepting and consenting to the practices described in this policy.

For the purpose of the Data Protection Act 1998 (Act), the data controller is PQShield Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales (registered number 11388567), Prama House, 267 Banbury Road, OX2 7HT, UK. We are registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office under reference ZA474767.

2) Information we collect from you

We collect and process the following categories of data about you:

  • Information we collect about you. We may collect personal information directly provided by you at any time when you are in contact with PQShield and we may collect, store and use your personal information during sales discussions. Information may be collected automatically about your visit during your time on the Site.  This typically involves technical information and is often collected using small data files called “cookies”.  This information helps us to provide you with a good experience when you browse the Site and also to indicate where the Site requires improvement.  More information on how cookies work, what cookies we use and why can be found in our Cookie Policy.
  • Information you give us. Information about you may also be given to us by filling in forms on the Site, interacting with the Site or by corresponding with us by phone, email or otherwise.  It includes information you provide when you sign up to our newsletter service, make an inquiry about our products and services or log a support ticket.  The information you give us will likely include your name, address, email address and phone number, as well as preliminary information about your business.
  • Information we receive from other sources. This may be from a variety of sources and include information that we receive about you if you use any of the other websites or services that we operate, or during due diligence checks in order to meet our legal and regulatory obligations. This also includes information that we receive from third parties, such as business partners, sub-contractors in technical services, advertising networks, analytics providers and search information providers..
  • Social Media platforms. We utilise social media platforms. These platforms are, in some cases, operated outside of the EU and do not comply with current Data Privacy Act and subsequent GDPR provision although they may well conform to the Data Privacy Framework (DPF).  It is our process and protocol that any personally identifiable data gathered on these platforms is only in response to users interacting out of their own volition with our marketing pages. The contact is deemed as a legitimate business enquiry. The personal contact data is removed from the site once the enquiry is processed or the user has requested so.
  • Analytics Our website uses Google Analytics to collect information about how visitors use our website. We anonymise this data at the point of collection and automatically delete user and event data that is older than two years.

3) Uses made of the information

We will only use your personal information when the law allows us to. We will use your personal information in the following circumstances:

  • Where you have provided us with your consent;
  • Where we need to comply with legal or regulatory obligations;
  • Where it is necessary for legitimate interests pursued by us or a third party, and your interests and fundamental rights do not override those interests.

All information about you that we collect or receive, whether of a personal or technical nature, may be used by us in the following ways:

  • To carry out our obligations arising from any contracts entered into between you and us and to provide you with the information, products and services that you request from us;
  • To provide you with information about other goods and services that we, or our selected partners, offer that are similar or relevant to those that you have already purchased or enquired about, such contact will only be made by email or phone from which you can opt out at any time;
  • To notify you about changes to our services;
  • To administer the Site and for internal operations, including troubleshooting, system and security updates, data analysis, testing, research, statistical and survey purposes;
  • To improve the Site to ensure that content is presented in the most effective manner for you and for your computer;
  • To allow you to participate in interactive features of our service, when you choose to do so;
  • As part of our efforts to keep the Site safe and secure;
  • To measure or understand the effectiveness of advertising we serve to you and others, and to deliver relevant advertising to you; and
  • To comply with our record keeping and information storage obligations and policy (please see the “Where We Store Your Personal Data” section below for more details).

We may combine information we receive from other sources with information you give to us and information we collect about you. We will use this information and the combined information for the purposes set out above (depending on the types of information we receive).

4) Disclosure of your information

We may share your information with:

  • Any member of our Group, which means us and our subsidiaries, and any holding companies and its subsidiaries, as defined in section 1159 of the UK Companies Act 2006;
  • Our Group’s Business partners, suppliers and subcontractors for the performance of any contract entered into with them or you;
  • Our Group’s analytics and search engine providers that assist in the improvement and optimisation of the Site;
  • Our Group’s third party support services, such as, but not limited to project management tools, accounting systems and hosting data centres.

We will disclose your personal information to third parties:

  • In the event that we sell or buy any business or assets, in which case we will disclose your personal data to the prospective seller or buyer of such business or assets;
  • If we, or substantially all of our assets, are acquired by a third party, in which case personal data held by us about our clients will be one of the transferred assets;
  • If any member of our Group is under a duty to disclose or share your personal data in order to comply with any legal obligation, or in order to enforce or apply our terms of use and other agreements; or
  • To protect our rights, property or safety, or those of our clients or others.

5) Where we store your personal data

All information that you provide to us is stored on our, or our selected service providers’, secure servers, and we will take reasonable steps to protect your information in accordance with this policy.

6) Data Transmission

Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure.  Although we will do our best to protect your personal data, we cannot guarantee the security of any data transmitted to the Site; and any such transmission is at your own risk.  Once we have received your information, we will use strict procedures and security features to try to prevent unauthorised access.

7) When We May Transfer Your Data Overseas

Data we collect will be processed within the UK, the European Economic Area (EEA). There are adequacy regulations in respect of these countries. This means that countries to which we transfer your data are deemed to provide adequate levels of protection for your personal information.

We may transfer personal information we collect about you to other parts of the world, such as the US, where there has not been an adequate decision. This means that countries are not deemed to provide an adequate level of protection for your personal information.

We may transfer your personal data to those countries in limited circumstances that include when a third party supplier (such as IT software supplier) has operations (or provides IT Support for example) in such a country and can only deliver their service to PQShield by transferring your personal data to that country or because their IT  infrastructure is structured in such a way that day is stored in those countries.

To ensure that your personal information does receive an adequate level of protection we put in place appropriate measures to ensure that your personal information is treated by those third parties in a way that is consistent with and which respects UK and GDPR legislation.

8) Your rights

You have the following rights under law in respect of your personal information:

  • The right to be informed about the collection and use of your personal information;
  • The right of access to your information to verify the legality of our use of it;
  • The right to request that inaccurate or incomplete information about you is rectified;
  • The right to request the deletion or removal of your information where there is no further reason for us to use it (such as you have withdrawn your consent or we no longer provide your children with education);
  • The right to restrict the use of your information;
  • The right to obtain and reuse the information that we have about you for your own purposes;
  • The right to object to certain uses (such as for marketing purposes); and
  • The right not to be subject to a decision that has a legal effect on you that has been based on an automated decision.

Should you wish to exercise any of these rights, you may do so at any time by writing to us at the address given below.  In some cases, we are permitted to charge a small fee of no more than £10 in respect of our administrative costs.

If you would like to request the information we hold about you under a Subject Access Request (“SAR”) you can download the application template here.

If you feel that your rights have been breached in any way, you should contact our Legal Department at the address given above or lodge an official complaint with the Information Commissioner’s Office via their website (https://ico.org.uk) or by writing to:Information Commissioner’s Office, Wycliffe House, Water Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire,  SK9 5AF.

The Site may, from time to time, contain links to and from the websites of our partner networks, advertisers, affiliates and other third parties.  If you follow a link to any of these websites, please note that these websites have their own privacy policies and that we do not accept any responsibility or liability for these policies.  Please check these policies before you submit any personal data to these websites.

9) Changes to our privacy policy

Any changes we make to our privacy policy in the future will be posted on this page.  Please check back frequently to see any updates or changes to our privacy policy.

10) Contact details

Questions, comments and requests regarding this Privacy Notice are welcomed and should be addressed to legal@pqshield.com.