Privacy Notice
View our privacy notice
General
This Privacy Notice forms part of the QED Website’s Terms and Conditions and part of our general trading Terms and Conditions. After reading this Privacy Notice you will know:
What information we routinely collect
Our use of cookies
How we use your information
Legal basis for processing your information
Complaints or queries
Changes to this notice
How to contact us
1. What information we routinely collect
In order to conduct business with you effectively we may routinely collect and record the following information:
Company contact details, including address, telephone and fax contact details, email address and website address.
Personal contact names (where it is in your interest and ours that we contact specific individuals in the course of doing business). Individual names will be linked to company contact detail.
If you are visitor to our website please be aware that we do use Cookies. Cookies are small items of computer code that are stored to your computer’s hard drive. The cookies we use are associated with the Google Analytics tool and software. This enables us to analyse visits to our website and to collect other statistical data. If you want to prevent the use of cookies you can do so within your web-browsers settings.
2. How we use your information
This privacy notice tells you what to expect when QED Scientific collects personal information. It applies to information we collect about:
complainants and other individuals in relation to a data protection or freedom of information complaint or enquiry;
people who use our services, e.g. who submit an enquiry or request literature from us;
people who are our customers, suppliers and distributors
people who notify under the Data Protection Act;
job applicants and our current and former employees.
Email communications
We may use a third-party provider to deliver our email marketing campaigns. We may gather statistics around email open rates and clicks, using industry standard technologies including clear gifs to help us monitor and improve our communications. We will confirm GDPR Compliance with any email provider we use, prior to employing their services.
We make extensive use of email communications when contacting our current customers, and potential customers. If this involves processing personal data (i.e. sending email to specific, named individuals) processing takes place under the legal basis of legitimate interest and in some cases that of fulfilling contractual obligations, for instance receiving and processing purchase orders.
People who contact us via social media
If you contact us via social media, including Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube or Google+, we will respond to your enquiry and use the details you’ve provided to us to resolve any issue. Your information may be stored after the completion of your enquiry in line with our Retention Policy as detailed in our Data Protection Policy (which is available on request through our website enquiry page).
People who call us
We offer support to prospective and current customers, suppliers and other third parties and this is often by phone. When you make a call to us, we do not record this conversation. If we need to process your enquiry, we will gather only the relevant information to do so. This may be passed to internal departments, 3rd party contractors (e.g. service engineers) in order to resolve the enquiry.
People who email us
Any email sent to us, including any attachments, may be monitored and used by us for reasons of security and for monitoring compliance with our IT policy. Email monitoring or blocking software may also be used. Please be aware that you have a responsibility to ensure that any email you send to us is within the bounds of the law.
People who use QED Scientific’s services
We have to hold the details of the people who have requested a service in order to ensure that we can process and provide the service requested. We only use these details to provide the service the person has requested and for related purposes. For example, we might use information about people who have purchased a product to carry out a survey to find out if they are happy with the level of service they received. When people do subscribe to ongoing services, they can cancel their subscription at any time by emailing their request to info@qedscientific.com. This request will be processed and completed within 30 days of receipt. We will also delete any personal data held by QED on request as required by the GDPR, requests should be sent to info@qedscientific.com .
We work with third party service providers, such as service contractors, delivery operators and other manufacturers. To deal with some customer enquiries, we have to share information with these third parties but they are only provided with the information required to effectively complete the enquiry.
Job applicants, current and former QED Scientific employees
When individuals apply to work at QED Scientific, we will only use the information they supply to us to process their application and to monitor recruitment statistics. Where we want to disclose information to a third party, for example where we want to take up a reference or obtain a ‘disclosure’ from the Criminal Records Bureau we will not do so without informing them beforehand unless the disclosure is required by law.
Personal information about unsuccessful candidates will be held in line with our Retention Policy after the recruitment exercise has been completed, it will then be destroyed.
Once a person has taken up employment with QED Scientific, we will compile a file relating to their employment. The information contained in this will be kept secure and will only be used for purposes directly relevant to that person’s employment. Once their employment with us has ended, we will retain the file in accordance with the requirements of our retention schedule and then delete it.
Personal information will also be used to ensure that QED Scientific and its employees comply with employment contracts (for example we will use personal banking details in order to process payroll). We are also obliged by law to process personal data for tax and National Insurance purposes. Information will be retained in line with statutory requirements.
Compatible purposes
In general, we will use the personal information we collect from you only for the purposes described in this Privacy Notice above or for purposes that we explain to you at the time we collect your personal information. However, we may also use your personal information for other purposes that are not incompatible with the purposes we have disclosed to you (such as archiving purposes in the public interest, scientific or historical research purposes, or statistical purposes) if and where this is permitted by applicable data protection laws.
3. Legal basis for processing your information
If you are a visitor from the European Economic Area, our legal basis for collecting and using the personal information described above will depend on the personal information concerned and the specific context in which we collect it.
However, we will normally collect personal information from you only where we need the personal information to perform a contract with you, or where the processing is in our legitimate interests and not overridden by your data protection interests or fundamental rights and freedoms. In some cases, we may also have a legal obligation to collect personal information from you or may otherwise need the personal information to protect your vital interests or those of another person.
If we ask you to provide personal information to comply with a legal requirement or to perform a contact with you, we will make this clear at the relevant time and advise you whether the provision of your personal information is mandatory or not (as well as of the possible consequences if you do not provide your personal information).
Similarly, if we collect and use your personal information in reliance on our legitimate interests (or those of any third party), we will make clear to you at the relevant time what those legitimate interests are.
If you have questions about or need further information concerning the legal basis on which we collect and use your personal information, please contact us using the contact details provided under the “How to contact us” heading below.
4. Complaints or queries
QED Scientific tries to meet the highest standards when collecting and using personal information. For this reason, we take any complaints we receive very seriously. We encourage people to bring it to our attention if they think that our collection or use of information is unfair, misleading or inappropriate. We would also welcome any suggestions for improving our procedures and services.
This privacy notice does not provide exhaustive detail of all aspects of our collection and use of personal information. However, we are happy to provide any additional information or explanation needed. Any requests for this should be sent to the address below.
Access to personal information
You have the following data protection rights:
If you wish to access, correct, update or request deletion of your personal information, you can do so at any time by contacting us using the contact details provided under the “How to contact us” heading below.
In addition, you can object to processing of your personal information, ask us to restrict processing of your personal information or request portability of your personal information. Again, you can exercise these rights by contacting us using the contact details provided under the “How to contact us” heading below.
You have the right to opt-out of marketing communications we send you at any time. You can exercise this right by clicking on the “unsubscribe” or “opt-out” link in the marketing e-mails we send you. To opt-out of other forms of marketing (such as postal items or telemarketing), then please contact us using the contact details provided under the “How to contact us” below.
Similarly, if we have collected and process your personal information with your consent, then you can withdraw your consent at any time. Withdrawing your consent will not affect the lawfulness of any processing we conducted prior to your withdrawal, nor will it affect processing of your personal information conducted in reliance on lawful processing grounds other than consent.
You have the right to complain to a data protection authority about our collection and use of your personal information. For more information, please contact your local data protection authority.
We will respond to all requests we receive from individuals wishing to exercise their data protection rights in accordance with applicable data protection laws.
Disclosure of personal information
We may share your personal information with the following categories of recipients:
Our group companies, third party services providers and partners who provide data processing services to us (for example, to support the delivery of, provide functionality on, or help to enhance the security of our Website), or who otherwise process personal information for purposes that are described in this Privacy Notice or notified to you when we collect your personal information.
Competent law enforcement body, regulatory, government agency, court or other third party where we believe disclosure is necessary (i) as a matter of applicable law or regulation, (ii) to exercise, establish or defend our legal rights, or (iii) to protect your vital interests or those of any other person;
A potential buyer (and its agents and advisers) in connection with any proposed purchase, merger or acquisition of any part of our business, provided that we inform the buyer they must use your personal information only for the purposes disclosed in this Privacy Notice;
Any other person with your consent to the disclosure.
International Transfers
Your personal information may be transferred to, and processed in, countries based outside of the European Economic Area ("EEA") for example if we share your information with group companies and/or service providers based or operating outside of the EEA. These countries may have data protection laws that are different to the laws of your country.
However, we have taken appropriate safeguards to require that your personal information will remain protected in accordance with this Privacy Notice.
5. Changes to this privacy notice
We keep our privacy notice under regular review. This privacy notice was last updated on 23/04/2018.
6. How to contact us
If you want to request information about our privacy policy you can email or write to:
QED Scientific Ltd
Unit 21 Botany Business Park Whaley Bridge
High Peak
Derbyshire
SK23 7DQ
Email: info@qedscientific.com
Tel: 01663 735494